From: dtate+@pitt.edu (David M Tate)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: More fuel for the Stats fire
Date: 21 Jul 92 13:53:26 GMT
Organization: Factors of Ys, Inc.

In article <54615@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> poutsmaj@mace.cc.purdue.edu (unknown) writes:
>The pythagoreans had a sign over the entrance to their library which read:
>
>EVERYTHING IS NUMBER
>
>With this as their motto, they attempted to describe everything they saw
>in terms of mathematics.  Apparantly this is the motto of many of the netters
>here as they try to reduce all of a baseball player's talents into one,
>easily understandable parameter (ave, obp, ops, rc, etc).  

Apparently, you don't read so good.  Would you care to name just two of those
"many of the netters" who do this?  For that matter, since when is (ave, obp,
ops, rc, etc.) "one easily understandable parameter"?  Or are you claiming
that there is someone around here who claims that all of a baseball player's
talents are described by batting average?

Get real.  If you want to criticize someone's analysis of a player's value,
you are more than welcome to do so.  Leave the straw men behind, though.

>It is always
>important to keep in mind, however, that statistics only reflect what a
>player has done and not what he will do

Of course.

>(or is capable of doing).  

Well...

>A classic
>example of this is Kirby Puckett.  When Kirby first came into the league
>in 1984, he was an opposite field-singles hitter.  His batting average was
>about .280 and his obp and slg were not much better.  Therefore, if I would 
>that KP would hit 30 HR and bat over .330, everyone would have thought I was
>crazy.  I would have probably heard a bunch of numbers supporting the
>conclusion that KP was a mediocre player at best and lacked the power to
>hit many HR's.  Obviously the problem is that the stats could not account
>for the adjustment the Kirby made in his swing, changing from his singles
>hitter approach to a 'drive the ball' mentality which has been so successful
>for him.  The point here is that, even though Puckett was equally as talented
>before 1987, the numbers did not show it.  This is a serious problem with
>statistics:  they don't really show player potential.  

No, they don't *always* show player potential.  There will always be
exceptions like Puckett; life is uncertain.

What you *can* tell from the numbers, if you know which are useful and how
to use them, is which players are MOST LIKELY to be valuable in the future.
This is not to say that you should *ignore* other sources of information,
like scouting reports and expert opinion.  

There is no perfect predictor of future performance, statistical or
otherwise.  (Nobody here has argued otherwise.)  But analysis of a player's
past performance gives us the most reliable predictor we can have of future
performance.

>The fact that stats can't predict what will happen in the future is why
>teams have scouts and coaches to evalute players' talents.  

Right.  The same scouts and coaches that drafted Jeff King number one in the
draft, because in their expert opinions he was going to be a star.  Sure.

Had you no axe to grind, you might notice that you just shifted your standards
by quite a bit.  Statistical projection is dismissed because sometimes it
isn't perfectly accurate, but scouts and coaches are allowed to draft Jeff
King and, worse yet, continue to treat him as a prospect long after he'd 
proven that he was almost certainly never going to be any good.  I'll take
the numbers, thanks.

>True it is
>a subjective practice, but it is the only way it can really be done.

Then why doesn't it work better?  In the case of your favorite, Wade Boggs,
it was the statheads who were complaining that he was being wasted in the
minor leagues, long before your expert coaches saw fit to finally bring him
up to the majors.  He lost two or three years off his career to those experts.

>PAUL


-- 
       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