I’ve been writing about baseball online for four years, and early on, I learned I needed to work hard to create anything meaningful. A few years ago, I killed a weekend creating a stat I dubbed, “Runs Accounted For.” It looked at a player’s run and RBI totals compared to his team’s run total and, as I later learned, was more or less a simplified version of Bill James’ work, Runs Created. I didn’t know this when I posted my piece (I hadn’t read a James book up to this time), and proudly, naively, I submitted a link to Baseball Think Factory expecting to be applauded.

The response I got is fairly typical for anyone who creates a new baseball metric and is one reason I don’t devote much time inventing stats.

Before I go further, let me be clear: I applaud everyone I know or know of in the baseball writing community willing to do this kind of research. I can’t imagine analyzing baseball history, at least analyzing it well, without utilizing so many of the new metrics that have popped up in the last 40 years, stats like WAR, OPS+ or ERA+, among many others. Sabermetrics offer a better, more-comprehensive look at the goings-on in baseball. They cut through hyperbole.

In the competitive world of online baseball writing, more stats are coming out all the time, such as Hall Rating from my friend and HHS colleague, Adam Darowski. To this I say: great. Keep the stats coming. More research will unearth more useful advanced stats and help refine the ones that exist. It’s needed work. It just isn’t for me.

I learned this reading BBTF forum members mock my work a few years ago. (On a side note: I finally quit reading BBTF comments on my writing a year ago. It’s been liberating.) People repeatedly pointed out the obvious, that I had essentially invented a stat that was already long since in existence. There was lots of snark and not much positive or useful feedback. It paralleled the reception I received a couple months before that when I killed another weekend looking at how many more votes non-enshrined Hall of Fame candidates got than players who were already in. Statistical analysis is, admittedly, not my strongest suit in baseball blogging. I’m better at writing, journalistic reporting and historical research.

What’s funny is that the reception I got was actually far milder than what other stat inventors have received. Just ask anyone who’s contributed to WAR. Voros McCracken fought an uphill battle in forums about a decade ago when he created the idea of defensive independent fielding stats. Adam had his handiwork, which he’s spent the couple years I’ve known him tinkering with, dubbed an “utter load of garbage.” Countless other baseball writers, I imagine, have faced similar criticism.

I don’t know what motivates readers to level vitriolic complaints. Maybe they feel threatened or that their criticisms will stymie work they don’t agree with. It certainly helped end my brief foray into stat creation. I just don’t see the point in an endeavor with heavy labor requirements and a better chance of backlash than reward. These days, I try to stick to the things in baseball writing I’m good at while letting people like Adam fight the good fight.