From: dtate+@pitt.edu (David M Tate)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Value of Stats
Date: 21 Jul 92 15:58:51 GMT
Organization: Factors of Ys, Inc.

In article <BrpELt.A6t@news.cso.uiuc.edu> kenf@uiuc.edu writes:

>Well, I don't consider myself an "anti-stathead" but I do think that
>there are "intangibles" that are important when evaluating players.

[...]

>Anticipating the obvious "Please tell us just exactly what an 
>"intangible" is", I'll define it for the purposes of this discussion
>as a baseball-related skill or attribute that cannot be measured with
>performance statistics. 

Fair enough.  The hangup that most of us statocephalics have that we don't
much care for the remaining options.  If it can't be measured (quantified,
whatever) by looking at performance statistics, then how *can* it be
measured (quantified, whatever)?  I mean, I can see the difference between
the verve with which Terry Pendleton plays and the near-catatonia with which
Kevin McReynolds plays just as well as the next guy can.  My problem starts
when people start trying to tell me exactly how much that verve is worth.
It's not that I assume that it has no value, but rather that I want to have
some justification before I assign it any *particular* value, as opposed to
some other value.

>Well, Ken, if you can't measure it how on earth could it be useful to
>even discuss such things. It can be useful to say, performance stats
>being equal, Player A is more valuable than Player B because of some
>intangible I.

This is also true.  However, in most cases the players being compared do not
have equal performance stats.  Dan Gladden and Carney Lansford have worse
performance stats than anyone whose nickname doesn't involve felines, and
yet they are often cited as being more valuable than people with good stats.
Where did this quantification come from, that allows someone to say "Player
A's intangibles are worth more than the difference between his stats and 
those of Player B"?

>One example that springs immediately to mind is the ability to never
>miss a hit-and-run sign while batting. When a batter misses the hit-
>and-run sign the official stat is Caught Stealing charged against the
>baserunner. 

This is an example of something that we can put a bound on.  How many hit
and run signs can a single player miss in one season?  Let's say it's less
than 10.  That's an extra 5 to 8 CS (since the hit-and-run isn't always a 
success when executed correctly; there are DP's to hit into, missed balls,
etc.) over the course of the year for the team, which is a couple of runs on
the minus side.  For the vast majority of players, this effect will have no
noticeable value plus or minus.

Nobody denies that some players have bad attitudes, that some players
inspire their teammates, that some players are more fun to play with than
others, that some players deliberately dog it.  What most "statheads" *do*
claim is that

	1) We don't know who these players are, because media reports are
	   unreliable in the extreme.

	2) We don't know how much weight to give to these effects, in terms
	   of wins and losses.  

	3) Our predictive models seems to work quite well even without taking
	   "intangibles" into account, so the overall effect of intangibles
	   can't be very large relative to the effect of tangibles.

If we can't tell who has it, or what it's worth, and don't really need it for
practical evaluation and prediction, why worry so much about it?

-- 
       David Tate        |"Out of the dugout endlessly swinging,
 dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu | Out of the manager's throat, the sound fundamentals,
 Prof. of Story Problems | Out of the six-month season..."            
 Member ORSA, TIMS, SABR | 	Walt "Lefty" Whitman