Monday, January 07, 2008

Grittiness, quantified

With a hat tip to BoofBonser26, here's a study that "tangibilizes the intangible" and quantifies all-time player grittiness. Notables in the top-10 include Craig Biggio, Jason Kendall, Brett Butler, Chuck Knoblach, and Omar Vizquel. Flat-out brilliant work.

4 comments:

  1. That article is very tongue in cheek.

    So to me, at least, the fact that he carries it out to the extent that he does--not to mention comes up with a list that actually does resemble something like our perceptions of grittiness--is laugh out loud funny. :)
    -j

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  2. If 'dirt on uniform' is any measure, Ryan Freel should have been mentioned. He had his own "Ryan Freel Dirty Uniform" promotion night.

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  3. @Aaron: Are you seriously upset at this list? I'm fairly certain the whole set up is, as Justin said, tongue-in-cheek. Try giving Fire Joe Morgan a read for a while and I think you'll understand the joke a little better.

    @Justin: I think his list matches our perceptions because his formula was built to emphasize players like Biggio and Eckstein, etc. Though it is quite funny that you can pick out those specific stats that people overemphasize for a certain set of players (HBP, SF, SH) and show how those players truly do personify those attributes. It is a rather ingenious effort.

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  4. @Justin: I think his list matches our perceptions because his formula was built to emphasize players like Biggio and Eckstein, etc. Though it is quite funny that you can pick out those specific stats that people overemphasize for a certain set of players (HBP, SF, SH) and show how those players truly do personify those attributes. It is a rather ingenious effort.

    Oh, definitely. It's a brilliant junk stat. Great example of how you can develop a statistic that can show virtually anything you want it to show. :)
    -j

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