More complicated statistical evaluations might find more useful details in the numbers alone. I've maintained that you need that side of things too to make a more comprehensive conclusion. Only looking at one side of things is never good, though, unless you purposely want to get wrong answers in cases that fly right into the obvious holes in each perspective (and they all have their advantages and disadvantages). I don't know why anyone would want that.
If you ask a scout to name the top players in baseball overall, you'll probably get a very similar (if not IDENTICAL) list to what a spreadsheet would spit out. Performance is valued by all. There are probably very few differences in terms of the top performers by either list, so it isn't all that unusual that such lists at the top would be similar for anything. When a prospect puts up great numbers, he rises in everybody's rankings. Someone putting up huge stats in the minors is either ranked highly, or has some reason for not being more recognized. That reason would be ignored by the numbers but not by the humans putting those numbers into context. Sometimes that reason is very important to consider.
The real difference between the two is that with the numbers list you'll probably have some names valued much more by numbers that don't seem to fit otherwise (Ross Gload, Luke Scott, or whoever else discussed over the years as such). Sometimes those become found gems where all the numeric digging provided a different perspective that shouts out more attention toward a player, and other times they are just bit players who do great in a limited role by the numbers but get exposed later when those limited numbers really didn't apply when multiplied into more chances as math had expected.
|