[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by BobC

Good point, he never led the majors, or even the AL, in anything in regards to batting or fielding stats during his career. But for someone to play such a physically (and somewhat mentally) demanding position for as long as Yogi did, and to be selected an All-Star for 15 straight seasons, as well as receiving MVP votes in 15 straight seasons (including getting voted #1 three times, #2 twice, and #3 and #4 once each), catching for the most WS winning teams in history (as previously pointed out), along with the cherry on top possibly being the catcher of the only perfect game ever thrown in a WS, and I'd say he had a pretty damn great career, and screw the advanced statistics. He appears to be another case where these modern advanced stats once again fail miserably to do a proper job of measuring a player's overall ability and contribution to their team's success and ability to win. My so-called intangible "It" factor, for which pure statistics can prove worthless in measuring in many cases.

If these advanced statistics are so good at determining who the very best baseball players are, how come the supposed Godfather of the use of such stats in baseball, Billy Beane (that title should actually/probably go his predecessor Sandy Alderson IMO), has never brought a single team he's been the GM of to a WS, let alone even be an AL championship team. I know the naysayers will jump on and say stuff about how he's never really had the money behind him, and/or how other teams quickly followed suit to look at advanced metrics to evaluate and choose their own players as well. So are those reasons/excuses for him never finally winning anything, or are these advanced stats truly reliable indicators of who the winners and champions will be?

The Red Sox hired Bill James in 2003. What happened in 2004, I can't recall?