I’ll just take this opportunity to say, Vince has been running a stunningly good blog over there, with giant heaps of insight and useful links. For an all-sports Cleveland perspective, might be the best one-site-only homepage you could have.

There are some areas in which Woolner provides opinions that are at least mildly surprising. For instance, manager Eric Wedge seems like a by-the-book kind of guy. But Wedge has sought out Woolner’s opinion — though, of course, Woolner can’t go into specifics — when asked about hypotheticals involving perhaps moving a player from shortstop to third, or from the leadoff spot to third in the lineup.

Color me confused by the notion that it is even midly surprising that Wedge utilizes sabermetrics. Knowing the front office’s reliance on sabermeterics should be enough to tell you that the manager must use them. Grady Little largely got fired from the Red Sox for ignoring sabermetrics. An Oakland manager (I forget which) got fired for not using sabermetrics.

If that isn’t enough then watching Wedge’s strategic moves for any length of time should tell you Wedge utilizes sabermetrics.

Even more puzzling is the strange notion that there is an inconsitenacy between being by the book manager and sabermetrics. Just the opposite is true. By the “book” for years has been descriptive of managing by the percentages. Much of sabermetrics is about improving the quantification of percentages.