From: genetic+@pitt.edu (Tate N Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: The Monthly Cecil Fielder Thread
Date: 2 Sep 92 14:10:19 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <1992Sep02.131254.23869@brtph560.bnr.ca> psycho@brtpa25.bnr.ca (Paul Jezioranski) writes:

>psycho@brtpa25.bnr.ca (Paul Jezioranski) writes:
>> >
>> >This is the most ridiculous talent appraisal I've witnessed in some
>> >time. Power hitters are paid to drive in runs. Nobody has been better at
>> >that for the last three years than Cecil Fielder. 
>> 
>> No -- nobody's done it more often than Cecil Fielder.  That doesn't mean
>> he's the best at it, just that he's happened to be in the lineup with
>> the most opportunities.

[Ted proceeds to give ample proof that Cecil is not the best at driving in
runners, even should one concede that RBI ability is a good measure of value
to the team.]

>I won't argue the numbers but, as always, statistics are quite misleading:

Only to the gullible.  One might just as well say "Well, I won't argue at all,
since words can be misleading."

>	1) You indicate each performers RBI vs. RISP, but there's no 
>	   quantification of the pitching quality. How do I know that the
>	   avg. ERA of the pitchers Fielder faced in these situations wasn't
>	   a half point lower than those Canseco faced.

Oh, come on.  What you've just asked is "How do I know that a player's actual
performance record tells me anything useful about how good he is?".  If you
really want to be a baseball Cartesian, and deny the possibility of knowledge
about these things, I suppose nobody can stop you.  After all, how do we know
that the whole thing isn't just a more elaborate version of pro wrestling, 
nicely choreographed for our viewing "pleasure"?

Fundamentally, we know that performance really reflects ability because it
tends to follow a nice stable pattern from year to year, if you look at enough
players to see the trend that's there under the noise.  In fact, if you look 
at the big fluctuations in Fielder's career and those in Canseco's career, you
might well get the idea that Canseco is quite a bit better than Fielder in
actual ability, since Canseco's bad times are well-explained by obvious injury
problems, while Fielder's are mostly mysterious.

>	2) You've got to be in the lineup to get RBIs. Fielder is in more often
>	   than Canseco.

Yup.  So is Omar Vizquel.  

>	3) Maybe six teams had better RBI men than the Tigers, but they have 
>	   led the league in runs scored the past two or three years. That's
>	   what really counts.

Of course.  And the Tigers scored all those runs because of the outstanding
performances of Whitaker, Phillips, Tettleton, Fielder, Fryman, and a few
good role players.  Giving Fielder all the credit simply because he's the one
who ended the rallies is absurd.

One might just as well argue that every umbrella in Seattle is a much better
umbrella than any umbrella in Somalia, because the ones in Seattle deflect a
whole lot more rain every year.



-- 
      David M. Tate      | From my dugout sleep I fell into the Game
 dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu | And I crouched in the circle while my insides froze
 Randall 'Chico' Jarrell | One out from death, one hit from dreamt-of glory
"Death of a Pinch Hitter"| I woke to 'Strike One!' and the nightmare sliders...
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