How to Speak Sabermetrics to Very Specific Audiences

Take it slow with Ted Danson.

Last week, FanGraphs’ House Librarian Steve Slowinski submitted for the readership’s consideration a post entitled How to Speak Sabermetrics to a Mainstream Audience, in which he (i.e. Slowinski) provided some guidelines for discussing sabermetric concepts with the uninitiated.

While Slowinski’s effort is commendable, it occurs to this author that there’s more work to be done, that “mainstream audience” is rather a broad thing.

To that end, I’ve started a storm in my brain — one that has yielded some brief characterizations of the sabermetric project intended for very specific audiences.

What follows is certainly not an exhaustive list. To that end, if you, the reader, request advice on reaching out to a specific audience, do not hesitate to make note of it in the comments section. Alternatively, if you’ve had some success in communicating with one or more kinds of people the nature of the sabermetric project, certainly do provide this sort of infomation.

With that said, here’s how to speak sabermetrics…

To Your Grandmother
You use the computer for baseball, Grandma. Don’t worry about it.

To an Actuary
It’s like what you do, divided by boring.

To an Italian Person
You apply-a the scientific method-a to baseball-a.

To Ted Danson
Ted Frigging Danson, how you doin’, guy?*

*It’s obvious: you can’t just launch into a sabermetric discussion with Ted Danson.

To Someone Much Larger Than You and Maybe Also Drunk
If you want to believe that “Jeter Rules!” I have no intention of separating you from that opinion.