rluzinski

I recognize the fact that I can be very condescending in my posts. There is never an excuse for it because it doesn't serve any person. I don't understand what it is, but I never felt like I NEEDED to be before, however. There is and was plenty of non-stathead guys who start intelligent, thought out discussions regarding any number of topics. I may not have always agreed with them but I certainly respected their opinion. I'm just finding it harder and harder to respect a post that says, "This guy is terrible and sucks. It's obvious and no one can tell me different." What the heck does that prove or even add to these boards? If I attempt to counter that unsubstantiated opinion with a fact or two I get bombarded with "stats are stupid!" posts. More often than not (lately especially) I've lost my cool and acted like a fool as a result. The whole situation is frustrating.

Why oh why can the burden of proof never be on the guy who makes his claims based on casual observation? How come that dude never has to do any research or number crunching? Probably because there's nothing there to analyze, as he has taken the lazy position and says "I just know". The problem with relying on such "evidence" is that a) you are not intently watching every at-bat of every game all season and b) certain events will be more salient and stand out in your mind moreso than others. Sometimes we remember players for one event and base our opinion of them on that, like a guy who threw a no-hitter, or a crappy utilityman who happened to score a couple runs during the world series and parlayed that into being overpaid for several seasons. I've attempted to say this a number of times but never have been able to describe it as elequently as mothershipconnection just did. Trying to make assumptions based on observation of large samples is impossible. Human bias and bad memory make it impossible. Watch 100 AB in a row and unless you take copious notes (you know, record stats) you wouldn't be able to tell me if they guy batted .250 or .300. You wouldn't even know how many HR's he hit unless you counted them. If I asked you, "Is he a patient hitter, can he hit the outside pitches, does he walk?" you would probably be hard pressed to tell me. It's 100 AB! You probably would use the first 20 AB trying to get a sense of the player and then validate those assumptions for the next 80. It's human nature. Here's an example. I just assumed Hall was a very impatient hitter last year (and that part of his success early this year was a result of taking more pitches). I mean, we all remember Hall hacking to death last year at anything, right? It's obvious. Anyone who watched the games last year knew that. WRONG. After I tried to back up my observation with actual facts (because that's what you DO when you want to present something to the public), I found this: Pitches / PA Hall, 04: 3.80 Hall, 05: 4.19 NL Ave: 3.74 While Hall HAS improved his P/PA this year, he was actually ABOVE league average last year. How could I have been wrong, though? This one was a no-brainer. I mean, I watched most of the games in 2004. Hall stunk. It's simple. I don't like Hall and I couldn't have told you if he was a patient hitter even if I wasn't biased. The difference between 3.5 P/PA and 4.0 P/Pa is not something you can keep track of in your head. I junked the whole article. I could prove nothing. I'm not trying to preach here or think I'm better than anyone else. I'm just describing a limitation everyone has (unless you have photographic memory or whatever). Stats can be abused but they are the foundation to making intelligent observations.

Sorry for the confusion. Those probabilities are to finish at that record or better. My probabilities use the pythagorean records (found with runs scored and runs against) and adjust for home/road. I fudge it a bit by finsing the average probability to win a single game for the rest of the year (based on a weighted average of the remaining schedule). I come up with a probability of 52%, which is actually pretty high. A team that wins 52% of their games for a whole year wins 84 games. It's misleading to say that because the Brewers only play 2 teams with a winning record to justify that they have an easy schedule remaining. First of all, the Brewers play those 2 teams 9 times, out of the reminaing 22. So 41% of our remaining games are against 2 very good teams, Houston and St Louis. Of course, we play some very bad teams as well, hence the 52% number.

I slammed the fact that you used numbers that had little relevance to HOF4's point and then used fuzzy ones at that. You need to read his post again. HOF4 Said: The real key to any offensive consistency is scoring runs when you should score runs. He then used the "runner at 3rd and less than 2 outs" example. I added runner at second and no outs because: 1. Both are situations that are brought up time and time against by many fans that are convinced that "should" ALWAYS result in a run (HOF4 is not one of them, BTW). 2. They both happen to score atleast 1 run "AROUND" the same amount of the time. Yeh, that's real fuzzy math to actually look at every game between 1999 and 2002 and see how often a run was scored in those situations. That's not math at all, it's counting. Here's all the math. Prob = Times Scored Atleast 1 Run / Times in Situation My point was simply fans expect the teams to score just about 100% in those situations, whereas actual games shows they only score about 2 out of 3 times. You missed that point completely and questioned the validity of a statistic that required dividing 1 number with another. I slammed the fact that you used numbers that had little relevance to HOF4's point and then used fuzzy ones at that. I understood his point perfectly. You simply didn't understand mine. And there's that "fuzzy" word again. Not pissed about stats...I agree that there are things that can be learned from using them...BUT...I also know that predictions are only that...the best statistical guess. Where was I predicting something? All I did was tell you how often it occurs. You got defensive for no reason and went on a tirade about "statheads." But it is far less condescending than the treatment people receive from some members when they dare question the almighty "SABRE" as the answer to all questions on this site. You attacked my post, not the other way around. For whatever reason some people get very threatened by anything that has a number. You are one of them.

russ, what does the graph prove... I stick to my espn splits team ranking I wasn't disagreeing with you. Using team rankings can be a very misleading and inexact way to to measure things, however. What that chart showed is that whole most teams significantly improve their OPS w/RISP, the Brewers are one of only a handful of teams that do worse. What I disagree with is why they do worse, or even how significant that stat is to begin with. They'll probably do much better next year and we'll all be told how they have "grown up" and learned how to finally hit in that situation. I'll attribute it to mostly regression to the mean. Such is like at brewerfan.net.

To sugest that there's little difference in the 2 situations just beacuse men score "about as often" from 2nd with 0 outs as from 3rd with 1 out is missing the point. All I said is that on average the two situation result in atleast a run about as often. From 1999 to 2002: 2B & 0 out: 63% 3B & 1 out: 66% I also think it's kind of telling that you stat guys use the "about as often" when your point isn't as strong. You slam me if I overstate numbers and you slam me if I understate numbers? Does that make ANY sense at all? The numbers in question are above. I'm not going to write 63.235% because that's stupid. I KNOW they aren't that exact. The stats are from only 3 seasons and they were 3 years ago. I'd bet they are still are "about the same", however. There are 12 "or so" ways to score from 3rd that aren't true of 2nd base. What does that have to do with anything? Even if there are a million more ways to score from 3B than 2B, they apparently occur much less often than the couple of ways there are to score from 2B. Why do people get so darn pissed about stats? Is it because you don't completely understand them? Atleast try to learn about something before you disagree with it. Is it because you don't want the game dehumanized? I'm not trying to dehumanize it, but certain information can be gleaned from the game, in order to make generalizations.

Of course most of us don't get to see THIS game. SIGH.

No way, Russ. You cannot rank 14th in the league in OPS with RISP and get those runners in an 'average' amount of the time. NO WAY. I'll tell you what, if you are going to go to the trouble of quoting me by putting ' ' around words, how about not truncating it. I said, 'around average.' Hey, I'm just guessing but I have a hunch you wouldn't see a huge difference.

Enjoy, Hoffy. http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/crewstink.gif

Milton is Getting LIT UP. 1.2 innings pitched 2 HRs 2 Doubles 3 singles 2 walks

Bench Overbay!

Is it possible to talk about anything BUT the Brewers not scoring 100% their runners?

Any time there is a runner on 3rd and less than two outs, you should knock him in. A runner at second and no outs and a runner on third with 1 out score about the same amount of time, 2 out of 3. So one out of 3 times an average team doesn't score in that situation. I have no idea how often the Brewers score in that situation but I bet it's around average. As a brewer fan it can get pretty frustrating to have to hear 33% of the time a fan complain that "good teams don't do that." Sure they do, but only like 28% of the time. To me the definition of a consistent offense is self explanitory; it's an offense that scores around the same amount of runs day in and day out. It's not a team that scores alot of runs, because they would simply be described as a good offense. It's not an offense that that squeeks out extra runs with small ball; that's an efficient offense. What's ironic is that most teams' offenses are simply consistently inconsistent. It's the nature of the game.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/renrec97.gif

I think they mean they want their offense to score A LOT of runs EVERY game. I really don't think that's what they mean. The major criticism I've always heard is, "They score 6 runs one days and 2 the next." It's unreasonable to "want" a team to score 6+ runs a game. I give fans more credit than that.

Goodness, Russ. That was just crude, man. My stomach is still upset from it. The Brewers are now 3 for 11 with RISP tonight. Nice!

127+ pitches for harang. Sheesh!

This is what I think about this game: LINK

Actually I didn't. I have these things called eyes, and another thing called a brain. Striking out with runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out (especially batting 7th). Very bad. Striking out with only a runner on second and 1 out. Not as bad. Not good, but not as bad. No way, you didn't even to bother!? You already know everything!? I can't believe you would have that attitude! EDIT: People tear to shreds the "K's aren't that bad" argument and then refuse to read about why some feel that way, "because they already know everything." Boo. That's just sad.

Good grief! However, that K isn't worse than a gounder, fly ball, whatever. Good to see you read my post and checked out the link. Let me know if you have any questions.

Atleast Branyan King is flipping the order quickly http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif PRINCE!

If Branyan K's here someone is is going to kill their dog. EDIT: Run Sparky!

Helling as gotten increasingly better each start. He is only 34... http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

I just don't see the argument that a deep fly ball, grounder to the right side, etc. is no better than a strikeout in that situation. Of course it's better. That's never BEEN the argument. The argument has ALWAYS been that on average a K is barely worse than a normal out. Of course after the VERY situation where K's are the worst, relative to a normal out, someone screams, "SEE K'S ARE BAD! PEOPLE ARE STUPID WHO THINKS K'S ARE GOOD! YOU GUYS ARE NUTJOB IDIOTS!" Pardon me if I get defensive. If anyone REALLY wants to know when K's are BAD or not so bad, look HERE: LINK It breaks the negative value of a K and an out into the 24 base-out situations. When the K value is larger (larger negative) a K is worse. When the regular out value is greater, it's better to K in that situation. The average: Not K out: -.2999 Runs K: -.31 Runs Now how many people do you think will even bother to look at that? Not too many.

Someone says that someone who can't make contact hurts the team, so you provide someone with zero power as your argument. I've already provided a million stats for my "argument." Some people have proven they could give a crap about any stats. I could write a thesis about the subject and the next time someone k's they'll say, "See, K's are BADDDD!" There is no argument here, just angry people. So what if Overbay hit a sac fly there? Would it be the same as a strikeout? You don't make any sense. The point was that he didn't. If you want to play what if's, what if the catcher missed the ball when Branyan K'd? Than the runner would have scored! K's are good!