From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: The Monthly Cecil Fielder Thread
Date: 4 Sep 92 16:37:12 GMT
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <1992Sep4.135613.12529@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> g_waugaman@nac.enet.dec.com (Glenn R. Waugaman) writes:

>In article <1992Sep4.031814.2861@Princeton.EDU>, roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes...
>>In article <1992Sep3.213256.13572@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> g_waugaman@nac.enet.dec.com (Glenn R. Waugaman) writes:

>>>Through 1991 for his career those numbers are .275/.374/.548 ROB versus 
>>>.249/.319/.508 bases empty, and the trend appears to be continuing again
>>>this year.  If Cecil is eating up outs and killing potential rallies, at
>>>least he doesn't appear to be doing it excessively so with men on (not
>>>with that .374 OBP).  I can certainly live with that bases empty/men on 
>>>trade-off.

>>OK.  Now, RBI power is basically SLG, so let's focus on that.  (With big
>>bats, a lot of those extra times on base are semi-intentional and
>>intentional walks with runners on.)  Now, if his lifetime splits are 
>>a diff. of 40 points, that's not all that huge.  For one thing, the *league*
>>improved by 22 points with men on last year.  (A fluke, imho; it was 11
>>in 90, 12 in 89, 18 in 88, 5 in 87.  12 seems like a good number.)
>>So that leaves 28 points of difference.

>>And < 2000 PA.  Now, SLG isn't a Bernouilli variable, so we can't 
>>compute variance th usual way.  I'd say the variance is *bigger* than 
>>with a binary var. (right, Dr. Dave?), meaning that we can use .25/n
>>as a lower bound.  For a s.d. somewhere around .018.  

>>Meaning the difference isn't significant by a long shot if we do a 
>>two-sample T-test.

>Okay, I should have separated the career numbers from the two "MVP" 
>seasons (which I am not arguing in favor of, by the way) under question,
>1990 and 1991. 

Is that wise?  After all, we're lookign for some consistent effect, something
that's inherent in Fielder's baseball personality, as it were.  Just to
take the outliers that attracted our attention in the first place is bad
science, to say the least.  

> I really don't know what Fielder did in that period in Toronto. 

Clearly not as well, as the overall split is smaller than the split
for the two years you're focusing on.

>In both 1990 and 1991 Fielder had a SLG of over *.600* with men on base.  
>Even with the knowledge that SLG is boosted slightly for the entire league
>with men on, how many players matched that? 

How many players had a SLG like Fielder's to begin with?  Look, he
sure is a slugger, no doubt about that.

The issue is: does he hit better with men on base?  And can he be expected
to continue in this fashion?  Taken year-by-year, the answer would seem
to be maybe at best.

> [By the way, Fielder's OBP
>for those two years with men on was .405 and .392, and even though that's
>partially a result of pitchers being careful with him-- although a
>significant 

Could we please reserve this word for the statistical sense when we're 
talking stats?  It's certainly *not* a significant difference at usual
(e.g., .05) levels.

>component was improved batting average-- at least he's not up
>there "selfishly" flailing away for the RBIs as I've so often heard said
>in here.] 

>My comments are in response to statements like "20 players in the league 
>would have matched Fielder's RBI totals in that lineup".  That's 
>hyperbole, pure and simple, because the statement is false.  It's one 
>thing to say that based on your knowledge of Fielder's overall statistics 
>he's overrated because you don't believe he can keep up that kind of 
>production with men on base (a reasonable opinion); it's quite another to 
>deny that the excellent production even existed in those seasons, but was 
>rather purely an illusion created by the number of opportunities that 
>Fielder was given.  The opportunities were there, but Fielder also 
>excelled in those situations.

Did he?  did he lead the league (or come close) in percentage of runners
driven in?  Top 20, sure -- that's what SLG does for you.  But others did
as well.  See Elias.

   
Roger