From: maynard@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (Roger Maynard)
Subject: Re: Mattingly, what a fine fielder (was: Hardly not etc.)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 22:01:54 GMT

In <BxBBy9.nn@fc.sde.hp.com> mjs@fc.hp.com (Marc Sabatella) writes:

>And I fully and wholeheartedly support that.  If the question is about rules,
>reading the rulebook suffices.  If it is about the popularity of the game,
>reading about it will do.  And if it is about knowing how many homeruns Manny
>Sanguillen hit in 1974, a reference book will suffice.  If I want to discuss
>who was the best hitter in 1927, I don't have to be transported back into time;

Huh?  "Best" hitter?  No, you can see who had the "best" statistics in 1927
by looking it up in a book.  And if you are prepared to say that the "best"
hitter is the one with the "best" statistics then you are unenlightened.

>the record books provide more than enough data.  You're begging the question,
>"what makes defense so special that it is the only thing we think cannot be
>measured"?

No I do think that defense can be measured.  I just question the value of
the measurements.

>baseball, this is nonsense.  Watching Don Mattingly day in and day out will not
>give you a clue how he compares to Mark Grace, and only a glimmer of an idea of
>how he compares to Mark McGwire.  And even if you saw a lot of both of them,

Watching mattingly day in and day out in spring training tells showalter
(or whomever) that mattingly is the best in the Yankee system.  That is what
spring training is for - to "see" who the best players are.  If Grace suddenly
found himself in pinstripes the yankee "brain"trust would have to make a
decision.  Only a part of that decision will be based on pure statistics.
And of course this is how it should be.


>: I guess if you don't understand the fundamentals of how a player should
>: field a position, and I guess if you are unable to see whether one is an
>: athlete or not then I guess you have no recourse.  One thing is for sure:
>: if you don't watch any games you won't have a clue.

>Again, why is defense so different?  I don't understand the fundamentals of
>swinging a bat, either, but even without looking at them play, I can check the
>statistics and tell you that whatever it is, Barry Bonds does a better job of

No you can see that Bonds has accumulated more, in the past, of what it is
that you are trying to measure, whether that is BA, SA or OBP or whatever.
Whether or not these measurements tell us which player is "better" is 
another question altogether.

>it than Dave Valle.  For the zillionth time, your arguments come down to one
>thing, and one thing only: this belief you have that defense is inherently
>unmeasurable.  If you want to discuss that, fine, but stop obfuscating the
>issue with this irrelevant nonsense about watching things being the only way to
>ever find out about anything.  If you believe defense is unique in this, give

No, I am not proposing one "ultimate" method of deciding who the "best"
player is.  You are.  Stats have value, certainly, but they are not the
be-all end-all method of telling you who is the "best".  They can be
used to support decisions but not to make them.  

>: Then again, some 
>: people spend half of their lives watching games and they don't have a 
>: clue neither.

>Exactly the point - this is why we say watching someone can be the worst way to
>evaluate him - because it is so incredibly subjective and prone to error.

Well if someone is making an evaluation based solely on statistics because
they don't have a clue...I give them credit for trying to make a contribution.
As long as they don't go around pretending that they do have a clue...

rm

-- 
roger maynard
maynard@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca