Originally Posted by
WOY
The three biggest influence in statistical study came from Henry Chadwick, Branch Rickey and Bill James. No math majors there... BTW I flunked math more than once and never took it after the one college course that was required. I must be an "anomoly"
This is for the "causal" fan who somehow always seems to get more "slack" cut to him/her than the ones who dare I say.... read BP over Hal McCoy... you know the ones that try and convince you the player they really like IS good despite the data.
This is from a Bill James SOSH Interview
James T:
How often do you find your visual impressions of players contradicted by analysis? Is there one particular aspect of the game in which you trust your eyes least?
Bill James:
I think the extent to which you can trust your eyes is fairly limited, but on the other hand, the extent to which you can trust the numbers is limited, too. If you watched Johnny Damon hit, based on his swing and his follow through and his balance, those kind of things, you would think he couldn’t hit—but he can. The visual impression is not contradicted by “analysis”; it is contradicted by the outcomes. That’s pretty common. There are fielders who look bad, but get the job done. There are pitchers who look like they are quick to first base, but who never pick anybody off. There are catchers who look awkward throwing, but who don’t give up many stolen bases.
But there are pitchers who go 15-11 who aren’t really good pitchers, too. There are hitters who hit .310 but don’t help you, there are fielders who field .980 who don’t help you. You have to be skeptical of all of it.
And for the otherside of the coin.
James T:
I have to ask you this. On an internet baseball fan site, I recently saw you quoted to the effect that veteran leadership had enabled the Red Sox to come back from down 0-3 in the ALCS. But, in that forum, the immediate response was to doubt your sincerity. Bill couldn't mean that! And these were people who held you in high regard. Are you resigned to your reputation at this point in time?
Bill James:
Well, believe it or not, I don’t worry about my reputation in that sense. I’ll let that take care of itself.
This is probably a long-winded answer, but I’ll try to explain it this way. If I were in politics and presented myself as a Republican, I would be admired by Democrats by despised by my fellow Republicans. If I presented myself as a Democrat, I would popular with Republicans but jeered and hooted by the Democrats.
I believe in a universe that is too complex for any of us to really understand. Each of us has an organized way of thinking about the world—a paradigm, if you will—and we need those, of course; you can’t get through the day unless you have some organized way of thinking about the world. But the problem is that the real world is vastly more complicated than the image of it that we carry around in our heads. Many things are real and important that are not explained by our theories—no matter who we are, no matter how intelligent we are.
As in politics we have left and right—neither of which explains the world or explains how to live successfully in the world—in baseball we have the analytical camp and the traditional camp, or the sabermetricians against the scouts, however you want to characterize it. I created a good part of the analytical paradigm that the statistical analysts advocate, and certainly I believe in that paradigm and I advocate it within the Red Sox front office. But at the same time, the real world is too complicated to be explained by that paradigm.
It is one thing to build an analytical paradigm that leaves out leadership, hustle, focus, intensity, courage and self-confidence; it is a very, very different thing to say that leadership, hustle, courage and self-confidence do not exist or do not play a role on real-world baseball teams. The people who think that way. . .not to be rude, but they’re children. They may be 40-year-old children, they may be 70-year-old children, but their thinking is immature.
Or, to put it in one sentence, if I worried about that @#%$ I would have folded my tent 25 years ago, when my ideas were anathema to the mainstream baseball establishment.