The Problem with Stats

When you go to a ballgame and the players are introduced, it's hard to tell one from the other. They are all in good shape and they all wear the same uniform. They are all young men. It's so hard to tell one from the other that they have numbers on their backs. Aside from iconic numbers like 7 for Mickey Mantle and 3 for Babe Ruth those numbers on the back don't mean much more than the uniform itself which means that you made the team.

The numbers that count are the metrics, the stats. For decades baseball metrics were based on haphazard occurences like wins or runs batted in or earned run average  or batting average. The players with the best metrics were the players who were going to play and retain the privilege of wearing the uniforms. They were going to make the most money. They are the all-stars.

Over the last decade, baseball has discovered that the wrong metrics were being used to judge the individual players as the above mentioned categories depended heavily on luck and the performance of other players. For example, you can't drive in a run if there's nobody on base. A Pitcher can't win a game unless his teammates score some runs. Once the ball is hit by the batter, the pitcher has no control over where the ball is gonna go.....some vicious line drives are snared by the defense.....some long fly balls are outs, some are home runs depending upon the dimensions of the ballpark.

Perhaps you get the picture. I won't go on with the mountains of statistics that baseball fans love to analyze and debate. 

Sometimes a player goes into a slump. Usually a slump means that the fly balls aren't dropping in, the long flies are staying in the ballpark, the groundballs are being fielded or gobbled up by shifts based on the tendencies of previous at bats. Very often, a slumping player is surprised and baffled by his lack of productivity. He's seeing the ball well and hitting the ball hard. He's making contact and physically feels fine. Nothing is dropping in and pretty soon he starts to worry and that worry gets in the way of his confidence; a confidence that has earned him the uniform. Not everybody notices the slump at first not even the player himself who is doing the same old thing in the same old way. Slowly, the metrics start to emerge and they paint a picture that is recognized by the fans and the front office. Fans start to get nasty or stop caring. The front office starts talking trade or demotion. The slump continues sometimes ending careers.

Most of the time, the slump is snapped and the player returns to his normal performance which has been forecasted by this past stats. Very often, after a slump, a player gets into a hot streak but that hot streak is not a given. Many a slump has been broken by a squibber or a bloop that happens to fall between the fielders the at bat following a fly ball that traveled 400 feet but was snared on the warning track.

According to my writing stats, I'm in a deep slump. I haven't earned a cherry in the last fifteen pieces. My readership is down. Very few comments. To the casual eye, I've disappeared from the radar screen. This is a big surprise to me so I keep writing like a ballplayer who keeps trudging up to the plate even though the aroma of yet another nothing burger is in the air. Keep writing. Keep swinging. Remember what got you here in the first place. You didn't get here waiting for the bus.

Is it a slump?

Is it at the point where you're just too old and better days, glory days are past?

Is it just a blip on the radar screen?

Am I using the wrong metrics?

Does it matter?

Why are you playing the game in the first place?

No, no, yes, yes, yes

Because you love it

You need it

it's what you do

Keep on pushin'

Ice Rivers

I got your back, buddy.