More Statistics coming to baseball

[GrizinWashington]

This could be kind of cool. Or it could be very annoying. However, it has always been difficult to measure the value of quality defense in baseball, so perhaps this will be the answer. However, I can already see newspaper sports editors -- already painfully pressed to reduce print space -- about to pull their hair out over this.

Sportvision, the company in San Francisco that developed the yellow first-down line you see on televised football games, has installed four cameras high above the home field of the San Francisco Giants. The cameras feed video of every play to computers that analyze the speed of hits, the speed of fielders moving to the ball, and the speed of their throws to bases. The result will be a vast new database on how well fielders do their jobs – stats with initials yet to be invented. How embarrassing: Imagine a DP (dropped pops) average, a CWF (crashing into the wall with face) frequency and, for Jose Canseco wannabes, the BBON (ball bouncing off noggin) percentage. Ouch. The Sportvision systems will be installed in all ball parks by the 2010 season and will become, in the words of one newspaper, a "statistical revolution" and "the largest single advance in baseball science since the invention of the box score."

[SonomaCat]

When I read something like this, my first question is, "What would Billy Beane do?"

Will these new stats allow him to "Moneyball" his way back to the top?