Hey, ESPN, stop dumbing things down for baseball fans – Sporting News

You can do better, ESPN. 

The network’s Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts are generally solid. The team of Dan Shulman (play-by-play) with Aaron Boone and Jessica Mendoza (analysts) and Buster Olney (roving reporter) does an excellent job providing insights into the game, and the game behind the game.

That’s why this criticism of a moment during Sunday’s broadcast — Cubs at Astros — might seem a bit nitpicky, but it’s such an easy fix. One of the players in that contest, Houston’s Jose Altuve, is part of a rather fascinating AL MVP race, with several incredibly talented candidates putting up seasons worthy of first-place votes. The crew addressed this race, which is great. 

The graphic that went along with the conversation, though, was … lacking.

Stop dumbing it down, @ESPN! pic.twitter.com/28G4QL6Srg

— Justin McGuire (@JMcGuireSN) September 12, 2016

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Home runs, batting average, stolen bases and RBIs. That’s it, straight off the back of a 1970s baseball card. 

Those five stars — Altuve, Mookie Betts, Josh Donaldson, Manny Machado and Mike Trout — are the right five guys to highlight. You can make convincing arguments for all five.

But those are absolutely not the numbers to prove they belong in the conversation. They’re auxiliary numbers, at best. Graphics are supposed to enhance the discussion, and this falls far short. It’s pretty much worthless, which is disappointing. 

The graphic uses home runs for Betts, Donaldson, Machado and Trout. Donaldson and Machado are tied for eighth in the AL in home runs, Betts is tied for 16th and Trout is tied for 21st. Altuve is not part of the AL MVP race because he’s tied for second in the league in stolen bases (behind leader Rajai Davis, fwiw). 

The graphic only provides two statistics … these are the numbers ESPN chose? It’s not an isolated example, either. This is from the Aug. 28 broadcast.

Why not add something actually valuable to the visual element of the discussion? What about OPS, a pretty basic advanced metric that adds a player’s on-base and slugging percentages? Those five guys are all in the top nine in the AL in OPS — Trout (1.006, second), Donaldson (.952, third), Altuve (.949, fourth), Machado (.920, sixth) and Betts (.902, ninth).  

Or use WAR. By FanGraphs’ equation, those five guys hold down the top five spots in the AL — Trout (8.4), Betts (7.0), Donaldson (6.6), Altuve (6.5) and Machado (6.3). Same thing, with a slightly different order, for Baseball-Reference WAR — Trout (9.4), Betts (8.2), Altuve (7.2), Donaldson (6.7), Machado (6.6). 

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It’s 2016, and the average baseball fan is probably aware of OPS and WAR as statistics. If not, Sunday Night Baseball broadcast is a great time to introduce advanced metrics. I’m not saying they need to go completely sabermetric and include only stats like wRC+ or WPA or RE24. But we are to the point, as a baseball-watching community, that we can step up the level a bit, right? 

There’s a lot of open space in that graphic. Why not add OPS and/or WAR to provide a more complete visual representation of the greatness of those five stars? 

It’s such an easy fix. Here’s hoping ESPN makes the tweak and improves that element of an otherwise solid weekly broadcast.