Mariners hire Tom Tango and Tony Blengino

[boomboom]

Interesting hire, seems they will go head to head against Bill James

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm..._kelley16.html

[200tang]

pfft tom tango? Get that bum out of my front office

That could also be read as "w00t!"

[200tang]

Lol, at the moment there are only 3 comments and I love this one

Uh Oh dont let the top geeks at USSM see this they think everything revolves around the most wild stats there are and do not care about heart or talent. They actually told me Avg HRs and RBIs are meaningless stats if you can beleive that. How can someone who claims to know so much not know avg shows talent in putting a bat on the ball? Anyways, this is a good thing when combined with talent evaluations for sure!

[Pavelb1]

Lol, at the moment there are only 3 comments and I love this one

USSM is some Mariners sabermetrics blog/site I'm guessing?

I doubt they told the guy RBI's/avg/HR's are *completly* meaningless, cause they ain't.

[200tang]

yeah it is and you're probably right. He probably overrated them and they most likely told him that there are much better ones

[boomboom]

USSM is some Mariners sabermetrics blog/site I'm guessing?

http://ussmariner.com/

[HoustonGM]

yeah it is and you're probably right. He probably overrated them and they most likely told him that there are much better ones

He was probably using AVG-HR-RBI to fully evaluate a player, and they told him that he was dumb for doing so, because that's true. Those three stats alone are meaningless.

[Pavelb1]

He was probably using AVG-HR-RBI to fully evaluate a player, and they told him that he was dumb for doing so, because that's true. Those three stats alone are meaningless.

Meaningless in completly evaluating a player but not in an argument over whether a player is worthless....if the stat in question is high enough.

Example:

Fan a: That guy sucks.

Fan b: He hit .360 last year!

Admittedly it's almost impossible to find a player who hits for .330 or 40 HR's* or 130 RBI's...without their complementery stats being high also.

*Aside from Adam Dunn who is quite unlike any other player. The closest being Pat Burrell (891)

**I'd love to see a study of players who hit over .300 but had an OBP under .330 or the players with the worst 40HR campaigns. I'm pretty sure I've seen a Bill James study of players who had the worst 100RBI seasons.

[KowboyKoop]

Mike Jacobs hit 32 HRs last year with a sub .300 OBP..that's a fairly sizable contrast...though an unlucky BABIP played some role in that.

[Pavelb1]

Mike Jacobs hit 32 HRs last year with a sub .300 OBP..that's a fairly sizable contrast...though an unlucky BABIP played some role in that.

Sosa's last year in Texas is eyecatching. 92 RBI's in 114 games. A little check on the stats and....yup, .716 OPS with no men on and .980 with men in scoring position.

"Hey Sammy, how about applying that level of concentration ALL THE TIME?"

[actionjackson]

Excellent hire. Tom Tango is one of the best baseball minds around, a little too mathy for some but I find he uses math effectively, cuts to the chase and writes really well. Will this translate well to working in a major league front office? We'll see. The point is you need a nice blend of scouting and sabermetrics to be successful these days. It's not enough to go all one way or all the other, you need both and it's not like they named him GM: he's a consultant. If I were a Mariners fan I'd be thrilled. Unfortunately, I'm a Jays fan and our sabermetrics guy Keith Law was given the heave-ho by J.P. Ricciardi not that long after he got the job.