From: thornley@milli.cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: joe carter and others
Date: 15 Dec 92 18:40:41 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.

In article <1992Dec14.024046.12197@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca> maynard@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (Roger Maynard) writes:
>In <ly_rtzm@lynx.unm.edu> kbos@carina.unm.edu (K. Mitchell Bose) writes:
[Much omitted.]
>>Here, however, is the standard argument against relying on personal observation
>>to judge quality.  "Very few people see a wide enough sample of fielders, or 
>>fielding chances for a lot of fielders, to form anything but the sketchiest 
>>of impressions regarding the comparative quality of fielders."
>
>I agree with this totally.  I myself don't see near enough games to judge
>objectively.  But some people do.  Managers and other players do.  And
>they don't need stats to tell them what is going on.
>
They make lousy decisions, also.  Consider Kirby Puckett as Gold Glove winner.
If you look at Sherri's Defensive Averages, you will see that Puckett was
never good (since '88, anyway), has been going downhill steadily, and is now
pretty bad.  (Actually, Puckett's better defensively than his DA shows, but
that's another argument.)  Now, if you will trust the eyes of a couple of
Twins fans who have been watching the Puckster in person a couple dozen
games a year for a while....Puckett is nowhere near the fielder he was a
few years ago, and is no longer in any sense a good center fielder.

If you think my wife and I are going to disbelieve our eyes *and* Sherri's
stats, you're crazy.

>>In 1989, the Twins speeded the "dismantling" of their 1987 core by trading
>>Frank Viola for, among other people, Tapani and Aguilera.  These two were 
>>important cogs in the 1991 championship.
>
>They had to trade him.  He was about to declare free agency and they couldn't
>afford to sign him.
>
First, they signed him.  It was a big contract, but not that big.  The fact
that attendance was going down steadily from '88 to '91 didn't stop them
from signing Puckett and Hrbek and Morris and Davis and Pagliarulo when they
came around.

Second, this was an excellent trade.  Tapani has been better than Viola since
the trade, and having Aguilera around far outweighs having to put up with
David West.  The only way it could turn favorable for the Mets is if they
got somebody *good* with the draft choices they got when Viola went to
Boston.

>>>Never mind the fact that some fans actually *enjoy* watching Carter and
>>>White and their teammates perform.  The fans, that is, who enjoy watching the
>>>game more than they enjoy tabulating statistics.
>
>>Might I suggest Madonna in left, then? Lots of people enjoy seeing her perform,
>>too.
>
>Well I guess you are judging Madonna's ability based on her performance in 
>that film.  If you really think that she can play at the major league level
>then perhaps you had best stay with the stats.
> 
Actually, one of the things that bothered me about the movie was that the
actors didn't look like they were able to play baseball at all well.
The point, though, is that fans go to the game for various reasons.  The
fans that really want to see good baseball don't want to see Devon White
lead off with Carter eating outs in the #3 hole, and the fans that really
want to see entertaining players might be just as happy with Madonna (if
there are fans like these, of course).  Of course, Madonna would cost an
impossible amount of money to sign...if you thought baseball salaries are
high, consider what movie stars make.

>>I wonder what the correlation between attendance of winning teams is with
>>attendance of "entertaining" teams.  Of course, you don't; that would require
>>"statistics".
>
>No team, even if they win every year, are going to attract fans if they keep
>turning over their personnel every year.  
>
Ah, a testable hypothesis.  We could test this, you know, by seeing if
attendance correlates better with performance (probably including last
year's performance) or with player turnover.  My personal guess, which I
will nominate as every bit as scientific and authoritative as yours, is
that winning games and titles will attract more fans than merely having
stable players.

David Thornley
"Da reindeers homers are locked on.  Launch da missiles" - Arnold
Schwartznegger in _Hot_Buttered_Elves_