Getting to know you: Sam Fuld

The most excellent Baseball Prospectus ran this interview with Sam Fuld, the defensive whiz for the Chicago Cubs. Strictly a “trade” Q&A, no personal stuff or anything.

Fuld strikes me as a very mature young man, given his profession (he turns 28 on Nov. 20). He is a graduate of Stanford with a degree in economics, so he’s quite comfortable discussing numbers.

A couple of interesting points in the interview, which was conducted by David Laurila:

DL: Using data to improve performance is one thing. Using it to assess performance is another. Do you see value in looking at your numbers for the purpose of better understanding your own game?

SF: Yes, I think so, but ultimately it comes down to what the people who are employing you think. If they’re not aware of it, it may not be too beneficial for you to worry about it. If they’re more worried about the basic statistics like batting average, slugging percentage, RBIs, and runs, maybe that’s all you need to worry about as a hitter. Ultimately, they’re the ones who make the decisions, so you have to worry about what they care about, essentially.

You hear about this a lot when it comes time to negotiate salary. If the guy is a line drive hitter, the club says, “yeah, but you didn’t hit for power.” If he’s a power hitter, they say, “yeah but you struck out too much and didn’t get on base often enough,” etc. (Players’ agents spend lots of time working on statistical reports to prove the value of their clients. In 2008, Roger Clemens’ team infamously published a 49-page document meant to somehow prove to Congress that their client came by his talent naturally and not through pharmaceuticals. That, in turn, led to this rejoinder from the Freakonomics blog in The New York Times.)

The other minor quibble  goes to the expression, “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

BP states that Fuld led the Cubs in On-Base Percentage. While this is technically true — Fuld’s mark of .406 topped his teammates — he had only 115 plate appearances. Compare this with Derek Lee’s .393 in 615 PAs and I think you get my point.

Still, kudos to BP for the piece. It’s always nice to find some intelligent discussion out there, rather than the “my team is great, yours sucks” genre.

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