From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Lies, Damn Lies, & Statistics (was Re: The Monthly Cecil Fielder Thread
Date: 3 Sep 92 15:48:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: Princeto.1992Sep3.154817.15679
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <1992Sep03.105123.10657@brtph560.bnr.ca> psycho@brtpa25.bnr.ca (Paul Jezioranski) writes:
>In article <1992Sep3.013519.8911@panix.com>, spira@panix.com (Greg
>"Sarcasm Is A Way Of Life" Spira) writes:
>> In <1992Sep02.204409.2123@brtph560.bnr.ca> psycho@brtpa25.bnr.ca (Paul
>Jezioranski) writes: 
>> >Any statistic you can come up with is bound to be affected by
>countless "what
>> >ifs". Keep it simple.

>> We do.

>>  Games played, runs scored, hits, walks, RBI, etc. (i.e.
>> >the basics) give a solid idea of hitting performance.

>> No, they don't.

>> And we can keep it simple by eliminating a lot of these.

>> Leave us with PAs, SLG, OBP and I'll let you eliminate all the rest.

>> Is that simple enough for you?

>Sure. Simply idiotic. An example:

>	Rudy Fafoofnik: 680 Plate appearances, 1.000 SLG, 1.000 OBP

>......	but he scored zero runs because he hit 680 two out singles and the guy
>	behind him struck out 680 times.

Um, Paul, we were talking baseball here.  Not simply idiotic examples.  
No player has ever come close to that.  No manager is stupid enough to 
hire a player who strikes out all the time, either.  Nor is it Rudy's
fault if the guy behind him *does* strike out.  

Tell us what's wrong with the choice of Rudy as a superstar, based on his
SLG and OBP.  Every team in baseball would want to have him, and would
trade several front-line players for a guy who never made out.  Seems to
me the numbers are just fine -- unless you blame Rudy and not the guy
behind him (and the manager) for all those K's.

>Sure you can draw a "likely" conclusion from just those three stats, but
>you can draw a better conclusion from what the player himself did.

Which does *not* include RBI.  Which does *not* include the guy behind
him striking out and robbing him of any chance to get an R.  OBP is
what he did: he reached every time.  SLG is what he did: he got a single
every time.  

>Singles, doubles, triples, homers, runs scored, walks, at bats, and RBI
>give a better than "likely" conclusion of the player's value to the
>team, 

Wrong.  None of those things is of ANY use unless you also include the 
number of OUTS the guy made.  If you don't, it's like saying you went to
Vegas and won $500 -- but don't mention that, on the rounds you didn't
win, you dropped $1,000.

How do you balance hits and doubles and so on against outs?  OBP.  SLG.

And you ignore the things like RBI and R, which are *NOT* things "the 
player himself did."  They are bumbling attempts at accounting that 
completely mung the relationship  between what the player did and what the
teammates did.  If Phillips triples and Fielder hits into a 4-3 grounder, 
Fielder has hurt his team's scoring chances overall, but gets an RBI, same
as if he's hit a single and *increased* his team's chances.  Does that
make sense?

>and you can calculate your three numbers from these stats. My
>contention is that adding external dependencies (such as who and how
>many were in scoring position, who was pitching, etc) only complicates
>things and leads people to draw errant conclusions like "if Jose was in
>his place, he'd have 5000 RBI". 

But that's not what we *do*.  We simply don't *care* about RBI, because
they're misleading.  We *know* that Fielder comes up with more people
in scoring position than just about anyone else; and this is relevant
to the RBI argument because you *need* that situation before you get a 
lot of RBI.  Nobody has *ever* led the league in RBI without having a whole
lot of guys on base in front of him -- and HE DIDN'T PUT THEM THERE.  

And nobody has ever had *good* RBI numbers without a lot of runners on.

These aren't errant conclusions -- they're perfectly obvious results if
you bother to look at the numbers.  The numbers are there, and they make
sense, and the analysis of those numbers comes directly from a simple
observation or two about how baseball works.  (And not from bullshit
examples like Rudy above.)

How many were in scoring posiion is *not* an external dependency to
RBI, though it is to H and W and HR and so on.  It is, quite simply, part of
the *definition* of RBI.  Accordingly, RBI is misleading as an individual
stat, and "Joe blow is great because he has a ton of RBI can be an
errant conclusion.  Noting RBI opportunities is a way of *fixing* that
error.  

>But I guess that's most of the attraction of all these stats. 

I see.  You're only here to insult and to distort and to accuse people
of doing quite the opposite of what they do.  You're not even interested
in real-life baseball, as your silly "rudy" example shows.  Don't you
have better things to do?

Roger
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball