From: nss3@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Noel Steere)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Lies, Damn Lies, & Statistics (was Re: The Monthly Cecil Fielder Thread
Date: 3 Sep 92 00:57:52 GMT
Reply-To: nss3@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Sep02.204409.2123@brtph560.bnr.ca> psycho@brtpa25.bnr.ca (Paul Jezioranski) writes:
>Since we've all gone into gory detail about how much better Tony
>Phillips, Lou Whitaker, and Mickey Tettleton are than Cecil Fielder, I
>thought I'd delve into another issue.
>
>I brought up the example of using opposing pitcher's ERA in the
>RBI/PA/RISP equation to illustrate that these statistics are getting
>absurd. If you are going to go into gory detail about each hitter than
>go all the way:
>
>	How about RBI vs. Plate Appearances with Runners in Scoring Position
>	taking into account opposing pitcher's ERA plus day vs. night games
>	(ball generally carries better in hotter air) plus opponents' fielding
>	pct. plus avg. wind speed and direction for each day, accounting for
>	left or right handed pitcher, plus actual base that the RISP are on
>	plus how many guys are out, plus whether there's a guy on first (a DP
>	may affect whether he gets an RBI) plus whether the umpire was 
>	scratching his left testicle while the pitch was occurring....

Um, because the sample size would be ridiculously small (like, oh, I
don't know, *one*)?

>Why don't we bemoan all of those RBI that Lou Gehrig had. Hell, Babe Ruth was
>batting in front of him most of the time. Let's yank him from the Hall of 
>Fame.

Probably because Gherig didn't make nearly as many outs in a season as
Fielder does (or just about anyone else not in the HOF, for that
matter).  Gherig wasn't amazing because of his RBI total, he was
amazing because he could hit for tremendous power and get on base -- a
lot.

>Any statistic you can come up with is bound to be affected by countless "what
>ifs". Keep it simple. Games played, runs scored, hits, walks, RBI, etc. (i.e.
>the basics) give a solid idea of hitting performance. Sure there may be some
>misleading info, but many of the other stats you can present can also be
>equally as misleading.

Well, not that I haven't noticed the scorch marks you seem to be
feeling :-), but... you *were* the one to bring up the opposing
pitcher's ERA in Canseco's/Fielder's RBI situations, so it's not
really fair to say that the people who responded to your posting were
delving into the "what ifs" (though I'll admit, who's pitching is the
most important factor in what a batter will do in an at bat, aside
from the batter's own ability.  However, it's safe to assume that each
league has about the same amount of pitching talent and hitting
talent, so your "what if" isn't a factor).  In fact, I'd say most, if
not all, of those people believe that situation specific
improvement/diminishment (i.e., "clutch"/"choke" ability) is a myth.
They (and, I may as well admit now before going any further, myself
:-)) believe that every PA a batter has reflects on his ability, not
just the ones that happen to occur with runners on base.  Likewise,
they, like myself, believe that a batter's ability doesn't suddenly
change depending on the situation (a la the day/night/testicle stuff
you postulate above).  I mean, who would you rather have at the plate
with the bases loaded, Frank Thomas or Pat Tabler (Tabler is something
like 50-for-102 in that specific situation)?  I'll give you one guess
(two if you guess Tabler :-)).

Now, if a batter's ability doesn't change from situation to situation,
why would a statistic that largely depends on what the situation is
when a batter comes up to the plate be a good measure of how good that
batter is in helping his team score runs (he asks rhetorically :-))?
Simple.  It isn't.  This is why we look at other statistics to judge
things like who the best hitter is (and, as a corrolary [sp?], who
the MVP is, but we can deal with that later, since I'm really
responding to your "any stats other than the really simple ones can be
just as misleading, so why bother using them instead" remark).  And,
pray, you ask, what statistics might those be?  Boy, I thought you'd
never ask (actually, you're probably saying to yourself "boy, I never
thought he'd ask himself."  But anyway... :-)).  It turns out that we
can pretty accurately guess how many runs a team will score given two
things: The team's on-base percentage (or, how well the team gets on
base without making an out), and the team's slugging percentage (or,
how well the team moves runners over without making an out).  This
works well for any season you can mention; not perfectly, mind you,
but well enough to believe that there's a strong correlation between
OBP and SLG on the one hand, and scoring runs on the other.

Incidentally, notice the common phrase in both parenthetical
statements: "without making an out".  To use a comparison that another
r.s.bber likes to make, outs in baseball are like the game clock in
other sports.  Each team has 27 of them (24 if they're already ahead
and the other team has used their alotted 27), and each one is very
precious, since once it's used, the team is that much closer to the
end of any more chances to score runs, and as you said in an earlier
post (quite correctly), scoring the most runs is what it's all about.

So, if we take as givens:

1) The talent in each league is roughly equal, so no one batter will
have a significantly easier/harder time hitting than any other batter.

2) A batter's ability is not affected by the situation (i.e., stuff
like "how many men are on").

3) OBP and SLG give us a good idea how many runs a team will score.

And lastly:

4) A team's OBP and SLG is directly the sum of the individual player's
respective OBPs and SLGs (This one is derived from the definition of
team stats).

We can conclude that the better a player's OBP and SLG, the more he
will help his team score runs.

Given this conclusion, and given Cecil Fielder's OBP and SLG and the
fact that he plays the least demanding defensive position (aside from
DH :-)), can you see why others on the Net claim that Fielder isn't
even the most valuable player on the team, let alone the entire
American League?  Also, can you see why some Netters claim that there
are at least 20-40 players that would help the Tigers score runs more
than Fielder?  Incidentally, here's a list of the obvious ones
(OBP+SLG > .850 > .784 = Fielder's OBP+SLG):

Daulton
Kruk
Bonds
Van Slyke
McGriff
Sheffield
W. Clark
Hoiles (Injured, admittedly)
Brunansky
Whitaker
Deer
Molitor
Tartabull
Alomar
Winfield
Thomas
Mack
Puckett
McGwire (again, injured)
Henderson (of course, three of him wouldn't be bad either :-))
E. Martinez
Griffey, Jr.
Downing

That's 23, with 2 on his team right now.  That's not including guys
who just missed, like Brady Anderson (OPS of .848) or Juan Gonzalez
(OPS of .838.  Incidentally, Gonzalez has a worse OBP than Fielder,
.302 compared to .318, but he outslugs Fielder .536 to .465, so I'm
not just getting on Fielder's case because he doesn't get on base, I'm
also getting on his case for not hitting the ball far enough often
enough to make up for it).

I hope I've made a convincing argument, and I hope you'll reconsider
your estimation of Cecil Fielder.  This article went much longer than
I anticipated, but that's probably because I'm venting a lot of
pent-up frustration at the idiots in the media who shower guys like
Fielder, George Bell, and Andre Dawson with praises but largely ignore
guys like Lou Whitaker or take a dim view to guys like Barry Bonds or
Frank Thomas because "they take too many walks, and that doesn't help
the team win."  Yeah, right.  Frank Thomas so much as admitted that he
swung at ball 4 in Oakland a few weeks ago to try and keep a hitting
streak alive.  The result?  An inning ending double-play (true,
anecdotal evidence is pretty useless, but it's soooooo much fun to
use! :-).


>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Paul Jezioranski			|	What, me worry??
>psycho@bnr.ca				|
>Bell-Northern Research, Inc. RTP, NC	|

Noel Steere                  |...of the Dave Rossing fan club
GM/Manager, New York Knights |Knights' Run Total: 467 Runs in 93 games
Internet Baseball League     |Projected Season Total: 813  Target: 1000!
nss3@midway.uchicago.edu     |HECTOR VILLANUEVA FOR PRESIDENT
                             |(Heck, the Cubs sure aren't using him!)
                             |OMAR VIZQUEL FOR VICE-PRESIDENT
                             |(Or at least a Gold Glove!) [Woof!]
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball