In praise of Emil Brown
by boilerdan on May 2, 2008 8:45 AM PDT
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PrintI was an "early adopter" of Bill James and have always loved the quantitative side of the game. I remember playing APBA baseball in the early 70's and calculating out OBP for players before drafting my teams - this was long before OBP was a reported stat. I pay close attention to L/R splits and think that teams still don't do enough to leverage these data. I also fully accept that "clutch" is largely chance and that over the length of a career a player's performance in clutch situations will likely match his overall stats pretty closely. All of this is to say that I recognize that Emil Brown is not my type of player - I saw little reason for his acquisition and have felt since spring training that he should be a spot starter against lefties - period.
So I come today to praise Emil Brown. I've decided to put aside the splits, ignore OBP, and purge "regression to the mean" and "small sample size" from my vocabulary for the time being. Instead, I intend to simply sit back as an A's fan and appreciate what this guy has done in the first month of the season and enjoy it as long as it lasts. Because more than being a stats guy, I'm an A's fan who wants them to win, and Brown has done nothing but help them do that. On top of that, he seems like a really decent and humble guy - despite my love of the numbers, I also like to like they guys on my team.
Unrelated observations: this team needs another infielder. Crosby and Ellis need a day off and I'm not sure flipping around Murphy is enough, because you know that they're just going to pinch hit for him later in the game. The A's had an unusually busy first month of the season and I think it's showing on those two guys. Also, I'd lke to see Bowen get one start a week - there is no reason to grind Suzuki into the ground, and Bowen is a pretty productive backup. Finally, I don't think this team can sustain Jack Cust in the OF for the full season. This is why I really didn't understand the Thomas acquisition. They pretty much have committed to have Cust "roam" the OF regularly, which scares me.
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Yeah, it's especially scary to have both Brown and Cust in the OF
Which is why I’m in favor of a platoon as soon as Brown comes down to earth.
Why not do it now?
If you know someone is going to “come down to earth,” why is it necessary to wait for him to actually do what you know he’s going to do anyway, and lose you ballgames in the process?
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
If this were a board game, sure.
I’m all for benching Brown in favor of someone better. I just don’t think making suggestions like that are worth the breath. It’s not a realistic move even by A’s-type management to bench a guy batting .300 and 2nd in the league in RBIs (Even if many of us would understand the move). So its just more practical to phrase all these like “when someone comes down to Earth”.
It’s like what I’ve been saying, Brown needs to come through with a clutch slump.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
heh...
It’s like what I’ve been saying, Brown needs to come through with a clutch slump.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 10:37 AM PDT up reply actions
Because he's hot
Just because I think he’ll cool off sooner or later doesn’t mean I’d waste his production during this hot streak. Maybe if Cust gets going (he looked good last night, yeah?) it would make more sense, but starting the leagues number two RBI guy once-twice per week would just be silly.
Hot streaks don't exist.
Sorry.
It’s a coincidence.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Ridiculous assertion
Confidence fluctuates. Performance does likewise. Hot streaks exist as a byproduct of psychology. And luck, too, though if luck was the only variable involved, then I guess your point would be more valid, though you’d still have to acknoledge the existence of a streak, except I suppose the better terminology would be “lucky streak” as opposed to “hot streak.” But that’s a moot point anyway. That’s a laughably oversimplified viewpoint, PT. And I in turn oversimplified in my rebuttal…but that’s mainly because it doesn’t take much to respond to that argument, at least in the manner in which you phrased it.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 10:43 AM PDT up reply actions
No, it really is that simple
What a “hot” hitter has done over the last short while does not predict what he will do over a future short while. Confidence does not appear to have any consistent effect on a hitter’s performance. As many people are undone by overconfidence as enhanced by it.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
That is why it is called HOT, It will evntually cool off.
by theblackpearl on May 2, 2008 10:49 AM PDT up reply actions
So what's the point of even saying it, then?
He’s eventually going to cool off. OK. Do you know exactly when? I don’t.
It’s completely useless information. It’s just a statistical curiosity, like my scenario of a guy making four putouts in an inning. It’s good for a chuckle or two. It’s worthless for making baseball decisions.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
It may be completely useless
(Though I would argue it isn’t useless, at least not completely)...but saying that information is completely useless is much different than saying that that information doesn’t exist. That’s what you said in your initial post. Inconsistent.
