From: mzimmers@netcom.com (Michael Zimmers)
Subject: Re: Value of Stats
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 17:14:54 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In an unabashed effort to position myself as a "Stats-Moderate" (hmm, 
S/M for short.  Not bad...) I'd like to serve as interpreter for a
brief, dull moment:

In article <1992Jul27.155847.9929@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca> 91287041@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (roger maynard) writes:

>In <3797@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> dtate+@pitt.edu (David M Tate) writes:

>>He meant the context of those 195 hits, not the context of your comments.
>>As in, what *else* did Puckett do besides get 195 hits?  After all, Juan
>>Samuel had 191 hits in 1984 and was barely above average offensively.  Willie
>>Wilson had *230* hits in 1980, and wasn't nearly as valuable as Barry Bonds
>>was last year.  You need to know what Paul Harvey would call "the rest of
>>the story", and what Greg was calling "context".

>We are comparing the contributions made, to their respective teams over-all
>performances, by Puckett, who had 195 hits last year, and Salazar, who had 86.
>86 hits!  Now the "rest of the story" may be relevant if we are comparing
>195 hits to 150 in the context of the teams over-all performance but not 86.
>RC27 is only relevant if they had approximately the same amount of total
>RC in 91.  And they didn't.  91 to 39 isn't even close.  

I believe that Roger is implying that there is a reason that Salazar
got such limited time to perform, and he doesn't mean injuries.
One could make an argument that platoon players see more favorable
hitting conditions on average than do everyday players.  But because
those more-favorable conditions by definition don't comprise a full
season, the platooning player is contributing less than a full-timer
with similar numbers.

Besides, he takes up an extra roster spot that could otherwise be used
for picking up Jim Acker down the stretch run...

>>Such as, the fact that Puckett made 436 outs and grounded into 27 double
>>plays, while Bonds made 387 outs and grounded into 8 double plays.  If you
>>*really* are interested in measuring contribution toward the team's quest
>>for the WC, then you need to add up both positive contributions and negative
>>contributions.  Hits are positive.  Outs are negative.

>Of course Bonds statistics are better!  That is why I made the Bonds/Puckett
>comparison.  Did Bonds, with his better statistics, (and his questionable
>attitude), contribute more to his team's success than Puckett contributed
>to his?  The question would be meaningless if Bonds stats were not better. 

While not taking sides on the Bonds attitude thing, Roger, I'd suggest
that it be set aside until we've come closer to a meeting of the minds
on the topic of the value of normalizing RC.  The waters are already
pretty muddy.

>>>I was talking about the contribution two stars have each made to their team's
>>>quest for the WC.  How is the RC27 of a less than full-time player relevant to
>>>that contribution?  

>>By giving a common standard for comparison. 

Is it?  An everyday player's numbers are a matter of record.  How
confident are you that a right-handed batter who sees mostly left-handed
pitching, will maintain his rate of performance if played everyday?
-- 
Michael Zimmers                                    |  Home:  408 996 1984
SoftHelp                                           |  Work:  408 996 1965
Software Solutions for Open Systems                |  Data:  408 996 1974
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball