Success and failure

Wow, never thought about that one Stats. 

Good grief.

LOL

I think I did mention somewhere that sometimes that guy across from you just did a better job and you have to tip your cap.

I don't think this is necessarily true, even if it's often the case. A pitcher can execute his pitch perfectly and a good hitter will still occasionally crush it, and that same hitter will sometimes pop up the meatball mistake.

The way the game is structured, the pitcher/defense has the advantage in the individual matchups, so I suspect that more of a hitter's success relies on taking advantage of a pitcher's/defense's mistakes than the other way around. I'm not really sure how'd you go about quantifying that in a systematic way, though.

I think this post illustrates why statistics and sabremetrics never tell the full story. The basic concept of competition is such a mystery to the Brian Kenneys of the baseball world... It can't be quantified.  Stats (as in data, not the poster!) are important and have their place, but different guys can have similar stats and yet be completely different competitors on the field. 

Case in point... Jack Morris pitches through the first ten years of the steroid era and his ERA is a little high by HOF standards... so the sabremetric camp of writers keep him out of the hall. But anyone who watched the man pitch throughout the 80s knows he was a dominant competitor who could and did shut down the best in the game... And always when it counted most.  He's a HOFer IMO... one of the very best pitcher in the game for 10+ seasons. His stats don't tell the story.  How Blyleven can be enshrined (by stacking up a lot of numbers in mostly meaningless games) and Morris likely won't be shows that numbers are playing too large a role in evaluation.  Which guy would you rather have on the bump in the proverbial game seven, Morris... Or Bert Blyleven? Not that Blyleven wasn't a great pitcher as well, he was.

BTW Stats (the poster, not the data), my point probably has nothing to do with your intent in posting... Just a tangent.  But the premise of your post made me think of how stats should always take a back seat to scouting in terms of evaluating "the next level".  I guess I see the HOF as the final "next level".

Originally Posted by TPM:

I think I did mention somewhere that sometimes that guy across from you just did a better job and you have to tip your cap.

I’m sure you have mentioned it as have others including myself, but that wasn’t my question. I’m wondering how pervasive it is to give the other guy credit? I know when my kid was pitching and gave up a hit, the 1^st thing I thought of wasn’t what a great job that hitter did, and I doubt I’m the only person who’s such a wretch.

There were many times I saw a batter hit what looked like a great pitch and I was somewhat angry but accepted that the batter won that battle. But there were a lot of times a batter got a duck fart on a pitch over a foot off the plate in or out, or up or down, and the 1^st thought that came to me was how lucky he was. IOW, the 1^st thing I believe that comes to most peoples’ minds isn’t to recognize the skill of the opposition.

Well, except for this game

http://www.baseball-reference....N/MIN198710080.shtml

And these

http://www.baseball-reference....R/TOR199210070.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference....K/OAK199210110.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference....L/ATL199210170.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference....R/TOR199210220.shtml

Jack Morris was  very good pitcher for some very good teams, but except for the shape of their careers and some post-season glory he wasn't a whole lot different in value to his teams than someone like Jamie Moyer or Frank Tanana.

For the "dominant pitcher of the era" stuff, BTW, try looking at an HOF pitcher's career, and see if anyone put up better numbers during that player's actual career. So, for Morris, look at only the years 1977-1994. Note that this should bias the numbers in favor of the guy you're looking at (since almost anyone in the neighborhood of that player should be having seasons cut out of their totals, since very few players' careers overlap completely).

By WAR, Morris is 12th in his career span, behind guys like Frank Viola, Bret Saberhagen, Mark Langston and Dave Stieb.

Blyleven is first in his career.  Gaylord Perry is 2nd in his. Curt Schilling is 5th in his, Glavine 7th in his.

Sure every pitcher has his bad outings... that's not indicative of his career. 

Jamie Moyer is cut from similar cloth as Blyleven, career is mostly about numbers from longevity... not dominance at the position. Moyer is not in same discussion as Morris.

Tanana was dominant but unfortunately got hurt fairly early on and was never the same after.

Viola I've never really studied much... Great pitcher for sure.

