I call it 'Defensive Independent Pitching' and what it does is evaluate a pitcher base[d] strictly on the statistics his defense has no ability to affect...".
This implied that elements beyond the pitcher's control, including defense, ballpark, weather and randomness, had significant effects upon his performance.
In his book The Numbers Game, Alan Schwarz writes that McCracken told him “all hell broke loose” after Neyer's column appeared.
[7] Subsequent independent research by Phil Birnbaum, Clifford Blau and Tom Tippett confirmed Wright's findings, but Wright still praises McCracken as "... 'the' guy who really got people to understand that most folks overestimate the pitcher's ability to influence the number of hits that result from balls batted into the field of play.
"[8] Bill James also expressed some skepticism but recognized the potential value of McCracken's findings if further research bore them out.
First, if McCracken turns out to be correct, this has important consequences, even allowing us, to a certain extent, to predict movements in pitcher's records.
[10] The discovery and its influence on baseball analysis is outlined in Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.
[11][12][13] Baseball researchers have continued to evaluate and to propose refinements to DIPS, such as Tom Tippett in his 2003 article "Can Pitchers Prevent Hits on Balls in Play?".
[14] A year and a half after the publication of his "Pitchers and Defense" article, McCracken's discovery earned him a consulting position with the Boston Red Sox.
McCracken continued to think about how to measure performance in a variety of organized sports, such as international football (American soccer).
And there's the deepest, most hurtful part of all: Voros McCracken hasn't worked in baseball since the game chewed him up and spit him out five years ago.
Nothing before or since has so upended an entire line of thought and forced teams to assess a wide breadth of players in a different fashion.