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[QUOTE="jncuse, post: 3828789, member: 1969"]
It still has limited value or decent value for the rare pitcher, but you must understand the clear limitations and there are better stats out there which the voters now do.

Here is one of my annoyances when they analyze the season performance of a pitcher..

Pitcher A - 2.50 ERA, but a higher FIP, 200 innings neutral park/competition
Pitcher B - 3.00 ERA, but a lower FIP, 200 innings.

Many stat geeks will say Pitcher B had the better season because FIP is a better stat.   FIP is a better stat because it is more predictive -- that I absolutely agree with.    But at the end of the day you know who had the better season you dolt -- the pitcher who gave up the least amount of runs.     Stathead will then claim that the pitcher was lucky or cannot sustain that level of clutch with RISP.   Quite possible, but for those 200 innings he gave up less runs -- that pitcher was better because he was clutch this year.   Some statheads lose something that is valuable as well -- common sense in interpreting data.

As an aside I grew up from 9-14 reading Bill James so I was a stat geek in the making, but I just moved on from the stuff before the end of my school year.  I am not anti-stathead by any means (nor do I place many merits on the old AVG/HR/RBI), but I think some people lack flexibility in thinking their way through numbers and problems.

I still have the 1985-1988 Baseball Abstract on my shelf next to me -- most of that analysis was more basic stuff than today (Secondary average for example) but the one thing it really stressed that I learned early on was how walks were overlooked.   I would get in arguments with other kids at school about ball players and I would get flabbergasted that they did not understand that AVG/HR/RBI's on a standalone basis were sometimes not that great a stat to evaluate between players.  My 11 and 12 year old friends would give me strange looks.
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