Langston serves my point well... good numbers but never played for winning teams... better "WAR" than Morris?  So be it. Did he ever even appear in a post season?  You can have WAR, I'll take Morris.

Saberhagen was a phenomenal rookie winning WS and Cy Young but career mostly declined after.  He pretty well stunk in post season for Red Sox.

Dave Steib was another fantastic pitcher and great career.  But again, did nothing in the post season.

I'm not saying post season and championships are a hard requirement for HOF, but it absolutely matters to me.  The best players do it on the biggest stage.  Especially pitchers.  It's no accident that Morris pitched for so many winning teams and in so many meaningful games.  HOFer.

It's actually exactly that, an accident of his pitching well for good teams, and the fact that he wasn't actually better than his contemporaries that didn't have that advantage is why he shouldn't be in the HOF (or if you want a really big hall, those guys should be in as well).  Jamie Moyer's post-season line is very similar to Morris', except that he had only half the opportunities and was substantially older. Blyleven's numbers in the post-season were better, again in half the opportunities.  

Blyleven's career was more than twice as valuable to his generally poorer teams than Morris' was to his. Ignoring the final 4 years of Blyleven's career, in the first 18 years of his career (to match Morris' 18 years), Blyleven pitched 400 more innings, struck out 800 more hitters, threw 49 more complete games and 27 more shutouts, walked 200 fewer, gave up 26 fewer HR, and had an ERA of 3.14 compared to Morris' 3.90.

Even comparing their whole career's, Blyleven had better rate stats for everything, despite throwing 1000 more innings. If Blyleven had pitched for the mid-80s Tigers at the peak of his career, he'd have 300 wins and would have sailed into the HOF on the first ballot.

And just for fun.

In games where their team scored 2 or fewer runs:

Blyleven, 231 GS, 39-162 (.194), 3.34 ERA, 91 CG, 22 SHO

Morris, 138 GS, 17-109 (.135), 3.98 ERA, 65 CG, 6 SHO

Team scored 3-5 runs

Blyleven, 269 GS, 119-80 (.598), 3.28 ERA, 74 CG, 22 SHO

Morris, 203 GS, 97-64 (.602), 3.54 ERA, 68 CG, 16 SHO

Team scored 6+

Blyleven, 185 GS, 128-6 (.955), 3.31 ERA, 77 CG, 16 SHO

Morris, 186 GS, 137-9 (.938), 4.24 ERA, 42 CG, 6 SHO

The biggest difference?  In 158 fewer career starts, Morris' teams scored 6+ runs essentially the same number of times as Blyleven's teams did, and Morris' small advantage in pitcher wins in those games, despite pitching worse, is dwarfed by Blyleven's advantage in games where their teams gave them essentially no run support, even after accounting for the fact that Blyleven had to pitch in 67% more of those games than Morris did.

I don't know about proverbial game sevens, but Morris pitched only one actual deciding game.  It was a great game, but his entire postseason resume is as inconclusive as his regular season record.  He pitched in four postseasons.  In two of them, he won all of his starts and his teams won the WS.  In the other two, he went winless with ERA's in the 6-8 range.  Overall he went 7-4 with a 3.80 ERA in the postseason.  ten.  

Originally Posted by Soylent Green:

… But the premise of your post made me think of how stats should always take a back seat to scouting in terms of evaluating "the next level".  I guess I see the HOF as the final "next level".

Here’s where I guess the way I think about the numbers is so unconventional its often misinterpreted. Judging by the above, my definition of what is or isn’t a “STAT” is likely very different than yours. I get the idea that your idea of a “stat” is something like a hit, a K, or an SB. Well, those are definitely data points to me too and many different stats can be made of them, but to me there’s more.

You say stats should always take a back seat to scouting in terms of evaluating "the next level" as though scouts never use stats, when in reality that all they do! I’m sure you’ve seen a basic personal information card any scout would have on any player. Guess what? Everything on that card is a data point that some kind of stat is made up from.

IOW, stats are nothing but the putting together of specific data. If you see a list of al LHPs, you’re seeing a stat. If you see a list of all players whose parents were athletes, you’re seeing a stat. If you see a list of all the players scouted who had plus arms or plus speed, you’re seeing a stat.

Any piece of data that’s kept on a player that can be stored, collated, and later pulled up and compared to the same piece of data on another player is a stat. If you or anyone else wants to only think of them as BA, OPB, RBI, K, BB, or any of the normal data points that are used to describe a player’s performance, that’s fine by me, but you’d certainly be thinking inside a very small envelope as far as I’m concerned.

I'll take peak Blyleven over peak Morris.  Really, Blyleven pretty much anytime in the mid-70s over Morris.  And I'll take '79 post-season Blyleven over '91 post-season Morris while we're at it, though that's at least kind of close.

First off... I love the debate!  My point isn't necessarily that Blyleven shouldn't be in the hall, though I personally wouldn't have cast a vote for him. To me he stacked up a lot of numbers in a lot of meaningless games, over a long career during which at no point was he considered a dominant pitcher.  He was an effective pitcher with that incredible deuce who hung around a long time, compiled numbers that put him near the borderline... stat wise... for consideration, and then became a popular tv color guy which gave him 20 some years of drinking beer with writers who vote. In 70 years, when some kid is walking the hallowed ground of the Hall, he will see Bert Blyleven as one of the all time greats.  Not sure how that can be accurate when he wasn't even one of the greats of his day.  That said, he put together a solid and long career, had some post season success, compiled the requisite numbers for consideration, and got voted in... so more power to him.

Where I really disagree with you though is your argument about Morris being "lucky" to have played for good teams.  Morris led not one but three different teams to the post season as a staff ace... That says a lot and luck had little to do with it.  He was in those situations because 1) better teams sought him out in free agency and 2) he went out every 5th day and led these competitive teams to those post season runs.  "Those mid 80s" Tigers teams you mentioned became what they were in part because of Morris... He wasn't along for the ride. That's a real differentiator for me; while guys like Blyleven and some of the others you mentioned were racking up numbers in low to no pressure games season after season, Morris was often pitching in pennant drives where every game meant a lot.  And as the ace of those staffs, he was generally facing the other ace... Not the 2-4 starter that Blyleven faced in the majority of his seasons.  It makes a difference.  To me it's part of the critical difference between looking at raw numbers or looking at the true impact of a player to meaningful teams in meaningful seasons, reputation among peers, and star performances on the big stage during his era... which was my original point.

Swampboy - I would agree that he's near the borderline... not a shoe in.  I think what's keeping him out though are the new wave of sabremetricIan voters, specifically pointing at the high ERA.

Stats4gnats - Of course scouts use stats.  But I'm talking about the more general "battle" in the game between the scouting eye test vs sabremetrics.  It's strange to be arguing this side of it, because I'm actually a stats nut myself and generally like sabremetric analysis.  I just feel that the pendulum has probably swung too far in favor of stats in the past few years.  I think a proper balance will develop between the two over time.

Morris pitched worse against the teams he faced than Blyleven did, something the opposing SP would have no effect on.

Morris' teams scored more runs for him than Blyleven's did, which means either that your point about the opposing SP doesn't hold up, or that Morris' teams were even better offensively than we'd otherwise believe.

Bert Blyleven's opponents hit 248/301/367 against him, over the course of 1000 more innings than Morris pitched.  Morris' hit 247/313/380. HOFers hit 256/306/408 off Blyleven, and 284/350/441 off Morris.

Bert Blyleven being criminally underrated during his career isn't a good argument for keeping him out of the HOF, just as Lonnie Smith being a terrible baserunner isn't a good argument for inducting Jack Morris.

Well rest easy, JacJac... not much chance that he'll get in at this point.  I don't have a personal axe to grind with either guy... Just think Morris belongs in the Hall.

I don't have a problem with thinking he should be in (and the odds the VC doesn't eventually put him in are pretty slim), even though I'd disagree, it's just that if you're drawing the line so that Morris is in, you need to be prepared to consider a lot more pitchers than most people are really comfortable with.

FWIW, Whitaker apparently is somewhat dismissively supportive.  Or, more likely, he thinks he and Trammel have better cases, and he's not wrong.

http://www.detroitnews.com/art...myself-Alan-Trammell

Hope that you're right about the old timers committee but I think it's a crapshoot at that point.

Agree Morris is near the line for HOF, but don't agree that he would redraw any boundaries. For instance, the group of contemporaries you originally threw out don't qualify in my mind.  And the most suspect election in recent memory would still be Blyleven.

You're probably right about Whittaker, I'm sure it's every man for himself.  I don't think Whittaker or Trammel warrant the Hall.

From just the '84 Tigers team, Whitaker and Trammell are so much better than Morris that it's absurd how little recognition they've received. Evans and Lemon had better careers, if probably not HOF-worthy.  Parrish and Gibson are closer on Morris' heels than he is on Evans' and Lemon's.

All you need to know about Morris' HOF case relative to his offensive teammates is summed up by the fact that the '84 Tigers won 104 games with a rotation that was 4/5 composed of guys nobody outside of a Tigers fan even remembers.

The target of your argument sort of keeps changing, but anyway offense and defense is comparing apples and oranges to me.  Pitchers are measured in relation to HOF pitchers, offense to offense and also by position.  Also don't think there needs to be any quota by team... A guy either warrants election or not.

There are 64 pitchers in the HOF who threw at least 1000 innings (includes Ruth, but used in order to exclude a bunch of early guys who weren't primarily pitchers).  Morris would be solidly in the bottom quartile if elected.

There are 18 2B (guys who played at least half their games at 2B).  Whitaker would be easily in the top half if elected, probably right at top 1/3.

There are 20 SS in the HOF, Trammell would be in the top half.

There are 61 OF in the HOF, Lemon would be just below the half way point.  That does overstate his case, because there are some pretty terrible OF in the HOF, whereas 2B/SS have far fewer poor picks.

Anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying that a HOF that includes Morris but excludes Trammell and Whitaker is making fundamentally flawed decisions about who to include.

I don't think that it is always 100% mutually exclusive.  You can have two players, both competing their hearts out, yet one "wins" and one "looses." 

Still think your arguments center strictly on numbers and not on the things that I mentioned re competitiveness, etc.  I will agree that there are a fair amount of position guys in the Hall, particularly MIFs and 3B, who seem like head scratchers as to why they're in.  Don't know if it's right or not, but I've always attributed this to defense being more highly prized in earlier days (and 3B was generally a defensive position until relatively recently), whereas it's almost a non consideration today.  If electing with defensive prowess carrying maybe 50% of the weight, then Whittaker and Trammel would be a different story in my mind.  But... So would a lot of guys.  Like Reggie Jackson said, 'shake the baseball tree and 100 MLB gloves drop out for every 1 MLB bat'.  Fewer still MLB pitchers I believe.

Pitching is the most unique spot and has always received the most attention, and the most scrutiny I suspect.  There are a few questionable inclusions maybe, but overall a righteous group of greatness... Especially looking at the last 70 years. I do agree with you that Morris would be in the bottom 25%, but still belongs in... And rates better than Blyleven.  We'll have to agree to disagree about it.

Whitaker and Trammell would both deserve to be in without considering their defense, their defensive contributions just make them no-brainers.

There are relatively few IF and C in the hall who don't deserve it from a numbers standpoint, and there are plenty out who do deserve it  There are a lot of OF/1B/P who are much worse picks. This has mostly to do with a lack of understanding of positional scarcity, and partially to do with a general tendency to ignore the defensive contributions (or lack thereof) of players whose cases aren't built primarily on defense.

I'd agree that there's a non-statistical component to hall-worthiness, which is why Morris is even a discussion, and a big part of the reason guys like Rice (who's really no better a candidate than Morris) and Dawson (who's probably the sort of player that should actually define borderline) are in.

I didn't say anything about catchers... and really didn't say anything about Trammel or Whittaker in the first place.  You think they belong in, great... I disagree... And the fact is neither is heading toward induction... Maybe the VC.  There are MIFs and 3B in the Hall who are there due as much to their gloves as for their bats, that was my point.  Many wouldn't be voted in by today's standards.  Parsing every minute point becomes tedious.  Your argument continues to drift.

Originally Posted by Soylent Green:…Stats4gnats - Of course scouts use stats.  But I'm talking about the more general "battle" in the game between the scouting eye test vs sabremetrics.  

That’s my point. There really isn’t any “battle” at all. Both do the exact same thing but use different methods and perspectives. The problem is, amateurs more often than not try to look at things as though their perspective was the scout’s. Rather than seeing the numbers as nothing more than the average of all performances, they try to extrapolate Joey’s HSJV .575 BA into what would happen if he were in the ML.

And let’s not leave the impression that the “scouting eye” is omnipotent. They’re good, and they’re much better than any other group, but there’s no way their efficiency and therefore the quality of the chosen player couldn’t be improved.

It's strange to be arguing this side of it, because I'm actually a stats nut myself and generally like sabremetric analysis.  I just feel that the pendulum has probably swung too far in favor of stats in the past few years.  I think a proper balance will develop between the two over time.

I don’t think that’s what’s happened in the venues where it counts, i.e. play for pay. Where I think its happened is in the amateur levels where technology had made great leaps, making numbers available to people who never had them. I see it all the time where someone started using something like IScore and is blown away by the raft of stats the thing can kick out. All of a sudden they think they’ve found the “answer”, but they haven’t quite learned that that “answer” has its limitations. So they start making all kinds of decisions based on something they don’t yet understand.

Then there’s always the problem of the validity of the numbers. At the amateur level there’s a very good chance the person scoring, or gathering the data to be used in generating the numbers, doesn’t do a very good job. So no matter how slick the software generating the stats is, its GIGO. But the good news is, things are getting better. The problem is, the expertise goes from the top down, and that’s a very long process because so few people from the top filter down to the bottom.

Well, here's the other dynamic with the sabermetric stuff.  Everyone has heard and knows that anyone can take stats and make them what they want.  So, let's say a scout sees someone they like, but the regular numbers just aren't there.  So they start looking for ways to make that guy look good.  So instead of looking at BA, they say, hey, let's combine BA, Slugging % and OBP and see how he looks.  Wow, this guy looks real good now.  Let's call this OPS and tell everyone how good this guy is.  Not saying that OPS is a bad stat, but my point is the more information that is available, the more you can manipulate it to say what you want about a player.  Just pick and choose which stats you want to use and mix and match them until you come up with something that looks good. 

More information isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you can see how the more you mess with it, the more you can make things look the way you want.  Cool and dangerous at the same time.

If you measure that way, Choo’s deal actually comes out as something of a bargain. Consider that over the past five years, Choo ranks fifth in the majors in OBP. The four guys ahead of him: Joey Votto, Prince Fielder, Joe Mauer and Miguel Cabrera. All have deals worth significantly more than the one Choo signed Friday.  Of that group, Choo is the only one to have both 75 homers and 75 steals. Sheesh, he’s the only one with 50 homers and 50 steals.

Originally Posted by Soylent Green:

Well let me preface my reply by stating that I'm an absolute amateur in the realm of sabremetrics and stat analysis... unlike a big timer like yourself, Stats.  I do enjoy diving into stat analysis, studying numbers for various conferences/teams/leagues, looking at new ways to quantify performance, etc (strictly as an amateur, mind you).

I’m not quite sure if that was a dig or a compliment, but whichever it is, I’ve never considered myself anything other than a rank amateur, and for sure not a “big timer”. I do exactly what you say you do, but I don’t try to say player “A” is superior to player “B”, unless there’s a very precise definition of what it is that being looked for.

First off... there really is a battle of approach ongoing between traditional "scout's eye" vs sabremetrics as to which is superior for evaluating and comparing player performance.  This has been much discussed and a best selling book/major motion picture have been devoted to the subject... so I'm relatively certain that such a battle exists between these two approaches. Ask Nolan Ryan and John Daniels about it, for one recent example.

I don’t have to ask anyone because I know how I define stats, and to me there’s no battle at all. the battle is in what’s being used and how.

You're right that there a lot of 'sudden sabremetricians' out there thanks to iScore and Gamechanger.  Not sure why you feel such a need to try showing superiority to such a lowly level of statkeepers, Stats. 

I don’t feel “superior” to anyone. The reason is, math is math. I’ve said before that the problem isn’t the numbers, its how those number are generated.

I'm sure there are some who, as you describe, look at little Johnny's HSJV .575 and extrapolate freely to MLB greatness... but that's no different than the parents who see Johnny hit a 12U homer and start counting the bonus money.  I think the far greater majority are probably much more realistic, Gamechanger or not.  One thing's for sure, if Johnny is hitting .575 for the JV squad, then he is demonstrating very solid potential to hit well at the next level... which for him is his HS varsity squad.  So not sure what the issue is with mom and dad keeping tabs on basic stats?  Also, the more people diving into basic scorekeeping, which often leads to deeper understanding of what's what in the great game... the more baseball fans are being generated... so all good as far as I can see.

Why do you think I have any issue at all with mom and dad keeping tabs on stats, basic or not. And I don’t know where you got the idea I have anything against people learning to keep score. Heck, in any given season I teach or at least help dozens, from 6 to 60, but I don’t teach “basic scorekeeping”, I teach the rules and how to apply them.

As for the "scouting eye being omnipotent", I certainly never said anything like that.  What I did say was that I believe there's an ideal balance range between using statistical metrics AND traditional scouting expertise in evaluating player performance.  No doubt there are old school scouts, especially 10 years ago, who wouldn't give any real consideration to some of the newer stat metrics... only their own reads on players based on their experience.  Those days are of course long gone.  I do seem to now hear a lot of "stats experts" though who take basically the same view, ie "I can tell you the full story on a player's ability/projectability/value/career based on a certain group of metrics.  That's equally foolish, IMO.  Numbers can be every bit as biased as the scout's eye, or the HS coach's eye.

I can tell you this for sure, having gotten the information from a scout for the Dodgers who was scouting in the 50’s and 60’s. they used the same basic stats then that they do now and likely will always use, but you don’t seem to believe they are stats. What age is the player, how tall, what’s his weight, what’s his family history. Then there’s always an evaluation of the baseball skills, and always some kind of evaluation about the player as a person.

One thing’s for sure. You’ll never hear me say I can tell the full story about a player based on a certain group of metrics. Not because its not possible, but because as far as I know, there’s no metric or group of metrics that says it all. There could be for one situation, but never for all.

Validity of numbers at the amateur level is definitely hit and miss. 

Very true.

But... a lot better than it was not so many years ago when one guy kept a scorebook and the numbers disappeared into a black hole. 

Also true, and getting better all the time.

The programs you mention create an open forum, where anyone interested can take a look at how the scoring is being done.  In the case of my son's travel club for instance, there are generally 3-4 people scoring games via Gamechanger.  It's pretty easy to see who knows how to score properly and who doesn't... and by the end of the summer, there's generally one guy being followed.  Of course this is without benefit of the trickle down expertise from the top. 

I’ve seen the same thing at the HS level. In fact I’ve had a couple parents do the same thing for our team. Its fine with me because I was once a baseball parent myself, which is why I do the newsletter after every game and keep up the web site with all the stats. I know there are people out there of just about every level of understanding of the game, and of just about every philosophy of raising a child. I may not agree with many of them, but I do understand and respect them because it’s a parent thing, and when that happens you just have to allow it to go where it may, hopefully giving gentle pushes in the right direction.

Where I get the most positive feedback is when I take the time in the newsletter to explain why something got scored the way it did, using the rules to explain it. A big problem with the rules of baseball is that very often people stop reading when they find something they THINK fits the situation. Then there’s always those things people BELIEVE are true because they heard someone they thought was an authority say them.

Luckily you have agreed to make yourself available to us here on the HSBBW Stats!

I haven’t agreed to anything. I just do what I do and try to help others. Unfortunately it’s a lot more difficult to explain things in a forum like this than in person.

I'm with you bballman!  Numbers are useful, but by no means foolproof.  They can and are tweaked regularly for effect.  One of the ways "statmasters" try to intimidate and puff themselves up is by accusing anyone who disagrees with them of "not understanding the math".  I have an MBA hanging on the office wall (that and $4.50 will get you a cup of coffee) so I think I get the math.  Definitely wise to question the methods and motivations... and often the math, BTW... of these arguments.  Everyone has a viewpoint and human nature is to fit information into place that will validate a given viewpoint.

WAR is a great example... there are at least three seperate "official" ways to calculate this incessantly used gem. 

Taking it a step further, none of these various WAR formulae take into account the "value" of the games in which the data is mined... so a meaningless Mariners v Indians late season tilt from 1984 (let alone a dozen or more of these a year x 20 or so years) impacts a guy's career totals the same as, say, a Tigers v Royals game with playoff implications that same August.  It's the difference between formulas and the field.

Stats - No offense intended at you friend!  Was just replying specific to what you had posted and in kind.  I don't think we're talking about stats such as height, weight, lineage, etc.  Also not talking about basic stats used by scouts in the 50s & 60s.  I was referring to advanced (sabre)metrics being used today, and the back and forth of this vs. the more traditional modes of evaluating talent.  The Choo example offered by Jacjac above is a good one; I don't think Nolan Ryan and his guys would have valued Choo nearly so highly and paid the freight.  Jon Daniels and his guys are more sabremetrics minded, we'll see how that goes for them.  My feeling is that it was a bad contract for the team... too much $ and 1-2 too many years.  But as Jacjac points out, there is a lot of "sabremetric" justification being offered by the team as to just how great a deal this was for the Rangers.  Again, time will tell... but I have my doubts about the deal and about the metrics being trotted out to justify the deal.  It's a good example of what bballman was saying about "making numbers tell the story you want told".

That you think WAR doesn't implicitly account for this pretty much makes my original point. That Jim Beattie and Mark Langston had better seasons in 1984 than Jack Morris isn't an indictment of WAR, it's evidence that most of the rest of the Mariners weren't very good, and an awful lot of the Tigers' players were.  If either of Morris or Langston had missed the 1984 season, the odds are that neither of their teams' fortunes would have changed.  Given the option to replace Jim Slaton with either of them though, the Angels would definitely have been better off with Langston.

Uh, that's exactly the opposite of my point.  Making up pointless stats to compare Choo to the guys mentioned in that article (as if SB has much of anything to do with Cabrera's value) is exactly the sort of misuse of traditional stats that people resort to in an effort to justify comparisons of otherwise substantially different players.

Another example of misusing stats:

There are 18 MLB players in the history of the game with 500 2B, 70 3B, 1300 RBI and fewer than 800 Ks, including Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Ted Williams, Rogers Hornsby, and Stan Musial.  17 of them are in the HOF, so clearly the 18th belongs as well, right?

The 18th guy is Al Oliver.

Yep, I have a degree in finance and economics and an MBA as well. I think I get the numbers thing. I'm not going to argue with a bunch of specifics. Suffice it to say, you can make the numbers work out however you want. I have no doubt that is how the people who get paid a lot of money came up with some of these metrics in the first place. Maybe we give them the benefit of the doubt because they make  a lot of money.

You're right... I did mix my sabremetrics there.  Point I meant is that WAR has multiple official formulas... Depending I suppose on what looks best For the given case being made.  Next point was how quality of games played is not accounted for in general across most individual stats. Wins, ERA, Ks, you name it... And the various "advanced metrics" that incorporate this data.  WAR compares players by position across a constant, such as an MLB season, a 10 year swath of seasons, etc. so not applicable. Doesn't change the overall point though; numbers can and are tweaked and moveable.  And relied upon to the exclusion of other equally vital on-field competitive realities.  As the saying goes, Figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure".

I think many of my points have been opposite yours Jacjac.  I live in North Texas, the Choo deal is being sold to the Rangers fan base using a lot of sabremetric justification.  Daniels and his group "see" value in Choo beyond what a lot of us are able to see. Maybe some of us just "don't understand the math".  Time will tell.

There's a sabermetric case to be made that the Choo signing is a decent deal by FA standards. He's been worth the $18.5M he'll be getting in 3 of the last 5 seasons, and that's before accounting for the current FA inflation and the fact that he's probably worth more to the Rangers than he is to the average team given how well he fills their LF hole relative to their alternatives and where they are in the success cycle.

