MLBeat

ESPN.com has begun to include Game Scores at the bottom of its daily box scores. They also have begun to list the top performances of the year, using Game Scores as the metric. Game Scores have long been considered little more than a "toy statistic" by the likes of Rob Neyer, the man who did the most to popularize their use. But the truth is, most of the major baseball statistics are little more than toys themselves, although they do get taken seriously. Batting average? What wag decided batting average was the most important indicator of a good player? Pretty narrow-minded, when you think about it.

Now don't get me wrong, Game Scores aren't exactly rigorous. In fact, they're a bit silly when you look at the fine print:

Game Score: Start with 50 points. Add 1 point for each out recorded, (3 points per inning). Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th. Add 1 point for each strikeout. Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed. Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed. Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed. Subtract 1 point for each walk.

That's pretty arbitrary, no doubt. But Game Scores have merit when you consider that the arbiter was doing some pretty good thinking. Pitchers are punished for unearned runs (an improvement on the ERA statistic), walks (an improvement on Opponent's BA), and not lasting deep into games (which no current major stat really acknowledges).

So let's go ahead and admit that Game Scores have every right to be included with the big boys. We've seen OBP and SLG get their due over the past five years or so, especially after the release of Moneyball, when even the most grudging old-schooler of a sports editor had to admit that no, there's no point in denying that high OBPs correlate with winning much more closely than do all the traditional offensive stats. Now ESPN puts it right up there on TV, a comforting little ".308" under Cesar Izturis' name, letting you know that he's a little bit better at ending up on base than his .272 batting average might suggest...but not much.

(Given that ending up on base is what you most want to see your hitter do in general, and having watched Rafael Furcal's rookie season with the Braves when he had truly terrifying speed, I think a move should be made to account for Reached Base on Error a little more sufficiently than a simple 0-1. Also, think about how wacked-out some official scorers can be. Perhaps this should have been a separate post altogether.)

I imagine Game Scores will start to get a little more recognition as part of baseball's burgeoning Information Age. They produce a simple number, on a roughly 0-100 scale, which must feel nice and relaxing to all those baseball fans who don't like to get headaches trying to comprehend numbers on a brand new scale. And you have to be pretty tough to hump it up to 100: only two pitchers have done it since 2002, one of which was Randy Johnson's perfect game against Atlanta last year.

Go back and look at that top Game Scores page again. It's a tabbed page with the tab set on "Best Games," alongside other Neyer/James brainchildren as the "Beane Count," and the "Cy Young Predictor," the latter of which is a complex formula that boils down to a simple top ten list of the pitchers who are in the race for their league's top pitching award. In other words, the performance-metricians, the stat-heads if you will, have gotten so fed up with the inane, PR-influenced nature of the annual Baseball Writers' voting for major awards, that now they are presuming to do their thinking for them.

And it's going to work. You mark my words. Local hacks, the sports aficionados who have lucked into BBWAA votes, will find this page and grow addicted to it, stopping by every time they've forgotten whom to be considering for the Cy Young. It won't dictate their thinking, but it will certainly shape it. And another small victory for the statistics crowd will have taken hold.