From: kubey@sgi.com (Ken Kubey)
Subject: Re: Bonds "choke"?
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 21:20:51 GMT

In article <GRABINER.92Oct5144048@birkhoff.harvard.edu> grabiner@math.harvard.edu (David Grabiner) writes:
>In article <1992Oct5.144730.18495@odin.corp.sgi.com>, Ken Kubey writes:
>
>> In article <1992Oct4.214410.23833@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>
>>>Or could it be, just maybe, that if you take 270 players and have them
>>>face the top pitching staffs in the league in short series there is
>>>a good random chance that two of them will go 0 for 16?
>
>> Sure.  Note that we are really talking about 0-20.
>> Anyone know Gene Tenace's overall BA for the years in question?  
>
>> If my calculator and brain are working right, the chance of a .300 hitter
>> going 0-20 is 0.000798 or 0.0798%.
>
>Tenace was never a .300 hitter; he was a good offensive player because
>he walked and hit for power.  In the five years that the A's won the
>division, he hit .274, .225, .259, .211, .255.  That's a .245 average,
>which would probably go down to .222 facing only the better starters on
>a good team.  The chance that Tenace would go 0 for 20 in a specific
>series of LCS at-bats is .00656.
>
>Likewise, the Bonds predicted BA is too high, and chance of an 0-20
>streak too low; he doesn't get to face the fifth starters on last-place
>teams.  .002 for a *specific* streak of 20 AB is probably closer.

I think your calculations are pretty good.  A 20-30 point drop in average
seems reasonable in the LCS.  Nonetheless, we still see that Tenace's
0-20 was 3 times more likely than Bonds'.  While the pure numbers were
the same (0-20), the Pirates lost more of their expected offense.

>But these probabilities don't mean much in isolation; look at the sample
>size.  Bonds had a particular streak in which he went 0-20.  The streak
>would have been just as interesting if it had been his last 12 at-bats
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>in 1990 and his first 8 in 1991, or if it had been Van Slyke, or if it
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>had been Jose Canseco in the 1988 ALCS and World Series, or Canseco in
>the 1988 ALCS and 1989 ALCS.  

Interesting in what sense?  
Is it just as interesting as me going 0-20 in little league?
Yes, big hitters like Van Slyke and Canseco having a similar streaks
in the post-season *is* just as interesting.

>Given the number of places that you could have found an interesting
>streak, the fact that you found one with probability .002 doesn't
>suggest that something unusual is happening.

I think it *does* "suggest" that something unusual is happening.
It doesn't prove anything, but it certainly suggests something.
.002 is still a 500-1 longshot.  Interestingly, this streak happened to
one of the leagues most feared hitters in the most important games
he has ever played. 

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