The Trade Scenario no one has mentioned

GovClintonTyree said:
"The idiotic idea that Saber people never played..."

Not my intention to infer that. My apologies. I was commenting on my background. I remember the difference between butterflies when I was nervous but ready to perform well, and butterflies when I was overmatched. And I get to see the same thing with my son (happily, he has more of the former and way fewer of the latter than I did).

If the sabermatician says that playoff stats aren't a large enough sample size to have predictive value and it's all random and everyone regresses to the mean, I just think, hey - would you have had any reaction to Carlos Beltran being inserted into the Braves playoff lineups through the 2000s? Cause I think he handled pressure pretty well. Better than other players. In a way that was repeatable and had predictive value. But the only way the sabermatician can acknowledge that is A) after the fact, as confirmation that he did perform pretty well or B) not at all, because he still only has 200 postseason at bats.

Which brings me to my last point: why do you keep talking solely about events that have already happened? Isn't the real value of sabermetrics its predictive value, and that you can predict future events better by taking a statistical approach?
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I wouldn't apologize for this at all. I would argue anyone that touts "new stats" as the end all facts about players has never played any team sport at a highly competitive level. I only made it to the level of a walk on baseball player at a D1 school, and now I play slow pitch softball like the old men I used to poke fun at, but I have witnessed the same dynamics at all levels of serious competition, from 14 year old all stars, to high school ball, to traveling teams, to D1 play, and even in slow pitch softball. There is always "the guy" that anchors a team. Every time you move up a level, a few players step up and continue to be "the guy", and the rest of the players who were "the guy" at the previous level shrink into a more supportive role.

There is pressure to being "the guy" in a lineup or on a pitching staff. Some players can handle it, and some can't. Some guys that handled it in high school, or college, or in the minors can't handle it when they move up a level. Some guys can go back to being "the guy" once they get confident at the new level. I've seen it enough times to know it is fact of the game, and no amount of statistical analysis will ever convince me otherwise.
 
and no amount of statistical analysis will ever convince me otherwise.
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ahh a religious argument..... I played, and was very good until injuries forced me to stop my junior year in HS. But none of that matters, appeal to authority are logical fallacies for a reason. If you argue a player is good regardless of his stats you are making a religious argument, and that really can't be debated as it's based on belief rather than facts. and facts are all that matter.
 
You absolutely did. You said it was fact and ridiculed me for pointing out that it was an interpretation of facts, not a fact itself.
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WAR is a fact, it is an algorithm that displays exactly what it means to. if you have (5+13+25+X=) no matter what you plug in as X the answer will be a fact. that doesn't mean the algorithm is perfectly designed or that one part of said algorithm could perhaps use improvement, but you don't scrap the entire thing because it doesn't match the "eye test" an answer can both be a fact and imperfect.

Which brings me to my last point: why do you keep talking solely about events that have already happened? Isn't the real value of sabermetrics its predictive value, and that you can predict future events better by taking a statistical approach?
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FIP does a pretty god job of predicting performance over ERA, and wOBA does a pretty good job of predicting future batting too (better than the old card stats anyway) besides, it's more a system of finding out WHY a performance has varied from the mean. if a guy in his 3rd year mproves his ERA a lot we can dig into the peripherals to try to figure out why. has his BABIP dropped? is he giving up fewer line drives? hard contact down? HR/FB down? Is he getting lucky or has he made a legitimate change? same with bats. Chris Johnson had that monster year, but a cursory search of his peripherals told us that this was unlikely to be sustainable due to his past history and luck on balls in play. it turned out to be true.

Look man, saber is better, but it can be better without being perfect and still be factual. (batting avg is imperfect and yet factual right?)
 
clvclv said:
Which statistic reflects that???
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I'm not sure if you really want a reply. But there are some studies out there that show results at the higher levels have a lot more predictive power than results at the lower levels. I remember one study in particular of minor league strikeout and walk rates and what they meant for major league performance. AA does seem to be the level where the wheat gets separated from the chaff.
 
nsacpi said:
I'm not sure if you really want a reply. But there are some studies out there that show results at the higher levels have a lot more predictive power than results at the lower levels. I remember one study in particular of minor league strikeout and walk rates and what they meant for major league performance. AA does seem to be the level where the wheat gets separated from the chaff.
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Someone actually needs a statistic to realize that???

Actually was just being a bit of a smartass since I expected the above type of reply since the quote I clipped included words like "I think".
 
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