Repo-ing a massage chair.
Repo-ing a massage chair.
“And when finally they sense that some position cannot be sustained, they do not re-examine their ideas. Instead, they simply change the subject.” Jamie Galbraith
Originally Posted by Handofdeath
It reminds me of my attempts to prove that tomatoes cause cancer:
1) I don't eat tomatoes
2) I don't have cancer
3) Therefore, tomatoes cause cancer.
Very similar to your logic, except for the fact that one of us is joking.
"I prefer books and movies where the conflict isn't of the extreme cannibal apocalypse variety I guess." Redsfaithful
I am at work so I can't look into this further, but does anyone have other rankings for those teams WOY posted as well? For example, team ERA? Team batting average? Just curious...
Since when does one years worth of data constitute a proof?
Looking at over 30 years worth of data shows that there is a .780 correlation coefficients between OBP and runs scored. Direct, no, but no stat is going to give a direct correlation unless it is with itself. Oh, XR, RC are about .98 for their correlation coefficient which pretty close to direct. OPS is also in the .9's. And oh my, it uses elements of, dare I say it, OBP.
Apart from announcer fixations that seem to come and go in trends, I don't know that there is any truly overrated skill in baseball because it's such a game of strategy. Something can be worthless in four straight games and then become absolutely crucial in the fifth. It's not like football or basketball where speed and strength and good instincts can help you barrell through a lot of tight spots. Baseball is a slower game, there's more time to put thought into a lot of the decisions and so all of those skills can come in very handy at some point.
And I still love Jason LaRue as a catcher
There is no such thing as a pitching prospect.
I think Larue both as a hitter and a catcher is one of the most underrated Reds in my lifetime.
And I still love Jason LaRue as a catcher
“And when finally they sense that some position cannot be sustained, they do not re-examine their ideas. Instead, they simply change the subject.” Jamie Galbraith
I would go so far as to say he's one of the most underrated catchers in the game, period.
There is no such thing as a pitching prospect.
Actually, I just ran a very quick regression of runs vs. OBP from ESPN.com and below are the results. Now, I'm using "runs" scored, not team runs scored, so the totals are very slightly off. But it's just a tad more rigorous than what you've done. The x-axis is runs scored and the y-axis is team OBP. They should be flipped for a formal analysis, but for the purpose of correlation coefficients the numbers end up the same. The R-squared value you see is called the "squared correlation coeffcient".
Correlation is value between -1 and 1 which describes the percentage of variation in Y which can be attributed to the variation in X. A correlation of -1 is "perfect negative correlation" -- as X goes up by 1 unit, Y goes down by 1 unit. A correlation of +1 is "perfective positive correlation". As X goes up by 1 unit, Y goes up by 1 unit. A correlation of 0 is no correlation at all. As X goes up or down by 1 unit, we have no clue wtf Y is doing...
We square the r value so that it's always positive for comparison. We care more about the strength of the relationship, not the direction. An r-squared below .15-.2 is considered weak, .2-.4 moderate, and above .4 strong.
As you can see below, the r-squared for OBP and Runs is .64. FYI, the r-squared of BA and Runs is .45 and the r-squared of OPS and Runs is .87. In other words, OBP tells you quite a bit about runs -- more than batting average, less than OPS. Of all the crazy advanced metrics you'll see bandied about, none of them does much to improve on OPS form this perspective. The r-squared of the best metrics available is only .9, so look at OPS and understand that as far understanding "what causes runs" -- OPS is a very darn good measurement, followed by OBP and BA respectively.
No offense intended, and I'm certainly not the mathematician other's here are, but don't knock something you obviously don't understand.
Last edited by RedsManRick; 11-14-2006 at 06:30 PM.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
No, no, no I don't want to hear about "runs", I'm talking about runs. Something a team actually does. I appreciate that you and others went to the trouble to get stats to support your argument. And I would like to clarify my points. I was answering a post touting the virtue of the walk and OBP. I showed proof that there was no direct correlation between BB's, OBP, and runs scored. Yes, I used only one year's data and that was half the point. There are many, many people on Redszone who treat a walk and OBP as something sacred. They have certain ideas in their mind as to what the baseball laws are as far as results go. I showed them not to be laws. There are certain tendencies but no absolutes here. To pass them off as anything else is simply wrong. The team who has the highest OPS each year does not always score the most runs. The team with the highest OBP doesn't always win the most games. WOY's own chart showed that. ( That was a good read btw.) I would like to go back to OPS for a moment. I never mentioned it in my previous posting and TRF didn't mention it in his but others did later. Did you know that Toronto finished 2nd in MLB this year in OPS? Did you also know that they finished 12th in runs scored? Why? Shouldn't they be 2nd or at least somewhere in the Top 5? Baseball stats and mathematics are great. Baseball stats and philosophy go great together. But, what we are left with in the end are the results and even that doesn't tell the whole truth. Does the fact that Ted Williams have 200 less homers than Ruth make him a lesser hitter? Who's better? We don't know. We know that Ryan Howard had the most home runs. We know that Aaron Harang had the most strikeouts. We know that the Reds won 80 games this season. Beyond that it is all opinion and your own philosophy. Yes, RedsManRick I do understand what you are saying but it is your opinion. Cherish it because it is yours, but no one should pass their opinions off to me or anyone else as law.
Last edited by Handofdeath; 11-14-2006 at 08:07 PM.
I'd like to go on record as saying I had no intention of stats vs non-stats round 4,597,276 to erupt when I came up with this thread.
You have my sincere apologies. I simply said taking a walk was overrated and it snowballed. I am sorry.I'd like to go on record as saying I had no intention of stats vs non-stats round 4,597,276 to erupt when I came up with this thread.
Last edited by Handofdeath; 11-15-2006 at 02:02 PM.
Drinking again?
No problem bud. I was kidding around (mostly).
I think a batter's ability to get hit by a thrown baseball without getting seriously hurt, therefor being allowed to go to first base, is rather overrated.
Bill Cosby had a great routine about that in the late 60's I think.
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