Today is a sad day, as i've finally accepted the fact that I have surpassed my mentor, Rob Neyer. Neyer was a good guy, perhaps a bit egotistical, maybe a tad condecending. And let's not forget that embarassing lisp. But, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have been exposed to the world of sabermetrics. He is the necessary middle man between the mainstream and the progressive thinker. Unfortunately, i no longer require his services; his articles are useless and quite frankly, "below me".

In his latest article

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=neyer_rob&id=1742271

Neyer tries to downplay the difference in ability between Soriano and Arod. He does it the same way that other marks have in the past week, by comparing their road stats. You see, everyone knows that arod plays in a hitters park (actually, probably the best hitters park in the AL) while Soriano played in a pitchers park. So, any slack jawed local would say "dang jethro, we can't look at their home stats then. we should just look at the road stats."

The problem is that while one "variable" is being eliminated, others are not. Within their road stats, one has to also realize that a) Arod played road games at pitcher friendly yankee stadium and Soriano did not. B) Soriano played road games at hitter friendly arlington, Arod did not.

Neyer thinks he's being so witty and "true" to the saber world by suggesting we look at road stats. However, he's being even more of a mark b/c he's using statistical analysis incorrectly. The above two factors aren't the only reason why you can't look at just road stats. Arod also had to face a dominate rotation at yankee stadium while soriano got to feast on infererior texas pitching. also, soriano played an unbalanced number of road games in hitter-friendly fenway and toronto (granted, tb is neutral and baltimore is slight pitcher-friendly). Meanwhile, Arod had to deal with an unbalanced number of games in pitcher-friendly Oakland (and let's remember what pitchers are benefiting in oakland, the big three). Seattle is also a huge pitcher-friendly park, one of the worst in the league. (I don't know about the Angel's stadium). One can also argue that soriano had better protection in the lineup, but that argument is hard to prove or disprove.

So, what we have here is neyer breaking down a stat to prove something. However, he is selectively choosing his stats to prove a conclusion that he already wants to believe. He's smart enough to realize that arod and soriano had different hitting environments, but didn't fully think it out. He also throws in a little thing about "the numbers would be even less distinguishable if you throw out soriano's medicore 2001. huh, why? Why not throw out arod's first half of 2003 when he was battling nagging injuries that hampered his power. Why not point to the fact that arod is younger and in his prime while soriano, at 28, is about to begin his decline. Why not point to the fact that a high strike out / low walk rate are a good indicator to future decline while arod's plate disipline indicates that his offensive performance will remain more stable.

Neyer doesn't just stop at screwing up the soriano vs arod argument. He also adds a comment about the yankee's payroll:

I attended a local SABR meeting this weekend, and Mike Rice noted that the Yankees' payroll, as a percentage of all MLB payroll, was essentially the same in 2003 as it was in 1977, and generally has remained stable since then.

Let me get this straight. The yankees were x% of the total payroll for all of baseball (say 10%). Then, after expansion has added several teams, the yankees are still at 10%. Does Neyer really not realize that 10% now is "more" than 10% with less teams. What if a million teams were added to MLB. Wouldn't spending 10% of the entire league's payroll mean you have a HUGE advantage over the other million teams?

Poor poor neyer...he's in way over his head.

Update: I just read the comments on baseball primer regarding the article and they all say the same thing i'm saying (but better). While i'm disapointed that i didn't have an original thought, i love the idea that there are people out there smarter than me and who "get it".