From: djohnson@cayley.waterloo.edu (David Johnson)
Subject: Re: Value of Stats
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 01:55:27 GMT

In article <3467@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> dtate+@pitt.edu (David M Tate) writes:
>In article <BrquMr.27J@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu> djohnson@cayley.waterloo.edu (David Johnson) writes:
>>
>>I will say this once again because it seems that people don't understand.  I
>>think that statistics are very important to show a players ability but 
>
>(The inevitable 'but'...)
>
>>baseball
>>is a TEAM sport and there are 25 men on a team 
>
>Is baseball a team sport?  Don't laugh; this is a serious question.  There
>are certainly 25 men on a team, and it takes all of them to do well in the
>playoff chase, but does that make it a "team sport", in the way we normally
>use that phrase?
>
>Baseball certainly isn't a team sport in the way football, basketball, soccer,
>volleyball, hockey, or lacrosse is.  You can see this easily by noting that a
>new player, just traded for or brought up from the minors, can play for the
>team *immediately*.  He doesn't have to learn a "system", figure out his
>teammates' on-field foibles, or anything else more complicated than learning
>a new set of signals for the same old things.  The only real team interactions
>that have to be practiced together are double play pivots, hitting the cutoff
>man, and pitchers covering first base.  Hardly a whole lot of teamwork.
>
>As I see it, a "team sport" is a sport where the team's performance is more
>than the sum of its parts.  And I just don't see baseball being very much of
>a team sport, in that sense.  Not much more than Davis Cup tennis, in fact.

I see your point BUT (just had to get that word in there) I think there is 
more team aspect to the game than you have stated.  What about who goes
where on a bunt, LF and RF must know and learn the CF range and abilities
to better team defense.  They must know what hits a CF can get to and thus
what ones he should back him up on or the ones which he should try for 
himself.  This goes for the infield as well.  This may make minor 
improvements to team defense (I don't have the Stats but in this case
stats would be useful to see if outfields which have the same players out
there almost every day make fewer errors than outfields which have no
consistency in player.  Also applies to the infield).  Also it is good to
know when a player likes to steal, and when to swing at a pitch just to
make it more difficult to throw the runner out.  I agree that baseball is
not as much of a team sport as others but I think that it helps if the
players have played together and know each others tendancies.

>>and a player with a good 
>>attitude and a player that works hard and enjoys playing makes the game more
>>fun for both himself, his team mates and the fans.  
>
>You say "works hard an enjoys playing" as if they were the same thing.  They
>aren't.  What about the player who enjoys playing, as long as it isn't hard
>work?  They exist.  Some of them are quite good, too.

They are different things but belong together.  Some of them are quite good
but could probably be better with more hard work.  Also hard work rubs off
on younger players which helps them develop faster.  I wonder if Tom Kelly
stresses hard work and effort and that is why Chuck Knoblauch and others
have been so good in their first years in the majors.

>>In anything that anyone
>>does in life for any reason IF THEY ENJOY WHAT THEY ARE DOING THEY WILL BE 
>>BETTER AT DOING THAT.  
>
>As a general trend, yes.  What you seem to be overlooking is that major league
>baseball players are *all* drawn from the extreme far end of the population
>at large, in terms of ability.  None of them would have arrived where they are
>today if they didn't love to play the game.  The differences among them, with
>regard to love of playing baseball, are insignificant.  Furthermore, once you
>get out to the far limits of what human beings are capable of, I deny that
>being happy is going to make any kind of significant difference in what folk
>achieve.  In everyday life, people who enjoy what they are doing study harder,
>practice more, learn more easily, and thus do better.  In major league base-
>ball, these guys have already done that, or they wouldn't be there.  The
>returns on "attitude" diminish rapidly as you move toward the top of any
>profession or activity.

Well we disagree with this point.  

>>A player like Dave Winfield really like to play
>>baseball and is a hard worker and thus in turn is a good influence on younger
>>inexperienced players.  
>
>This same Dave Winfield was called a selfish, lazy, disruptive influence by
>his team about 10 years ago.  Same guy?

People do change you know.  Watch him this year and he has been great.

>>This makes Dave Winfield a better player than another
>>player even if thay have the same numbers because the other player doesn't
>>create this good atmosphere in the clubhouse.  Not many teams win if there
>>is no winning spirit and dedication to winning in the clubhouse.  
>
>Not many teams win even if there is a "winning spirit" and "dedication to
>winning" in the clubhouse.  Not many teams win, period.  The truth is that
>we only label team attitude as good or bad *after* seeing whether they won
>or not, which is hardly a fair test.

Not many teams win without winning spirit.  The fact that some teams are
dedicated to win and have the winning spirit and lose is simply to the lack
of talent.  The question is is would these teams have won as many games
if they didn't have winning spirit?  I have to say no.

>>Remember this is a team sport and the players should play as a team.
>
>Just how are they supposed to do that?  The rules only let one of them bat
>at a time, and rarely do more than two of them get to make a play on any one
>batted ball.

Bunting a player around is playing as a team.  The bunter doesn't get any
great stats out of it other than sacrifices.  This definitly isn't something
he would do for personal stats.

>>This may be my last post on this subject unless i feel that there is
>>something that I haven't stated clearly and you don't understand.
>
>Well, I still think there are a lot of missing links.  Who's the guy on 
>"Night Court" who's always saying "What's your point?".  I feel like him.
>Baseball is a team sport, you say.  What's your point?  How does this imply
>preferring players with worse stats if they have good attitude?  How many
>points of OBP is team happiness worth?  Don't laugh; if you can't answer the
>question even approximately, then you can't use these criteria to evaluate
>teams and players.
>
What I am saying that a player with a good attitude, a hard worker and is
dedicated to the team (not himself) is good for the team spirit which in
turn makes other team members play better.  What I am saying is that a team
with a lot of talented whiners and complainers who only think about themselves
and about how much money they make or should make may not be any better than
a team with a bunch of less talented hard workers with good attitudes who 
don't cause problems with fans, media or other players.

--DAvid Johnson  

>-- 
>       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