From: psycho@brtpa25.bnr.ca (Paul Jezioranski)
Subject: Re: Lies, Damn Lies, & Statistics (was Re: The Monthly Cecil Fielder Thread
Reply-To: psycho@brtpa25.bnr.ca (Paul Jezioranski)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1992 19:31:58 GMT

In article <1992Sep04.162411.49348@watson.ibm.com>,
mjones@fenway.aix.kingston.ibm.com (Mike Jones) writes:
> In article <1992Sep03.105123.10657@brtph560.bnr.ca>
psycho@brtpa25.bnr.ca (Paul Jezioranski) writes:
> >In article <1992Sep3.013519.8911@panix.com>, spira@panix.com (Greg
> >"Sarcasm Is A Way Of Life" Spira) writes:
> >> In <1992Sep02.204409.2123@brtph560.bnr.ca> psycho@brtpa25.bnr.ca (Paul
> >Jezioranski) writes: 
> >>  Games played, runs scored, hits, walks, RBI, etc. (i.e.
> >> >the basics) give a solid idea of hitting performance.
> >> No, they don't.
> >> And we can keep it simple by eliminating a lot of these.
> >> Leave us with PAs, SLG, OBP and I'll let you eliminate all the rest.
> >> Is that simple enough for you?
> >Sure. Simply idiotic. An example:
> >
> >	Rudy Fafoofnik: 680 Plate appearances, 1.000 SLG, 1.000 OBP
> >	
> >......	but he scored zero runs because he hit 680 two out singles and
the guy
> >	behind him struck out 680 times.
> 
> BAG O' MF. Let's ignore, for the moment, that you've chosen an example that
> will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, occur in anything resembling real life (even if
> the aliens from the planet Zartron come back and run the season again, like
> in 1987). 

Really; gee, I thought it was pretty realistic.

> Look, instead, at what Rudy did. How valuable was Rudy? Well, for
> starters, look at how stupid his manager was. If he batted every time with
> two out, then it's obvious that his manager didn't put that 1.000 OBP
> leadoff, which leads one to suspect that he must have been playing for Don
> Zimmer. It's not his fault there was two out every time he batted. It's not
> his fault that the man behind him struck out. 

Agreed.

> Put Rudy in front of, say,
> Cecil Fielder and Mickey Tettleton and watch him score about 200 runs and
> each of them get boatloads of RBI.

Assuming he performs identically in his new spot in the batting order.
Assuming all other factors are essentially the same, but they won't
necessarily be, will they? Zartron could block the sun, too...

> Now tell me. If we're trying to figure how valuable Rudy is, should we
> deduct from his value for the men who made outs in front of him? Should we
> deduct for the men who made outs behind him? More to the point, if Rudy
> repeats the same statistics the next year but his team has traded for Brett
> Butler and Rickey Henderson to hit in front of him and Juan Gonzalez and
> Mark McGwire to bat behind him, his RBI and R will balloon.

Notice you say *if* Rudy repeats his feat. You can have all the
potential in the world, but potential doesn't mean squat in the standings.

> Does this
> reflect an increase in *his* value?

Maybe. 

> >Sure you can draw a "likely" conclusion from just those three stats, but
> >you can draw a better conclusion from what the player himself did.
> >Singles, doubles, triples, homers, runs scored, walks, at bats, and RBI
> >give a better than "likely" conclusion of the player's value to the
> >team, and you can calculate your three numbers from these stats. My
> 
> Time to play "one of these things is not like the others":
>    Singles, doubles, triples, homers, runs scored
>    Walks, at bats, RBI.
> Answer: Of these things, only Runs and RBI reflect things that you can't do
> (in most situations) without the help of a teammate.
> 
> >contention is that adding external dependencies (such as who and how
> >many were in scoring position, who was pitching, etc) only complicates
> >things and leads people to draw errant conclusions like "if Jose was in
> >his place, he'd have 5000 RBI". But I guess that's most of the
> >attraction of all these stats. 
> 
> Exactly. That's why true SDCN's prefer stats that eliminate or control for
> as many of those other conditions as possible. RBI are *bad* measures of
> individual ability exactly because they're so context dependent. Several
> studies have shown that two factors determine a player's RBI totals: his SLG
> and the number of men on base when he bats. A player has control over
> exactly one of these things. Hint: it's not men on base.

I'll concede that RBI are a bad measure of individual ability, but they
still measure his opportunism, which is a big part of the game. Also,
singles, doubles, etc. have a huge element of opportunism because poor
pitching can heavily dictate the size of these numbers (as can position
in the batting order, time of day the game is played, ballpark etc.). So
all the stats become context dependent. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Jezioranski			|	What, me worry??
psycho@bnr.ca				|
Bell-Northern Research, Inc. RTP, NC	|
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball