[Syd Thrift]

Yeah, like I said I think we're pretty close. I agree with you that "true" sabermetricians are probably pretty skeptical. The people over at BP seem to make a point of saying that they aren't sure and that they're constantly recalibrating to get closer to the truth. The same goes for the folks at Fangraphs and, well, all those folks who work for the teams now are interested in winning, not lining up with the orthodoxy. My animus was primarily at the people who kind of hang on the coattails of those people, who get all smug about clutch or whatever without actually understanding what it is the studies say or for that matter what it is the sabermetricians say about the data themselves. And then that made me get on a hobby horse because it's eerily similar to the attitude I see expressed by self-proclaimed skeptics, one of whom apparently decided to challenge me on my own skepticism by asking how closely I cleave to the orthodoxy (which, as it happens, I do, but not because orthodoxy is inherently good, but because that's where the evidence is right now).

Anyway, I think we were speaking mostly sideways at each other rather than against and if I misinterpreted your post, I apologize.