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What is SABR Skepticism?

The analytics industry has gained enormous influence not only in sports, but in many other fields as well, including political science, economics, business, entertainment, and in fields where the stakes are extremely high such as health and medicine, law enforcement, intelligence and the military.  While the analytics industry may have some things of value to offer, what has become lost is that statistics are inherently limited because they can’t take into account the human element.

Over-reliance on statistics in sports can have catastrophic effects, the collapse of the 2014 Oakland Athletics being the prime example (and it is far from the only example).  Common sense has fallen out of favor in exchange for the conventional wisdom of the intelligentsia.  The problem here is that this conventional wisdom is complete nonsense.  SABR Skepticism is rooted in the idea that this conventional wisdom needs to be exposed for what it is.  It is time for the intelligentsia’s shakedown to come to an end.