Need more useless baseball metrics — stat – Chicago Tribune

Modern baseball statistics are much like restless leg syndrome, like gluten or sleep numbers. You know, crap someone made up for no good reason.

In fact, I think CRAP is one of the new baseball stats. It stands for Creepy Ratios And Percentages. Or maybe not. One of my favorites is LIPS (Late Inning Pressure Situations) though it was much more fun when it belonged to Morganna, the Kissing Bandit.

It isn’t as if baseball did not already have enough statistics. Good old RBIs and ERAs. They’ve gotten us through peace, war, the wave, artificial turf and the San Diego Chicken, so it isn’t as if we were understat-ted. Not stat-isfied?

But it is not enough for a run to be earned any more, it must be dissected and scrutinized, analyzed, charted, graphed and plotted until all that’s left are shards of arithmetic and an eyeshade.

Anyone who understands, endorses or can determine the baseball statistic Wins Above Replacement (WAR) may now be excused from this discussion.

And take VORP with you. I believe that was a cold war alliance before it became Value Over Replacement Player.