From: niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent)
Subject: Re: Blue Jays-Gillick
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 07:07:58 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.210013.10713@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca> maynard@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (Roger Maynard) writes:
>In <1992Dec16.155127.10035@cs.cornell.edu> tedward@cs.cornell.edu (Edward [Ted] Fischer) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec16.032238.9715@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca> maynard@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (Roger Maynard) writes:

>>>>I'll take Cito, thank you very much.

>>>So should every team in baseball.  At least in '92.  Because the team he
>>>managed won it all and that's all there is to win...

>>That is the most ridiculous statement I've seen in ages.  And I'm not
>>even taking it out of context!

>>I'll take Alfredo Griffin, thank you very much.  "So should every team
>>in baseball.  At least in '92.  Because the team he played for won it
>>all, and that's all there is to win...".

>Can you prove to me that in '92 the Jays would have won without Griffin?
>(or Gaston or any other member of the team).  No you can't and until you can
>prove it you cannot tell me that any member of the team was more important
>than any other if importance is defined as being necessary to winning the WS. 

Well, by the same token, *you* can't prove that either Cito or Alfredo
*was* necessary.  And yet you claimed that Cito *was,* because "any team
should have taken him in 1992."

If Cito *wasn't* important, then the claim "so should every team in
baseball" is meaningless.

Of course we can't *prove* it.  Obviously not to your satisfaction.  On
the other hand, we also can't *prove* that when you drop something, it
will fall, that the Earth is not flat, or that Cito Gaston even exists.

But why do you hold baseball to a higher standard than any other part
of life?  Can you prove that food was more important to your health
yesterday than watching TV?  Of course not.  Just because eating has been
shown over millions of years to be important to your health, while the
importance of watching TV has not been shown, doesn't mean that
*yesterday* watching TV wasn't as important as eating.  You watched TV
and you ate yesterday.  You stayed healthy.  No point in any more
conversation.  Food+TV was a success.  Trying to separate the two just
leads to error, "because you don't know the complete extent of that
[object's] contribution."  Everything else is "meaningless" "speculation."

>>It is a stupid statement because it says nothing of interest.  Was

>What says "nothing of interest" is comparing one player in a hypothetical
>situation to another.  Much was said this fall about how Abbott would have
>done in Jack Morris' shoes.  This is absurd.  It is impossible and 
>therefore has no relevance to baseball in the real world.  You cannot

Really?  Do you mean to say that Pat Gillick doesn't go around thinking
about whether to acquire Jack Morris or Jim Abbott?  Really?  You mean
he doesn't think it has relevance to baseball?   I think *that's* absurd.

>isolate the contribution of any one player to the team effort because you
>don't know the complete extent of that players contribution.  What is really
>silly is when you attempt to sum the isolated contributions to get the 
>total measure of a team's quality.  You have just compounded your original
>error by 25 (the number of players).

But you're ignoring empirical evidence that you are wrong.  We *can*
predict how many runs a team will score from the players' individual
stats.  We *can* predict how many wins a team will get from the runs
scored and allowed.  

The fact that you don't understand it doesn't make it less true.  Baseball
is not voodoo.  You can't disbelieve sabermetrics and have it disappear.

>What is really stupid and of little interest is to claim that any manager
>was "better" than Gaston in '92.  We know that the team that employed Gaston
>won.  We will never know whether or not that team would have won with any
>other manager and any speculation on this issue is purely idle.

If it wasn't of interest, it wouldn't be discussed, so you're just wrong.

It IS of interest, because what we care about is who will help a
team in 1993, not who helped in 1992.  A manager that was "better" in
1992, and also 1990 and 1991, is more likely to be "better" in 1993 also.

>>Cito the most successful manager in 1992?  Of course.  Was he the
>>best?  Not by any normal definition of "best".  (I know.  You prefer
>>your own dictionary, in which "best" and "most successful" are
>>synonyms.  Why don't you just accept that the rest of the world
>>defines the terms differently?)

>What you consider the "best" is meaningless.  The fact that so many argue 
>about just what the "best" is should be your first clue.  The fact that
>nobody argues about who the "most successful" is should be your second.

No, it certainly is NOT meaningless.  No one goes around arguing about
who won the World Series last year.  That should tell *you* something.  
They're interested in who is going to win the WS *THIS* year.  

That means what you need to know is who will help the team *this* year.
And that involves knowing what helps teams and who provides that help.

Of *course* best != most successful.

Why do you bother to respond if you don't care?  Just because *you*
can't understand a more complex concept than a yes-no won-lost one
doesn't mean that (at least some of) the rest of the world can't.

-- 
David M. Nieporent   | Is it too early to start making predictions for 1993?
niepornt@phoenix.    | Probably, but that never stopped me before.
   princeton.edu     | ALE: Baltimore ALW: Chicago NLE: Montreal NLW: Atlanta
Baltimore Orioles 93 | AL MVP: Cal Ripken  AL Cy Young: Mike Mussina