In an earlier thread this week, Madville linked to the Pirates Q&A on their web site where Neal Huntington, the Pirates GM, showed he might be a wee bit smarter than our own beloved Wayne Krivsky. He was asked how important OBP was to a team, and his answer, also found at firejoemorgan.com was a doozy...

"We are going to utilize several objective measures of player performance to evaluate and develop players. We'll rely on the more traditional objective evaluations: OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage) , WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched), Runs Created, ERC (Component ERA), GB/FB (ground ball to fly ball ratio), K/9 (strikeouts per nine innings), K/BB (strikeouts to walks ratio), BB%, etc., but we'll also look to rely on some of the more recent variations: VORP (value over replacement player), Relative Performance, EqAve (equivalent average), EqOBP (equivalent on base percentage), EqSLG (equivalent slugging percentage), BIP% (balls put into play percentage), wOBA (weighted on base average), Range Factor, PMR (probabilistic model of range) and Zone Rating."

Anyway, I shared this with a friend in my fantasy baseball league who is a big Pirate fan. Here's his most excellent response:

"I am quite pleased with the Pirates selection for GM. As for VORP, I think Krivsky was the first to coin that Acronym although I think his acronym stood for Very Ordinary Relief Pitchers."