From: mjones@fenway.aix.kingston.ibm.com (Mike Jones)
Subject: Re: Lies, Damn Lies, & Statistics (was Re: The Monthly Cecil Fielder Thread
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 92 16:54:28 GMT
Reply-To: mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com
Organization: IBM Corp. Kingston NY

In article <1992Sep3.175424.9344@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca> 91287041@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (Roger Maynard) writes:
>In <1992Sep3.005752.13903@midway.uchicago.edu> nss3@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Noel Steere) writes:
>
>>you postulate above).  I mean, who would you rather have at the plate
>>with the bases loaded, Frank Thomas or Pat Tabler (Tabler is something
>>like 50-for-102 in that specific situation)?  I'll give you one guess
>>(two if you guess Tabler :-)).
>
>Why not Tabler?  Is 50-102 (or whatever) not a big enough sample size?

It's getting close. 100AB is about where batting numbers begin to become
significant. The larger point is that there's not reason to believe that
Tabler hasn't been the one guy out of everybody in baseball over the last
few years who has been that lucky, or that he won't stop being lucky
tomorrow.
 
>>Now, if a batter's ability doesn't change from situation to situation,
>>why would a statistic that largely depends on what the situation is
>
>A batter's ability will not change from situation to situation but his
>capability does change.  Some hitters derive greater advantage from a
>drawn in infield, or a first baseman anchored to the bag or the knowledge
>that all pitches will be in the strike zone than other batters.  In 
>certain situations then some batters are likely to increase their production
>at a greater rate than others in the same situation.

This actually seems plausible. If the effect does exist, though, we should
be able to measure it, to find the players who actually do better in certain
situations in numbers larger than chance would predict. Do you have any
evidence to support this proposition?
 
>Using the same logic I can tell you that there is a strong corelation
>between RBI's and runs scored...

Now, here you just went right off into the weeds. There's the same sort of
"correlation" between RBI and runs scored as there is between pitchers' runs
allowed and ERA: namely, they're two slightly different methods of counting
the same thing. It's not really meaningful to use the word "correlation" in
that context.
 
>>So, if we take as givens:
>>2) A batter's ability is not affected by the situation (i.e., stuff
>>like "how many men are on").
>
>The batter's ability is not the issue here.  His capability is and as I said
>above the batter's capability IS situation-dependent.

Proof? Evidence, even?
 
>>3) OBP and SLG give us a good idea how many runs a team will score.
>
>RBI's are strongly corelated with runs scored.  Since we are trying to measure
>an individual's participation in the total runs scored by the team (and not the
>player's ability) RBI's are a strong indicator of how many runs scored an
>individual participated in.  How many of the player's on this list would have
>as many RBI's (or participated in as many runs scored) as Cecil has if they
>were batting in his place? 

1. RBI are not "correlated" in any meaningful sense of the word with runs.
2. RBI only measure a certain *type* of participation in run scoring. Do you
have any explanation why that type is more valuable than the others? To wit
(and to drag out a commonly-seen example on r.s.bb.), consider the following
inning: Player A (call him Lou) singles. Player B (call him Tony) singles,
sending Lou to third. Player C (call him Cecil) flies out to center, Lou
scores. Next two players strike out. Lou gets a run scored. Cecil, even
though he made an out, gets an RBI. Tony, without whom the run would not
have scored, gets the shaft. Tell me again what a good measure RBI is.
Better yet, explain it to Tony at arbitration time.
3. That's an easy one. Most of them. Not only that, most of them would
improve Tettleton's RBI totals too, by getting on base while Cecil is
sitting in the dugout after a K or sac fly.
 
>>I hope I've made a convincing argument, and I hope you'll reconsider
>>your estimation of Cecil Fielder.  This article went much longer than
>
>I think it has become trendy to knock Fielder.  Fielder is a good ball
>player.  He may not be the best but he is far from the worst.  He is
>consistent and he comes to play.  He is a valuable part of Detroit's
>offense.  

"He may not be the best" is one of the mildest claims I've seen from Fielder
supporters. If you look at the facts, he's clearly not the best. He's also
far from the worst. He's an above average offensive player, but he's not
even the best on his team. By RC27 (as used by Jeff Sagarin in the Thang),
he's about 35th in the AL. Phillips is 15, Tettleton 18, Fryman 36. Neither
Phillips or Fryman get as much assist from Tiger Stadium as Fielder does.
 
>>I anticipated, but that's probably because I'm venting a lot of
>>pent-up frustration at the idiots in the media who shower guys like
>>Fielder, George Bell, and Andre Dawson with praises but largely ignore
>>guys like Lou Whitaker or take a dim view to guys like Barry Bonds or
>>Frank Thomas because "they take too many walks, and that doesn't help
>>the team win."  Yeah, right.  Frank Thomas so much as admitted that he
>When has this been said?  I have never heard a "mediot" say that taking

Watch Ray Knight sometime. Shouldn't take more than about 3 minutes, unless
he's talking about how David Cone's arguing with an umpire while 2 runs
score shows how he's "the kind of pitcher I'd want on my team."

   Mike Jones  |  AIX/ESA Development  |  mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.  Inside of a dog, it is too
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	- Groucho Marx