Wow, this was posted on Seth Mnookin's blog in response to the article
I posted over the weekend. Awesome...

Lynne

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Only the most dyed-in-the-wool fanboys would ever claim that Manny
Ramirez is a good outfielder; those folks that claim that he outwits
opponents by goading them into running on his (at best) average arm
are as bad as folks that argue that Bush actually has a plan for
getting out of Iraq. But his outfield play is not responsible for the
Red Sox's woes over the past six years, as some would argue.

Like, for instance, today's "Keeping Score" column in the Times,
which, in its own way, is just as dumb as Murray Chass's "I refuse to
learn anything about statistics because I'm a lazy toad, er, it would
ruin my enjoyment of the game" gem. In today's piece, Dan Rosenheck
tries to smokescreen the reader with lots of impressive sounding,
supposed truisms to argue that Manny's defense is so bad it basically
brings him down to the level of a mid-level All-Star. His central
argument is this: "Accurate numerical evaluations of defense only
became possible in 1987, when Stats Inc. began sending observers to
every game to record the location and speed of every batted ball. This
play-by-play (P.B.P.) information made it possible to measure fielding
ability much more precisely, by comparing the rates that players at
the same position fielded various types of balls…"

I've spent a fair amount of time speaking with those Stats Inc.
"observers." They are, for the most part, college kids who are given
little training and are paid poorly to sit in the stands and carve up
the field into zones belonging to each defensive position. The problem
is, those zones are about as reliable as Mel Gibson once he's gotten a
few drinks in him. (Right, Leary?) To give Stats Inc's P-B-P info this
much weight is as dumb as, say, giving Derek Jeter the Gold Glove
because you think he looks good in the field. Smart observers — and
smart teams — make every effort to create their own defensive metrics,
and those same observers have made cogent arguments as to why their
work should not, on the whole, be considering overly reliable.

Rosenheck solidifies his Chassness with the following, completely
asinine suggestion:

"The other solution would be to move Ramírez to designated hitter.
That would require switching the incumbent D.H., David Ortiz, to first
base. Ortiz is even less mobile than Ramírez, and given his
corpulence, the demands of playing the field may substantially
increase his risk of injury."

To which I can only say: Wow. Ortiz has said clearly he's more
comfortable as a full-time DH; there's also plenty of evidence
(anecdotal and actual) that at least part of Ortiz's prodigious
offense results from the time he spends in the clubhouse between
at-bats, when he studies previous at-bats against the opposing pitcher
and reviews what might lead to success. What's more — what's more
important, in fact — is the evidence that Ortiz's well-chronicled
injury history resulted from the pounding he took in the field. And
bad knees plus first base is a bad combo. Right, Buckner?
Finally, "corpulence"? That's a fancy way of saying someone's fat.
"Given his size," maybe. "Given his history of knee injuries and
attendant immobility," maybe. But fat? David Wells is fat. I've seen
David Ortiz with his shirt off. He's a big man. But he's not fat. And
I bet Rosenheck is glad he's not ever going to risk saying that to
Papi's face.

"Keeping Score" is often one of the Times's most interesting sports
columns, especially when David Leonhardt is weighing in. Today's is
embarrassing. At the end of the day, Manny's play in the field
undoubtedly hurts the Sox. It'd be interesting to find out just what
the cumulative effect of this is. We're not going to learn that from
the Times.

http://www.sethmnookin.com/blog/2007/03/18/manny-keeping-score/