My recollection is that the statistical analysis people wanted to give a shout-out to SABR., and may have felt that incorporating its name into their activity would give it more credibility. As James said in (I think) the first professionally published BA, there just wasn't an inclusive name for sports statistical analysis, especially since "sports statistics" connotes "Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in 1961" and the like.
I think James wanted it to be the way SABR as a whole viewed the game, but most of the folks associated that I've met are nostalgists.
I think that's probably a good thing. A combination of historical perspective and preservation of the feel of the various baseball eras combined with modern statistical analysis is important.
Baseball has always been more about stories than stats, and even though we use stats to compare players and teams and even decades, if that's all we looked at, it would be a very dry game indeed.
All you need to do is watch a modern national broadcast to know what an over-reliance on statical analysis would mean for the game.
My recollection is that the statistical analysis people wanted to give a shout-out to SABR., and may have felt that incorporating its name into their activity would give it more credibility. As James said in (I think) the first professionally published BA, there just wasn't an inclusive name for sports statistical analysis, especially since "sports statistics" connotes "Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in 1961" and the like.
I think James wanted it to be the way SABR as a whole viewed the game, but most of the folks associated that I've met are nostalgists.
I think that's probably a good thing. A combination of historical perspective and preservation of the feel of the various baseball eras combined with modern statistical analysis is important.
Baseball has always been more about stories than stats, and even though we use stats to compare players and teams and even decades, if that's all we looked at, it would be a very dry game indeed.
All you need to do is watch a modern national broadcast to know what an over-reliance on statical analysis would mean for the game.