Stats are for losers

During last night’s Angels – Mariners telecast on ESPN, Rick Sutcliffe opined about Angels’ Manager Mike Scioscia’s disdain for statistics, particularly what Sutcliffe referred to as “the new statistics of the 21st century.” You know – things like on base percentage – the real cutting edge stuff. Forget that Branch Rickey subscribed to this new age philosophy more than 50 years ago, albeit without the aid of computers.

Sutcliffe went on to say that Scioscia feels that on base percentage is not important. What is important to Scioscia is how often the players at the top of the Angels lineup (David Eckstein and Darin Erstad) reach second base and are thus in scoring position for Guerrero, Glaus, Anderson, et al to drive in.

You say tomato, I say tomato. Sounds like the same thing to me. Unless the Angels have found a way to put someone in scoring position without being on base, on base percentage still seems like a valid and important stat to me.