Not a SABR Member

As a counter point to my previous post, the author of this article is certainly not a fan of sabermetrics. I thought it sounded just a wee-bit bitter. I especially liked "Clearly, the easiest positive statistic for mediocre hitters, one that requires keeping the bat glued to your shoulder, instead of the traditional hand-eye induced ball-whacking (which is far more exciting), is the ability to draw walks."

I think this reflects the underlying and non-thinking of so many traditionalists that walks are something the pitcher does and not something the batter has any responsibility for. I would argue that the reverse is really the case and that if you looked at the standard deviation of walks/per plate appearance for pitchers and hitters, the pitcher's spread would be smaller. Hmmm, I'll have to get to that someday....