On the declining quality of the ORG

[757690]

Shenanigans. You backed out of an obviously tautological claim by claiming it was a tautology and then claiming it was a joke. Look, either we're having a conversation in good faith, or we aren't. You clearly weren't then. And often aren't.

I really didn't want to rehash this in a thread, but since you have your facts so misinformed, I guess I have to.

Here was the conversation:

Someone said Bailey's only problem was that he was letting his bad luck affect his performance.

I replied, jokingly, that guys who let their bad luck affect their performance don't get $100M contracts.

You and another poster asked me to provide proof of this statement.

I replied, "lol, I meant to say that guys like that shouldn't get $100M contracts."

The other poster understood that I was making a snarky remark, an opinion, not a statement of fact, not a serious claim, that it just was a bad attempt to be funny. You, on the other hand, still didn't get it, and demanded that I still provide stats to back up the statement.

I replied that I couldn't back it up, because it was a tautology, a meaningless statement that can neither be proven true nor false, since it brings no new, meaningful information to the discussion. I, again, was trying to be too silly, too clever by half. Clearly, what's funny on a philosophy board, isn't funny on a baseball board. My mistake.

Then everyone got into a discussion of what a tautology really is, and that was fun for me, but had nothing to do with my original statement.

I never made a claim in that thread. I made a badly worded, snarky remark, meant to poke fun at Homer's contract. And your reaction is exactly what can be wrong with Redszone these days. I poster can't even make a snarky joke, without it being taken way to seriously, and demanded that it be analyzed, examined and backed up with stats.

I hope that ends this nonsense once and for all.

[RedEye]

And your reaction is exactly what can be wrong with Redszone these days. I poster can't even make a snarky joke, without it being taken way to seriously, and demanded that it be analyzed, examined and backed up with stats.

Either that, or you should admit that your badly worded snarky joke is what is wrong with RedsZone these days. I will note that your original "joke" had no scare quotes or emoticons along with it to signal as such -- and also that your posting in other threads often resembles this. When someone disproves what you are saying, you pretend like you were just "taking a side" and that you agreed with them all along. Shenanigans.

Switching sides of an argument and playing devil's advocate is one thing, but acting like you are some sort of omniscient puppet master when you are called out for bunk arguments is another.

Here, by the way, are all of your posts on Bailey in that thread, just so that everyone knows I'm not crazy -- or illiterate -- as you imply by saying that I didn't understand your joke:

The problem is that even the most generous analysis of Bailey's peripherals (xFIP). have him as a 3.64 ERA guy so far this year. A less generous analysis (FIP) has him as a 4.68 ERA guy. So, even if things fall into place for him and he does perform up to his peripherals so far this year, he's still a back of the rotation starter, at best. In other words, even his peripherals aren't that good.

Pitchers who are worth $100M, generally don't let bad luck affect them.

Ever been to Philly? Lol

I agree Reds fans turn on their big stars quickly and irrationally. I'm not sure that is the case here. I think fans of any team would be upset after a guy they just signed for $100M, pitched poorly for the first month and a half of the season.

I'm not talking about Homer's bad luck. I'm talking about his ability to deal with it. If he lets some bad luck affect him, he's not worth $100M.

lol. Let me rephrase then. Pitchers who are worth $100M, shouldn't let bad luck affect them.

A guy who responds badly to bad luck will have bad results. Nothing slippery about it.

Walt and Cast are much smarter than that. However, there's no doubt that those two no hitters raised Bailey's price tag. It turned him into a higher profile pitcher.

Which is why I wanted the Reds to trade him this off-season. Someone was going to overpay based on his marquee value. I do think that was the plan, but Chapman's refusal to start changed everything.

It's a tautology, it doesn't need evidence. Guys who let bad luck affect their performance, by definition will perform poorly. And when they perform poorly, they will not earn $100M contracts. I'm not saying these guys don't get $100M contracts, just that they don't earn them. I apologize for any confusion if I worded it poorly.

Depends on the augment. If someone claims that drawing walks don't help a team win games , the only way to reply is with a tautology. Walks help teams score runs which help teams win games. You're not providing any new information by saying that walks leads to runs, but it's important to clarify to the other person the obvious truth.

And that's what I was doing. Someone, I don't even remember who at this point, lol, but someone made the excuse for Bailey that he just was reacting poorly to his bad luck. I simply pointed out that that was a bad excuse, because if he's reacting poorly to his bad luck, then he's not a good pitcher, and definitely not earning his $100M. That is obviously, intuitively true, but still needed to be stated.

To be honest, I don't think Homer reacts poorly to his bad luck, at least not any worse than most other pitchers. He's just not that good.

If I implied that I thought that Bailey responds badly to bad luck, I apologize. I actually don't think he does.

1. If you respond poorly to any aspect of your job, you will do your job poorly. No need to interpret anything. You just need to know what the meaning of the word "poorly" is. No need to provide evidence of anything for it to be true.

2. He's a career 4 ERA, no matter what metric you use. He's not that good. He's not that bad either, but overall, he's not that good.

1) You understand that by admitting it was a tautology, I've admitted it wasn't a very meaningful sentence. I wasn't making some new claim, I was trying to state the obvious. I was actually poking fun at myself by claiming it was tautology.

2) I said by any metric, so no I wasn't using only ERA. According to ERA, FIP, xFIP, tERA, etc. Bailey is a career 4 ERA guy.

The person I was responding to was talking about Homer. I was talking about pitchers in general, and being kinda silly about. It wasn't meant to be taken so seriously, nor taken apart word by word and analyzed so intently. Although, I did enjoy trying to defend it, even if there wasn't much to defend, lol.

I got Redszone to discuss tautologies. As a Philosophy major, that's a huge victory

Far from clear to me that you were joking in the first instance, and your back out, to me is a cop out. Sorry, but your continual denials aren't helping your case here.

[Brutus]

I do remember that thread because I remember thinking how I'd never seen tautology used on a sports message board, and it was used seemingly two dozen times in that thread LOL

[757690]

Either that, or you should admit that your badly worded snarky joke is what is wrong with RedsZone these days. I will note that your original "joke" had no scare quotes or emoticons along with it to signal as such -- and also that your posting in other threads often resembles this. When someone disproves what you are saying, you pretend like you were just "taking a side" and that you agreed with them all along. Shenanigans.

Switching sides of an argument and playing devil's advocate is one thing, but acting like you are some sort of omniscient puppet master when you are called out for bunk arguments is another.

Here, by the way, are all of your posts on Bailey in that thread, just so that everyone knows I'm not crazy -- or illiterate -- as you imply by saying that I didn't understand your joke: Far from clear to me that you were joking in the first instance, and your back out, to me is a cop out. Sorry, but your continual denials aren't helping your case here.

Boy, you really don't get it, do you?

Thanks for taking all of my comments out of context, and by the way, you combined other statements that I made about Homer that had nothing to do with the statement we are discussing :

Let me try this one more time and I will use the exact quotes just to be perfectly clear.

Pitchers who are worth $100M, generally don't let bad luck affect them.

Pure snark. But I understand how people could think I was making a declarative statement. When called on to provide evidence, I responded with:

lol. Let me rephrase then. Pitchers who are worth $100M, shouldn't let bad luck affect them.

I start with an lol. A clear sign that I'm not trying to be serious. And by changing the "don't" to "shouldn't", I am changing the sentence from a declarative statement to an opinion. At this point, it should be clear that I wasn't trying to say anything that required evidence or proof. Just an opinion. You replied with:

Contracts are usually based on results and on projections -- not on something so slippery as whether a pitcher "responds" to bad luck.

You still didn't get it. You still thought I was making an declarative statement. I replied with:

A guy who responds badly to bad luck will have bad results. Nothing slippery about it.

More snark. Alliterative snark at that. You still didn't get it. You replied:

You've offered no evidence to support the claim -- just an aphorism. I don't think most contracts are based on aphorisms. At least in well-run franchises they aren't

You still think I'm making a claim, a declarative statement instead of a silly opinion. I liked you're use of an SAT word, so I countered with one of my own.

It's a tautology, it doesn't need evidence. Guys who let bad luck affect their performance, by definition will perform poorly. And when they perform poorly, they will not earn $100M contracts. I'm not saying these guys don't get $100M contracts, just that they don't earn them. I apologize for any confusion if I worded it poorly.

I will admit from here on out, I was having some fun at your expense, playing out the tautology debate simply because I like discussing tautologies. You, and everyone else has every right to think I was jerk here, and I apologize. But I only did so because I was so frustrated that you didn't understand that my first statement wasn't a declarative statement that required evidence and proof, but was just an opinion thrown out there are as a bad attempt to be snarky and silly.

[RedEye]

Boy, you really don't get it, do you?

Thanks for taking all of my comments out of context, and by the way, you combined other statements that I made about Homer that had nothing to do with the statement we are discussing :

It is a thread about Homer, and the other things you were saying were also disparaging of him, including your arguments about how he is "just a 4.00 ERA guy" and that he "just isn't any good" among others. So I would argue that all of these are germane to the discussion, in that they are all poorly argued, poorly backed up claims that I responded to as a group.

I will admit from here on out, I was having some fun at your expense, playing out the tautology debate simply because I like discussing tautologies. You, and everyone else has every right to think I was jerk here, and I apologize. But I only did so because I was so frustrated that you didn't understand that my first statement wasn't a declarative statement that required evidence and proof, but was just an opinion thrown out there are as a bad attempt to be snarky and silly.

Thanks for the apology. But here's why I kept chipping away:

It's a tautology, it doesn't need evidence. Guys who let bad luck affect their performance, by definition will perform poorly.

Well, no. Declarative statement or not, this is just not sound logic.

If you want to get all nitty gritty about this, I would say that the original claim you made is not tautological in a rhetorical sense, because it is logically contingent.

Pitchers who are worth $100 million, generally don't let bad luck affect them

This is not a tautological statement because the interpretation of it depends on how we read the two variables. "Pitchers who are worth $100 million" and "don't let bad luck affect them" both have a number of unclear terms. It's hardly a throw-away statement, and absent any clear indication from you otherwise, I took it as an argument. Later, your "lol" added to other statements only stoked my fire -- as I thought you were just mocking me rather than defending your spurious claim.

Look, you are a nice guy, and I generally respect you as a poster. Just don't play me for a fool. I'm a careful reader, and I assume that others are as well. If you don't have evidence for a claim just say so -- rather than trying to throw words around or dance away from incautious claims you've made.

[westofyou]

Why dick around in a debate? I'm lost on the draw to discussing two sides of an issue or displaying an opinion that you don't believe in. To me it seems like baiting as well as insincere.


And seriously... WE all know that insincerity is frowned on by The Great Pumpkin

[757690]

Why dick around in a debate? I'm lost on the draw to discussing two sides of an issue or displaying an opinion that you don't believe in. To me it seems like baiting as well as insincere.


And seriously... WE all know that insincerity is frowned on by The Great Pumpkin

I like the Groucho Marx quote on sincerity:

"The key to success in Hollywood is sincerity. If you can fake that, you'll go far."

Concerning arguing both sides, I'm not talking about arguing something I don't believe is true. A good example is RBI. I will argue anti RBI, in that RBI are more a result of consequence than skill, and that they are projectable. I'll argue pro RBI, in that they represent actual production that the player provided for the team, and that better hitters are more likely to hit in the middle of the lineup and get more RBI chances, so they do represent some skill. I believe both statements are true, and I don't think I'm being insincere in arguing both at the same time. Like I said, it's rarely black and white. Usually the are good lists to both sides of an issue.

[RedEye]

I like the Groucho Marx quote on sincerity:

"The key to success in Hollywood is sincerity. If you can fake that, you'll go far."

I get this in terms of Groucho. Do explain how it is a useful skill on a message board. I take the whole point of RedsZone is that it is a different place than most sports boards I've been to. It's a place where we gather to discuss things, ideally without coping with the ridiculous snark and posturing and logical fallacies that are usually part of the game elsewhere.

Obviously, any of us can fake whatever opinions or attitudes we want to here. But if someone catches us in the act, it's probably better just to fess up and be done with it. Otherwise, you won't go far here. IMO.

[757690]

I get this in terms of Groucho. Do explain how it is a useful skill on a message board. I take the whole point of RedsZone is that it is a different place than most sports boards I've been to. It's a place where we gather to discuss things, ideally without coping with the ridiculous snark and posturing and logical fallacies that are usually part of the game elsewhere.

Obviously, any of us can fake whatever opinions or attitudes we want to here. But if someone catches us in the act, it's probably better just to fess up and be done with it. Otherwise, you won't go far here. IMO.

It was a joke. Making fun of Hollywood. Just trying to bring some levity to a heavy thread.

[gilpdawg]

Anddddd the thread about how Redszone sucks now now sucks. Someone call Alanis Morrisette.

[Raisor]

Anddddd the thread about how Redszone sucks now now sucks. Someone call Alanis Morrisette.

I have 10,000 spoons when all I really need is a knife

[SteelSD]

Anddddd the thread about how Redszone sucks now now sucks.

Shhhh...quiet...

You couldn't have known about it, but I've been sitting in this tree quite a while just waiting for the last ten pages of this thread to show up. I even made cheesy popcorn. If you tiptoe away quickly and cause no more ruckus, we might continue to get more very clear shots of what the issues really are.

I'll even share the popcorn.

[Raisor]

Any thread I post in cannot, by definition, "suck".

It's simple science.

[Rojo]

I kind of like this thread. It's the Festivus thread -- the airing of greviences.

[gilpdawg]

I kind of like this thread. It's the Festivus thread -- the airing of greviences.

For the rest of us!!