From: mjw@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Michael Wolverton)
Subject: Re: Cecil signs :-( :-( :-(
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 23:07:01 GMT


In article <2467@blue.cis.pitt.edu> genetic+@pitt.edu (Dr. Dave) writes:
>...unless most of the league is *better* than what you do have.  In which case
>he is *not* helping you win, no matter how far above "replacement level" he
>is.  Players who take away wins and add losses to your team have (it seems to
>me) negative use value.

But in what sense is a slightly below-average player taking away wins
from the team?  By being worse than his possible replacement?  (In most
cases, I think the answer here is "no".)  By being bad enough that
a team can't win a pennant with him?  (All you have to do is look
at recent pennant winners to see that the answer to this is "no".)

>If you have an entire team of replacement-level players,
>you'll lose 120 games.  The sum (use) value of all your players is thus
>about -40 games.  If they're all about the same, that means they *all* have
>negative value.  *Very* negative.

I assume that you mean that they have negative value in the sense that
they'll finish very far from winning a pennant.  But, a team
full of league-average players also has negative value when viewed this 
way.  More about this below.

By the way, I don't think I personally would set "replacement level" so 
low as "an average player on a 40-120 team".  When I compared pitchers
to "replacement level" with my SNWL stuff, I picked .425 as a replacement
win percentage.  Elias did also, in a study they did.

>>No team can fill
>>their roster with only better-than-average players,
>
>Wanna bet?  The '27 Yankees?  The '09 Cubs (or whatever year that was)?
>The '61 Yankees?  Bench doesn't count, unless somebody gets hurt, because
>it's who actually plays that determines how many runs you score and allow.
>I think it's obvious that there are occasional teams that are at least
>average at every position.  And even if there weren't, it wouldn't affect
>the argument at all.

I suspect that each of those teams gave 100+ innings to some pitcher who
was below league average. I'll have to look that up. But, like you say,
the existence or non-existence of one or two such teams doesn't say much
about either of our arguments.

>>and any team
>>improves itself by replacing its really bad players with better -- but
>>still below-average -- players.
>
>I don't know where this came from, but I disagree.

Really?  That sentence looks pretty much tautologous to me.  Didn't
the A's improve themselves (and their chances of winning a pennant)
by replacing Joe Slusarski (Ackeresque) with Bobby Witt (merely below 
average)?  Is it my use of the word "any" you object to?

>>[I wrote that the A's pitcher's were below average but still positive
>>contributors to a division winner in '92.]
>
>No, they just weren't negative *enough* to outweigh the positives from the
>offense.  Failing to be even worse than you are does not constitute being
>a contributing factor toward winning.  Had the A's been able to replace these
>guys with average pitchers, they would have won more.  That's another way of
>saying that the league in general was getting something positive from its
>pitchers that the A's were *not* getting from *their* pitchers.

So I take it from this last sentence that you think a league-average
pitcher (what "the league in general was getting...") has *positive*
value? Just a Freudian slip I'm sure :-).

Here's a different angle on this:  You've said that a player should
be given value according to his ability to contribute to a division
winner.  But why, then, do you choose 81-81 as your baseline?  No 81-81
team is ever going to win a division (well, OK, ignore the NL East for 
now :-).  So isn't any player who plays *below* the average
level of a division winner adding losses to your team?  Or, rather, 
subtracting from your chances of winning the division?  Choosing 81-81
as your comparison baseline seems arbitrary, except that it's easy to
calculate and we have a nice name for it.

I agree with you 100% that a player should only be given value if he
can contribute to a title.  But I think it's very clear that 
below-average players can and do contribute to title-winning teams.

-Michael
-- 
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Michael Wolverton                       "Is that clear?"
mjw@cs.stanford.edu                     "No, but it's consistent!"
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