From: thornley@milli.cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley)
Subject: Re: Offense, Defense, and the Transmutation of Egalitarian Society
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 22:31:42 GMT

In article <1992Dec22.181623.54893@watson.ibm.com> mjones@fenway.aix.kingston.ibm.com (Mike Jones) writes:
>maynard@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (Roger "I am not Spock" Maynard) writes:
>: In <1992Dec22.064548.1964@panix.com> spira@panix.com (Greg "Sarcasm Is A Way Of Life" Spira) writes:
>
>: >The ultimate example seems to me to be a batting cage contest.  There is
>: >no defense, so it can't possibly be 50% of the game.  And if you add a
>: >slo-pitch pitcher, does that automatically make defense 50% of the game. 
>: If there is no defense then there is no analogy.  If the slo-pitch pitcher
>: is trying to prevent you from scoring runs then defense has become just
>: as important as offense - 50 -50.
>
>Here, amazingly enough, Roger is dead on the money. Another way to think of
>it is that the contributions of your offense and the other team's defense
>(including pitching) are inextricably bound together. Since their offense
>contributes 50% to the outcome of the game, your defense must also.
>   
Look, assume a home-run derby with a neutral pitcher who will simply pitch
fatballs (Jim Acker might be available).  The object of one team is to hit
more home runs than the other.  Obviously, there is no connection between
one team's defense and the other team's offense.  Now, give each team
outfielders who will attempt to catch the ball going over the fence, so you
actually do have some defense in the game.  Is defense now 50% of the game?
Would you take Devon White (some HR, superb D) over Cecil Fielder?

Now, let's extend this a little.  Assume that, in baseball, a team would
score the same number of runs, on the average, regardless of whom it was
playing.  In other words, the Tigers would average about 5 RPG and the
Royals about 4.  The object of the game would still be to outscore your
opponent, but would defense be just as important as offense?  If the average
scores were changed so the Royals would score 4.2 against the Tigers and the
Tigers 4.8 against the Royals?  In this case, you could say that, since
defense has some effect, the game is 50-50, but you certainly wouldn't give
up offense in a player in order to get defense (translation:  Gagne would
be out of a job).

You can say, correctly, that major league baseball isn't like that, but
that's not the point.  To say that offense is 50% of the game in any useful
way, one has to determine that offense and defense deserve about equal
consideration.  In the home run derby I mentioned above, this is obviously
not true, and you would certainly not take Devon White if Cecil Fielder
was available.

To find out what professionals *really* think, you can observe their
decisions.  If (say) pitching is 40% of the game, and a good starting
pitcher pitches one-sixth of his teams innings, and a good fielder gives
one-ninth of his team's offense and fielding, wouldn't a good starter be
just as valuable as a position player (one sixth of 40% vs. one ninth of
60%)?  If pitching were 50% of the game, the pitcher would be much more
valuable; if it were 30% of the game, much less.  Seems to me that a good
pitcher is considered pretty close to as good as a good position player,
but maybe not quite as valuable (but this could be due to the greater
reliability of position players), and so MLB presumably thinks the game
is 35-40% pitching.

David Thornley
"Just wait until my process server reaches the North Pole!" -
Danny DeVito in _Hot_Buttered_Elves_