Can sabermetrics reverse the curse?

[dougo]

Bill James, inventor of sabermetrics (but apparently not the founder of SABR?), now works for the Red Sox. While I think his methods are no better at predicting baseball than economists are at predicting the stock market---they're both pretty much voodoo---I applaud an analytical approach to the subject. I have a feeling that any success it might bring will be more from the placebo effect, though.

It strikes me that if his efforts do have an appreciable effect, though, then the underpaid players will start to be paid more, and we'll be back to the teams with the highest budgets winning. I don't see how anything but a salary cap can make baseball a fair game. (But maybe it shouldn't be fair?)

Comments

SABR Origin

[(Anonymous)]

SABR was founded in 1971 by a group of sixteen researchers; James wasn't among them. He did popularize the term 'sabermertics' in his
late '70s/early '80s _Baseball Abstract_s.

Jeff Wright, jaw@apk.net
(past president, Cleveland Chapter SABR)