Poor Taste
One Bill James should never have published
Poor Taste
Fortunately, the following James quip was never actually published in Esquire:
Unfortunately, it was collected in a Bill James writing compilation anyway.
Former Toronto Blue Jay Rick Cerone became the starting Yankee catcher in 1980, the season right after the untimely death of Thurman Munson. And, as is so often the case with the fielding aspect of WAR, it’s actually not clear that Cerone was either worse or better than Munson.
Here is Cerone’s career rField totals per season:
And, in contrast, here are the same totals for Munson:
This demonstrates one of the major concerns I’ve always had with how WAR handles fielding. There’s simply no consistency.
Munson looked great as a fielder in 1973 and 1975, but not so great in 1974. But why? His range factor for those three years is about the same, and he committed about the same number of errors. The only difference that I see is that his caught stealing percentage was slightly down in 1974 — but is that what drives the inconsistency of the stat?
Cerone’s fielding stats look similar. Rick led the league in 1980 by catching 57 would-be basestealers, which makes James’ insensitive comment look pretty dumb in retrospect. He only caught 21 in 1982, and he gave up about the same number of stolen bases both seasons. Was his decrease in rField a product of catching fewer would-be base stealers? Doesn’t anybody wonder whether baserunners decided to steal less frequently against Cerone because of his reputation as a good thrower?
Fielding statistics are a murky subject, and I honestly don’t think we’ve made much progress over the decades. It’s not like hitting where you can confidently attribute most progress to something the player has done. It winds up being a headache to work through.