The Pinstriped Morningside Heights

今天的 Baseball Prospectus "The Week in Quotes":

"I think walks are overrated unless you can run... If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps. But the guy who walks and can't run, most of the time they're clogging up the bases for somebody who can run."
--Dusty Baker, Cubs manager (Chicago Daily Herald)

"Who's been the champions the last seven, eight years? ...Have you ever heard the Yankees talk about on-base percentage and walks? Walks help. But you ain't going to walk across the plate. You're going to hit across the plate. That's the school I come from."
--Baker

BP 挖出了他們以前的 The Week in Quotes:

"The intent was to have a collection of guys with a high on-base percentage and a high slugging percentage, and that would lead to a lot of runs scored."
--Brian Cashman, Yankees GM, on off-season acquisitions

Brian Cashman 雖然並不以 sabermetrics 的應用聞名，但是他的確知道而且運用許多現代 sabermetrics 的結論，OBP 的重要性剛好是其中一項。Dusty Baker 是很出色的 manager，不過在這一點上他的確錯了。去年 BP 曾有一篇文章談 Cubs 為什麼這麼多年來坐擁那麼豐富的資源卻又成績那麼差，一個很關鍵的地方在於以 Wrigley Field 為主場必須要有高 OBP。最近幾年 Wrigley Field 算是比較中性，可是翻開歷史資料，在二戰之後有很多時間這是一個打者天堂。如果有球員能夠被保送上壘，就會有接下來的打者能把他們打回來。

還好 Baker 沒有說 Moneyball 是 Billy Beane 寫的，他還沒有遜到跟 Joe Morgan 一樣。XD