Joe Morgan

[G-Man]

All I needed to read about joe morgan to know he isn't exactly the brightest guy was the moneyball "follow-up" published in SI....

even after morgan was repeatedly reminded that billy beane did NOT write the book, he continued to rant about all of the things beane wrote; thus you can infer that he never even read it or he really is a complete moron for not realizing beane was not the author.

[Surfs up]

Morgan may know the game but he needs to I mean spend some time you know with somebody I mean you know that can help stop him I mean you know from saying I mean you know. Jon Miller has one of the grast voices in baseball. Vin Scully to.But I truely mis Ernie Harwell. He was one of the best
Joe Morgan the baseball player
Joe Morgan the color man
Joe Morgan the talker :-

[Surfs up]

I will also be taking some of my own advice and will be getting spelling leasons. Or at least proff read first.

[matmat]

Morgan may know the game but he needs to I mean spend some time you know with somebody I mean you know that can help stop him I mean you know from saying I mean you know.

and I mean when he you know starts you know talking about what I mean when I say a slidepiece, you know.

[hybrid]

Joe Morgan the color man

Huh?

[sammyfan711]

Joe Morgan is old baseball, he was villianized in Moneyball and took offense. His discrediting of "stats people" shows that he can't look at the game of baseball objectively and will remain set in his ways even as the sabermetrically based teams grow in number and quality.

[Amazinz]

Joe Morgan the color man

Huh?

Color commentator.

[mcmahojl]

That slidepiece quote was funny. I would say that I lean more towards stats than the moneyball view, but I think anyone who solely takes one side is seriously going into this argument with blinders on. Clearly when Vince Coleman is on first, Julio Franco would have his attention divided...to say that he is completely focused on the hitter would be nonsense. Divided attention would then lead to say that he is not putting 100% into his next pitch. This then leads to more hittable pitches. But, stats are great because when taken from a fair size pool, shows a great estimation of the player as a whole (players on base, 2 out hits, full count hits, etc.) Look at the three year averages for some stud players...they are very close year after year. But the problem here is you dont know exactly how he got the hits that gave him the average...maybe everytime he was up throughout the season, Vince Coleman was on first...this could lead to a much higher average, making him look like a better player than he really is.

[hybrid]

Joe Morgan the color man

Huh?

Color commentator.

Ah alright. Though how can you like him that much as a color commentator, and not as a talker? Hard to do the one w/ out the other.

[Amazinz]

I dare to disagree. He is basically saying, "Stolen bases changes pitchers, resulting in more errors, hittable pitches, etc." Whether it is tangible is something we can decide after looking at the data.

I understand what he is saying but there is no evidence to suggest that this is true. You can prove that a pitcher becomes more hittable with a man on base. Neyer did a little study about this awile back, taking into account the difference when the man on base was a base-stealing threat. There was no difference. Does that prove that these intangibles don't exist? No but I think it's enough evidence for me to believe that they don't.

You might say who cares about small effects, but wait til the post-season and it's a tie game in the late innings. In fact, you would think that any nervousness effects would be heightened in a high stakes situation.

This is a similar argument to the one made by people who believe in clutch hitters. I can't disprove your opinion but in my opinion MLB players are the creme of the crop. I do not believe a base-stealing threat in the late innings of a playoff game would have any more effect than in any other game.

I think the mistake a lot of people make, including Joe Morgan, is that intuition is necessarily distinct from data. Asking creative questions is half the chore in any scientific endeavor.

What is intuition but perceptive insight? I don't think intuition is useless but in terms of baseball I will always favor the statistical evidence. Intuition led James and others to create some truly groundbreaking studies that denied many of the common perceptions at the time. Morgan has perceptions that are off the wall. If someone shows me some evidence to back what he's saying I'll buy into it. Until then I'll continue to think he's crazy.