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Recently I was watching a Mets-Cardinals game on TV and was struck by how short and gawky Cardinal shortstop David Eckstein is . . . and how good. He's five-foot-seven. He throws and bats with all the grace of a wind-up toy, but he gets the ball where it's supposed to go. It occurred to me — can the "walk's as good as a hit" philosophy be applied to dating? Let's try.



Eckstein is one of the players who are more appreciated these days thanks to the Society for American Baseball Research. Baseball researchers, or sabermetricians, question the use of old statistics like batting average, which preference sluggers, rather than on-base percentage, which assess the actual effectiveness of a player in the context of a game.



The dating equivalent: replace hotness as the main criteria with "likeliness to bring satisfaction." Here are the things to which sabermatricians are blind:



* Type. The tall, strapping athlete. (Dating analogue: "I only date artists.")



* Education level. College ball player who's risen through the farm-team ranks. ("I only date college graduates.")



* Relationship history. A raw recruit everyone wants rather than a player who's been undervalued or overlooked. ("I would never date a divorcee."  "I would never date someone with a kid.")



Ready to draft your next date? Play ball!



Take one point for each yes:



1. Is this player into you / a team player? Prime indicator: patting your butt on a regular basis.



2. Does this player hustle? Is he or she ambitious when it comes to your team's success?



3. Is this player available for coaching? Does he or she call / email back?



4. Do you find what this player does interesting? Does his stance / rotation, however eccentric, work?



5. Do you find this player attractive, even if he or she is not traditionally good-looking?



6. Does this player handle set-backs well? You don't want someone who rattles easily.



7. Does this player make your life easier and improve morale in your clubhouse? 

8. Is sex with this player satisfying, or could it be with a few clinics?



9. Is this player good in clutch situations — on stressful road trips, when you've had a bad day?

10. Do you have faith in this player's ability to improve season after season?



Okay, tally your score. Now divide that number by 10. This is your partner's sabermetric datability score. 
Remember, anything over .350 is Hall of Fame material.