Ok, so i have been thinking about a post like this for a number of years. This is not going to be a glowing endorsement of these types of people (even if i have some specific in mind). In fact, some people may view this as a little bit mean, but not vindictive.
Baseball is known for being America's past time. However the fascination with the sport has led to a dark and evil space... i am of course referring to "sabermetric" (many are not actually attached to SABR in any real way) blogs. Just because you can "prove" something on Excel doesn't mean it is a universal truth (and i love to use my Excel).
It is not so much that a certain subsection of the population subscribe to a certain world view. It is mostly about the way the communities operate and act. Basically what you see (in some places) is a condescending, snobbish, demeaning culture of self-professed intelligentsia. Let's put it this way, WWII Germany had far more intellectual diversity. Some of these sites are more about ego aggrandizing that actual real content. Yes, i know that this is a common group dynamic. The "accredited" (in some way leader) and those who bask in (and claim) the leader's intellectual prowess for their own.
You usually have the overbearing "leader" (or fuhrer) who always says that opposing viewpoints are stupid (sometimes in harsh and demeaning ways) and the semi-mindless sheep who follow. The leader is not bound by any sense of decency - just overblown rhetoric about how they are right and everything else in the universe is wrong. Condescension, blogger be thy name. In fact, it seems like the leader views everyone who doesn't blindly believe everything they say with contempt. So it is kind of a dictatorial set-up (with the requisite SS cohorts). They can make claims like player X is complete garbage and will never amount to anything. Let's just say they are not noted for their diplomacy or tact. If anyone disagrees with the leader, the hive mind comes in to play. The somewhat humorous aspect here is that the leader is talking mostly out of egotism. If they were nearly as smart (and capable) as they think they are, they would probably have a real job in the field.
Basically the problem with modern baseball stat worship is that it sprung out of the highest of the high ego business set. Sure, these people can construct rough operating budgets and the like. In fact that is actually where a great deal of this "sabermetric" stuff came from. Basically, they are trying to apply business metrics to baseball statistics. That branched more into the statistics area (i've never been a fan of hypotesis testing - as it is not that useful in the real world). Needless to say, i don't see them as being that closely correlated. i'm sure many of the metrics were best fit methods (using multi-variate regressions). However, i've played with stats enough (in a past educational life) to realize that how you define or work with variables can definitely skew the results (maybe that is the idea). If you have no real checks (too many similar minded people) - they could run wild.
With baseball the concept can be broken down to bases. A run is four bases (actually, when i played with some stats it ranged from about 4-6 bases, i forget the real number). OPS and the like are really expected value calculations. In other words, the chance they get on base (OBP/AVG) times the number of bases they get when they are on base (SLG, etc). Then you get into really messed up stuff like win probability. i guess it is unfortunate for stat heads that games arent' being played by perfectly replicating machines and controlled "trials".
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