From: maynard@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (Roger Maynard)
Subject: Re: joe carter and others
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON
Distribution: rec
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 03:42:57 GMT

In <1992Dec15.184041.21914@news2.cis.umn.edu> thornley@milli.cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) writes:

>In article <1992Dec14.024046.12197@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca> maynard@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (Roger Maynard) writes:

>>I agree with this totally.  I myself don't see near enough games to judge
>>objectively.  But some people do.  Managers and other players do.  And
>>they don't need stats to tell them what is going on.
>>
>They make lousy decisions, also.  Consider Kirby Puckett as Gold Glove winner.

Who says that the Gold Glove is an objective measure of defensive quality?
Just because the winners are chosen by those who understand the game at the
highest level doesn't mean that the awards are not merely a popularity
contest.

>If you look at Sherri's Defensive Averages, you will see that Puckett was

Are Sherri's averages based on a big enough sample size?  How big is a big
enough sample size?  Is an entire career a big enough sample size to inductively
establish the quality of a player's defense by using statistics?

>never good (since '88, anyway), has been going downhill steadily, and is now
>pretty bad.  (Actually, Puckett's better defensively than his DA shows, but
>that's another argument.)  Now, if you will trust the eyes of a couple of
>Twins fans who have been watching the Puckster in person a couple dozen
>games a year for a while....Puckett is nowhere near the fielder he was a
>few years ago, and is no longer in any sense a good center fielder.

>If you think my wife and I are going to disbelieve our eyes *and* Sherri's
>stats, you're crazy.

I have no evidence at all to suggest that you are wrong.  The Gold glove's
mean nothing to me and I don't see Puckett enough (and I don't understand
baseball enough) to dispute what you are saying.

>>They had to trade him.  He was about to declare free agency and they couldn't
>>afford to sign him.

>First, they signed him.  It was a big contract, but not that big.  The fact
>that attendance was going down steadily from '88 to '91 didn't stop them
>from signing Puckett and Hrbek and Morris and Davis and Pagliarulo when they
>came around.

Well then they signed him so they could trade him.  They had no intention of
paying him. 

>Second, this was an excellent trade.  Tapani has been better than Viola since
>the trade, and having Aguilera around far outweighs having to put up with
>David West.  The only way it could turn favorable for the Mets is if they
>got somebody *good* with the draft choices they got when Viola went to
>Boston.

I think it was a trade that Minny didn't want to make, even if it did turn
out to their advantage.  But maybe I am wrong.

>The point, though, is that fans go to the game for various reasons.  The
>fans that really want to see good baseball don't want to see Devon White
>lead off with Carter eating outs in the #3 hole, and the fans that really

I guess it depends on what you mean by "good baseball".  Some might consider
"good baseball" a game played by men that one feels proud to have represent
their city.  Other's might feel that "good baseball" is only measured by
success on the field.  With White leading off and Carter at no 3 the Jays
won it all.  Sounds pretty "good" to this Toronto fan.  In fact I am not
sure how it could have been any better...

>want to see entertaining players might be just as happy with Madonna (if
>there are fans like these, of course).  Of course, Madonna would cost an
>impossible amount of money to sign...if you thought baseball salaries are
>high, consider what movie stars make.

Maybe Texas should sign her and then she could play with Canseco...

rm
 
-- 
roger maynard
maynard@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca