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From: David Short on 1 Jun 2007 09:54 coachrose13(a)hotmail.com wrote: > On May 31, 6:02 pm, Ron Johnson <john...(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: >> Put simply, if Ks were important in modelling team runs >> scored, our models wouldn't work. There's no room for >> Ks to matter more than a couple of runs per team per >> year. > > MODELING??? I thought teams were actually trying to score runs. K's > only cost a team a couple of runs a year, huh? Stay with your fanasty > league all you want; I'll watch real baseball where it is ALWAYS more > important to put the ball in play than not. This is one of the fundamental chasm's that sabremetrics cannot cross. There are people who do not believe in math. They do not understand it. They don't know what it does. When the math doesn't fit what they think they know, it MUST be the math is wrong. dfs
From: Bob Braun on 1 Jun 2007 11:29 "David Short" <David.no.Short(a)Spam.Wright.Please.edu> wrote in message news:46602529.6050808(a)Spam.Wright.Please.edu... > coachrose13(a)hotmail.com wrote: >> On May 31, 6:02 pm, Ron Johnson <john...(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: >>> Put simply, if Ks were important in modelling team runs >>> scored, our models wouldn't work. There's no room for >>> Ks to matter more than a couple of runs per team per >>> year. >> >> MODELING??? I thought teams were actually trying to score runs. K's >> only cost a team a couple of runs a year, huh? Stay with your fanasty >> league all you want; I'll watch real baseball where it is ALWAYS more >> important to put the ball in play than not. > > This is one of the fundamental chasm's that sabremetrics cannot cross. > > There are people who do not believe in math. They do not understand it. > They don't know what it does. When the math doesn't fit what they think > they know, it MUST be the math is wrong. > > dfs I understand the math. I understand the models. I understand the concepts. I don't think K's are as costly as some may think. BUT........ when we are talking about ground balls, fly balls, moving runners and the relative percentages, I still prefer a ball in play. How many times does a runner advance on a K? The numbers are also skewed by the selfishness of modern day baseball players. They simply don't adjust. Situational hitting is a lost art, and it's often times not discernable on a stat sheet.
From: John Kasupski on 1 Jun 2007 12:22 On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 09:54:49 -0400, David Short <David.no.Short(a)Spam.Wright.Please.edu> wrote: >coachrose13(a)hotmail.com wrote: >> On May 31, 6:02 pm, Ron Johnson <john...(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: >>> Put simply, if Ks were important in modelling team runs >>> scored, our models wouldn't work. There's no room for >>> Ks to matter more than a couple of runs per team per >>> year. >> >> MODELING??? I thought teams were actually trying to score runs. K's >> only cost a team a couple of runs a year, huh? Stay with your fanasty >> league all you want; I'll watch real baseball where it is ALWAYS more >> important to put the ball in play than not. > >This is one of the fundamental chasm's that sabremetrics cannot cross. > >There are people who do not believe in math. They do not understand it. >They don't know what it does. When the math doesn't fit what they think >they know, it MUST be the math is wrong. Would you pay $250 for a seat in the Diamond section at GABP to watch guys in three-piece suits sit down in front of tables with computers on them and run numbers through Excel to determine which team wins the championship every year? That's basically what fantasy baseball is about. In the real world, that's not what baseball is about at all. One of the things by which people are going to test sabermetrics is whether or not it agrees with reality. Which is a good test. In fact, Grabiner even says so in his manifesto. The reality in real-world baseball is that on each and every day when a game is played, each team has an opportunity to win a game that day. There's no guarantee that he team that math determines to be the better team is going to win any particular game. And at the end of the season, the teams that have won the most games in each division make the playoffs, along with the non-division winning team with the most wins. That's the reality. Like it or not, ultimately the only thing that really counts is the number under W in the standings. This is why I'm with coachrose13 on this one. A lot of what Saber works with sounds great for the fantasy baseball leagues where the players are just numbers on a sheet and the winners and losers are determined based on the math, but...well, who was it that said that every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step? A team's journey to the playoffs begins with tonight's game. Math is simply not up to the task of determining who is going to win tonight and who is going to lose. That's going to be determined by factors that no equation can hope to quantify. I don't know offhand what the Reds' record was in one-run ballgames during the 2000 season. But in any one of those games, if a guy comes up with a runner on third and less than two outs and instead of striking out, he grounds out while the runner scores and ties the game, then what? The math that tells us the difference is only a couple of runs a year can be correct, but the contention that it therefore makes no difference whether the guy strikes out or puts the ball in play does not take into account the timing of WHEN that handful of runs is scored or not scored. That's where the math fails the test of whether or not the math agrees with reality. Perhaps the Reds win that game in extra innings. As a result of that one statistically insignificant play, the Reds get one more W and instead of finishing in a tie with the Mets, they win a postseason berth outright. And as we all know, once a team gets into the postseason the sample size for a 5-game or 7-game series is so small, neither sabermetrics nor anything else has any hope of accurately predicting the results. I remember a guy who hit one HR all year long who hit two in the same game in a WS. Based on stats the probability was that the guy wasn't going to homer at all during that series. But he did, however much to the consternation of the mathemeticians who must explain it away as "small sample size" because no equation can quantify all of the factors that will determine the outcome of tonight's game. Which is a Good Thing. Otherwise there would be no point in playing the games. John D, Kasupski, Tonawanda, NY Reds Fan Since The 1960's http://www.kc2hmz.net
From: Dan Szymborski on 1 Jun 2007 13:15 In article <1180688605.237021.319280(a)q69g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, johnson(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca says... > On Jun 1, 3:51 am, coachros...(a)hotmail.com wrote: > > Stay with your fanasty > > league all you want; I'll watch real baseball where it is ALWAYS more > > important to put the ball in play than not. > > How on earth would you know? Have you actually troubled to > check your assumptions? You *know* someone's exasperating when *Ron* borders on losing his temper! [...] -- Dan Szymborski dan(a)baseballprimer.REMOVE.com "A critic who refuses to attack what is bad is not a whole-hearted supporter of what is good." - Robert Schumann
From: Lance Freezeland on 1 Jun 2007 13:19
On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:51:49 -0700, coachrose13(a)hotmail.com gave us: >On May 31, 6:02 pm, Ron Johnson <john...(a)ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote: >> Put simply, if Ks were important in modelling team runs >> scored, our models wouldn't work. There's no room for >> Ks to matter more than a couple of runs per team per >> year. >MODELING??? I thought teams were actually trying to score runs. K's >only cost a team a couple of runs a year, huh? Stay with your fanasty >league all you want; I'll watch real baseball where it is ALWAYS more >important to put the ball in play than not. What's particularly amusing about this response is that fantasy baseball generally concerns itself with the same sort of stats that guys like "coachrose13" generally like -- runs, RBI, batting average. You know where it's ALWAYS important to put the ball in play? In my son's Khoury League, where the error rate is astronomical. But in the big leagues, that's not true -- that's what Dan and Ron are trying to tell you, if only you'd listen. If you want to build a team which scores more runs, you avoid guys who contribute those so-called "productive outs". And 99% of the time, an out is an out is an out, no matter how it's made. -- Lance Go St. Louis Cardinals! 2006 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS National League Central Division Champions 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006 ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups ----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---- |