Baseball Savant
I understand the benefits of Baseball Savant and reading into the “under the hood” metrics; however, I think it is overly relied on and used as a coping mechanism by most fans. Tyler always goes on about how Roman Anthony’s Baseball Savant looks incredible. He uses this as a crutch to explain that Roman will eventually turn it around since most of his metrics are red (I don’t necessarily disagree since we know he’s good). I just can’t get behind that take completely when you see Roman hit routine ground ball after routine ground ball 105 mph directly into the ground at the 2nd baseman. That exit velo makes his metrics look good, but no time during the actual play did you think it was going to be a hit. This is used to justify poor performance for guys like Roman and Tatis, and on the other hand, used to put down guys like Lucas Giolito even though we had a 26 game sample size in 2025 which showed that he was a pretty good pitcher (10-4 with a 3.41 ERA).
Sometimes what you see with your eyes on the field is more important than the metrics over a long sample size. I think too many fans, and I’m sure front offices, overly rely on Baseball Savant-type metrics.