rluzinski

Are people really suggesting that the Brewers may not try as hard because they will feel satisfied? I say this a million times but only in baseball do we say things like that. We could hold a ticker tape parade for the Brewers and I have no doubt that they will be trying their hardest to win in the playoffs.

I agree that Betancourt is not going to get benched for the playoffs but a .272 OBP over 28 games and a TV announcer saying his defense has been better than horrible is some terrible evidence that he's been doing OK. It almost seems like a joke.

I disagree here, why was it not possible? I don't think it is an obvious common sense thing. You don't think it was possible for him to just take it 1 shot at a time, focus on perfect form/follow through? If I told you that you had to make 3 straight free throws or you would die don't you think you would approach them differently than if they were 3 random free throws in a pick up game? If you think players can will themselves to having a 100% chance to hit a free throw (or have 100% chance of hitting a free throw for any reason), we will have to agree to disagree. I find the very suggestion, silly and all the math is on my side. This conversation has turned into trying to argue against the existence of god.

Again, that is not what I'm saying at all. Was it possible that Laettner somehow willed himself to momentarily being a better shooter than he otherwise was? Sure, why not. As always, I can't rule it out. Did he will himself to having a 100% chance of making all those shots? Of course not. That's common sense, isn't it? His performance is still governed by the laws of probability. Even if he had somehow willed himself to having an 80% chance of making each of those 10 shots from the floor, the probability of him making 100% of them was still only 10%. As with just about everything in life, luck played a significant role. I can see how that might take some of the magic away from exceptional sports performances but it's reality. If you don't want to tarnish the mystic of it all, don't debate me or any other stat geek about probability theory or Bernoulli trials.

I really dont like treating baseball like a series of coin flips, I think that is far too simplistic. I think if a player is hot then they should have higher odds of getting a hit with successive good ABs. You are treating players too much like a random dice instead of dynamic people. To suggest a true talent .300 hitter has a 30% chance of getting a hit in every single AB of their career does not reflect reality, in my opinion. Also, it would be extremely interesting to actually set up the trial you are suggesting and compare it to actual results. Maybe you are correct and you would not find anyone less random than your theoretical floor, but I suspect you would. Of course it is too simplistic. The point is that the streakiness that model would represent the MINIMUM streakiness you can expect from any player ever. If you find a player that is less streaky over the course of "x" number of games, it is only because of random chance. Why can I say that with such complete confidence? Because the fundamental laws of probability statistics demand it. It's a binomial distribution. It can't be erased. In reality, the odds of getting a hit changes for every AB, which only increases the spread of expected results for a given sample. Why do the odds change? Some of the largest reasons: * change in opposing pitcher skill and specific matchup (lefty/righty, pitch types, etc...)* park* health of batter and pitcher Those factors just add to the expected streakiness. I don't know how much "seeing the ball well" contributes to overall streakiness but I am certain that it is small compared to everything else (especially the luck part which can easily be calculated). Unless you think the odds of getting a hit are naturally cyclical (e.g. 90%,10%,10%, 90%, 10%, 10%, etc), the streakiness you see batters have is primarily based on a coin flip. I'm sure that's just another example of a stat-nerd ruining the game but it is what it is.

Those two statements don't contradict each other. Just because I think that skill-based streakiness is significantly smaller than the "luck" based streakiness doesn't mean I don't think there is such thing as skill-based streakiness. As I explained in an earlier post, we can easily model the theoretically most consistent batting performance that we could expect. You just set it up a Bernoulli trial with the batter having the same odds of getting a hit every AB. That will define that absolute MINIMUM streakiness any player can exhibit In reality, no no batter could be even that consistent over a large period of time but it defines the floor. You will find that batter will be very streaky and it is physically impossible to rid yourself of it.

I have full faith that the Brewers will continue to try and win every game that they play.

Of course they are but at the end of the day, the batter still has some (unknown) percent chance of getting a hit in a particular AB. It is stochastic in nature as a result. Because, we HAVE to see some amount of streakiness in performance. We can even make some estimates on what minimum level of streakiness we would expect from luck alone. "I think a player can bunch together good performances for reasons other than randomness." Of course they can. Who is arguing otherwise? That mostly gets drowned out by the "coin flip" streakiness of the results. It's fairly easy to prove this. The streakiness we observe in the results is simply a combination of luck and variation of day-to-day skill (from health, "seeing the ball well" or whatever else you want to attribute it to). We can estimate the variation we expect from the coin flip luck and see that it makes up a large portion of the the overall observed variation. I can't say this enough. I am not arguing that there isn't non-luck based variation. Perhaps some are so resistant to sabermetric principles because they don't really even know what they are in the first place! If that's even in part because of self-professed "stat geeks" misusing the science, that is unfortunate.

If the Brewers win 93 games, I would say that is deserving of a playoff appearance.

"Too often stat people get stuck in the fallacy that just because you cannot prove something exists is proof that it does not exist." I agree wholeheartedly. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If you have ever played you know that hot streaks exist, there are just times for whatever reason when you feel like you can drive any pitch, and times when you are hoping to get walked because you aren't seeing it well. There is really no way to determine using stats when a player is hot or when the hot streak will end, so stat lovers basically deny that hotness exists, when anyone who ever played the game insists it exists because they actually experienced it. The best way to determine if someone is hot is to observe their ABs and note when they lay off nasty pitches and crush mistake pitches. I'm sure there are certain factors that contribute to streakiness (health being the greatest I suspect). I hope we can all agree that the vast majority of time that when a player is deemed hot or cold, they are simply exhibiting a random bunching of good or bad performance. It's a statistical inevitability. As for being able to predict when a batter should be expected to perform better than his projections by simply watching him, I am beyond skeptical. I would absolutely love for you or anyone else to prove your ability to identify which players are hot by watching them. I would bet all my money against it. Honestly, if you can do that greater than 55% if the time, you can make a lot of money in Vegas. Believe it or not but I've made decent money betting against people who think they have that skill.

Take if from someone who has questioned the stat geeks. Whitlock is right on the money. Check out the threads that discuss Mark Kotsay for instance. Because some stat geek came up with "Wins above Replacement" as a measure of value, and Kotsay has been marginally negative on this for the last several years. the argument (and if you refute it you are an idiot) is that Kotsay is completely worthless and doesn't belong in the game. The true stat geeks are zealots. Sabermetrics is their religion.You believe you learned everything there is to know about baseball about 30 years ago. I haven't. You are always certain that your opinion is correct. I don't. Who's the zealot?

They estimate projected performance using analytical models based on historical data. They don't predict anything. Many people don't appreciate the difference. And trying to lump all "stat geeks" into one group is stupid. Statististics should be used as the foundation of a discussion, not the capstone. I have had plenty of great discussions here they did not end with me saying, "end of discussion". And the whole premise or the article is silly. Baseball fans have been obsessed with stats forever. Some fans are just upset that some are using stats they are less familiar with. BA, RBi and HRs are still fine of course.

Positional adjustments should really address defense though, which is why measures like that are generally not used.They should address the scarcity of a league average hitter at the position.Isn't that approach really just a proxy for what we really want to know? We want to know how valuable an average defensive performance is at one position vs. another. It's only because that question is so difficult to answer that we start looking at offense.

Wanting your team to have the best chance of winning the World Series? You are entitled to your opinion but you are obviously in the extreme minority.

Now that the Brewers have won 4 of their last 5, are we to assume they are hot and will win 80% of their remaining games?

Glad to see the Cards lose but I care about Arizona about 100x more.

The Brewers got something like $15 mil of production out of Marcum for $4 mil this year. They have a good chance of getting $10+ mil of net production out him next year as well. Lawrie may prove to be the real deal but he might have to give Toronto something like $25+ mil of production for them to even break even on the trade. Long way to go. And what level of raw athleticism Marcum possesses or how many plus pitches he throws is basically irrelevant.

Sounds great to me.

If we are looking a probability, with the goal of reaching the World Series, I think the highest probability of the Brewers reaching the WS are in Arizona upsetting the Phillies in a 5 game series and the Brewers beating Arizona in a 7 game series with Home-Field advantageExactly. The Phillies will be huge favorites but might still have a 25% chance or greater of losing in the first round. Add that to the Brewers having a slightly better chance of winning with home field advantage and this is all a no brainer.

Did I mention that I think baseball fans are crazy? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Enjoy this, people.

To be fair, I'm not sure if BP takes the probability of injuries into account.

Not sure what is the average platoon split for a pitcher but here is Arroyo's career split: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=arroybr01&year=Career&t=p#plato I doubt even that justifies batting Kotsay 2nd though. Of course, I don't think he should be starting ever, though.

95% chance just means that we expect that 1 in 20 teams in that situation won't make it. The fact that the Giants were an example of the "won't" does not in any way disprove the utility of these estimates.

Baseball fans are crazy.

Based on comps, 5/$100 mil. If he wants to give the Brewers a break, maybe 5/$90. Expecting more than a $10 mil hometown discount is probably not a good idea.