Like almost all FA, he's going to be overpaid on the back end of the deal, but that's the nature of FA signings, which you can only really afford to make a big splash on if you're simultaneously underpaying a lot of your young talent (which is also the nature of the game).

My point was that the comparison of Choo to Cabrera/Mauer/et al that I quoted above wasn't a sabermetric one, so if that's what you're seeing to justify the contract it's not fair to disparage those arguments as sabermetric rather than as poor use of traditional statistics.

Originally Posted by Soylent Green:

I'm with you bballman!  Numbers are useful, but by no means foolproof.  They can and are tweaked regularly for effect.  One of the ways "statmasters" try to intimidate and puff themselves up is by accusing anyone who disagrees with them of "not understanding the math".  I have an MBA hanging on the office wall (that and $4.50 will get you a cup of coffee) so I think I get the math.  Definitely wise to question the methods and motivations... and often the math, BTW... of these arguments.  Everyone has a viewpoint and human nature is to fit information into place that will validate a given viewpoint.

WAR is a great example... there are at least three seperate "official" ways to calculate this incessantly used gem. 

Taking it a step further, none of these various WAR formulae take into account the "value" of the games in which the data is mined... so a meaningless Mariners v Indians late season tilt from 1984 (let alone a dozen or more of these a year x 20 or so years) impacts a guy's career totals the same as, say, a Tigers v Royals game with playoff implications that same August.  It's the difference between formulas and the field.

Not that I disagree with your premise, but other than altering the initial data, like changing a hit to an error or ignoring some data, how do the numbers get “tweaked”?

Personally, I have absolutely no use at all for WAR because I only work with amateur ball and its impossible to calculate war there. But I am interested in how you or anyone else would assign “value” to any individual game, let alone an individual PA. I’ve tried many different ways to do that over the years, but its simply too complicated at my level due to lack of data.

Here’s a question I haven’t asked in a while, but this may be a good time to ask it again. Assume a team loses its first and last games of the season to the same team and misses the playoffs by 1 game. Did that last game have more “implications” than the loss they suffered on opening day, or does that last game only seem to have more riding on it?

Stats - No offense intended at you friend!  Was just replying specific to what you had posted and in kind.  I don't think we're talking about stats such as height, weight, lineage, etc.  Also not talking about basic stats used by scouts in the 50s & 60s.  I was referring to advanced (sabre)metrics being used today, and the back and forth of this vs. the more traditional modes of evaluating talent. 

None taken.

Well, I guess there’s the rub. To me a statistic is a statistic no matter what the form or who does it. You may be right for all I know because I’m not privy to ML front offices to know exactly how talent is evaluated. But I think there’s an entirely different evaluating system used in deciding who to draft than there is in deciding whether or not to sign a veteran player to a $20+ per year long term contract. And that brings to mind another question.

Assume stats equivalent to ML stats were available for every amateur player for every game they played from the time they started playing kid pitch. Would it then be reasonable to use those stats in the evaluation process?

The Choo example offered by Jacjac above is a good one; I don't think Nolan Ryan and his guys would have valued Choo nearly so highly and paid the freight.  Jon Daniels and his guys are more sabremetrics minded, we'll see how that goes for them.  My feeling is that it was a bad contract for the team... too much $ and 1-2 too many years.  But as Jacjac points out, there is a lot of "sabremetric" justification being offered by the team as to just how great a deal this was for the Rangers.  Again, time will tell... but I have my doubts about the deal and about the metrics being trotted out to justify the deal.  It's a good example of what bballman was saying about "making numbers tell the story you want told".

Well, you may look askance at Choo, but I’m a Tribe fan and would gladly swap any outfielder we have to get him back. I watched him play a lot of games and can only say he was a great asset to the Tribe and to the Reds. I think you’ll be very happy with the deal at the end of the year.

…Doesn't change the overall point though; numbers can and are tweaked and moveable

I’ll ask again, how are numbers “tweaked”?

And relied upon to the exclusion of other equally vital on-field competitive realities.  As the saying goes, Figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure".

Does that mean because every factor isn’t included, no stat is valid or of any use?

To me, as long as a metric is computed using the same algorithm, and the data from every game is included, its pretty difficult to “tweak” the numbers.