“Sorry”
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 10:59 AM PDT up reply actions
heh
I had the gall to post before previewing…and I’m paying the price with inadvertent italics.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 11:01 AM PDT up reply actions
Bingo!
He’s eventually going to cool off. OK. Do you know exactly when? I don’t.
Some read stats. Fans actually watch the games.
...OK, clearly I should have phrased that differently
so that it wouldn’t be intentionally misinterpreted by people… it does you no credit to actually do so, though.
Brown has a certain true talent level right now. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I suspect it’s around a mid-700s OPS in all base/out situations. It is as likely that he hits 100 OPS points under that true talent level in today’s game, or aggregated over the rest of the season, as that he hits 100 points over that level (as he has been doing for the past month).
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
he actually has a relatively pronounced RISP split
though his career is a relatively small sample size
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
Situation is far too muddled...
How do you even define your terms? What does “right now” even refer to? This moment, this upcoming game, during this streak which you refuse to refer to as a hot one, something else?
Overlooking that, I like that you think you can hypothesize a “current” performance level for a player, which is a pretty absurd notion unless “right now” is taken to mean something much broader than what it would normally mean, like, “at this stage in his career.” In which case, you’ve taken the discussion to a point that may be valid in one sense, but is pretty far removed from the real-life nuances that, while easily dismissed under the luck umbrella by some, have an impact on Brown’s performance right now. And by right now, I mean during his, eh, hot streak.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 11:45 AM PDT up reply actions
He had a hot streak the past few weeks
There is no reason to believe that right now, ie for tonight’s game, or for this upcoming series, that he is in the midst of a hot streak. Basically, if you were to make a lot of bets where you took a so slightly worse player who had been on a hot streak over a slightly better player on a cold streak, you would lose. This is demonstrably true of the past; no reason to believe it won’t be true in the future.
The A's colors are green and gold.
Thus buy low, sell high
Yes, I know this. This is not the same as saying that hot streaks don’t exist, or can’t be proven to exist, both of which have been PT’s claims. And which to me are two separate claims, but to him are one and the same.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 11:57 AM PDT up reply actions
Exactly
We’re not claiming to predict hot streaks or when they’ll end but that there is such a thing. He could cool off tomorrow. But he also could have been held out of the lineup for the last three weeks.
amen
(name does have “sacred” in it, after all)
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:05 PM PDT up reply actions
They're not the same?
What is this, Godelian logic theory?
Please explain how it would be possible for hot streaks to exist but to have it be unprovable that they do.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Because there's too many variables
And because the human brain isn’t completely understood, and because it’s a hard area to study.
If this were Godelian logic theory, however, then I’d be asking you to prove that hot-streaks don’t exist.
It’d be like asking you to prove that you’re attracted to women (I’m not making assumptions, just examples) which is basically impossible with the technology available to us.
Hogwash
Researchers can easily measure sexual arousal in today’s labs.
Nice insinuation that I’m gay, though. Wrong, but clever.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Can researchers measure love?
Can researchers measure different types of love?
ZIPS: Milledge: 466 HR, 485 2B, 2282 hits, 278-379-524
Do they play baseball in today's labs?
Thus the above line “with the technology available to us.”
I have seen (on ESPN about 10 years ago, so take it for what it’s worth) studies on what athletes call “the zone.” They were mostly related to basketball, and most of the evidence was circumstantial so I didn’t really want to bring it up because I know it won’t go far with your stats-are-everything philosophy.
You know, believe it or not
straw man arguments are not actually very convincing.
Feel free to indicate the place where I said “stats are everything.” I encourage you to try. It might cause you to actually read what I’ve written instead of instantly channeling it into your rigorous little mental box labeled “stathead.”
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Well, you're dismissing something because there's no statistical proof
So it sure sounds like you rely very heavily (at the least) on statistics to base your arguments on. And I would actually agree about 85% of the time that stats are 100% accurate, but the other 20% is something you cant be 100% sure about.
No, I am dismissing something because it has been statistically proved that it doesn't exist
There is a gaping chasm of difference between the two.
It has not been statistically proved that enormous pitch counts are a bad thing. That doesn’t mean I dismiss the notion and think managers should throw starters out there for 200 pitches a game.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
yay perfect time for poker
I just got AKs, JJ, and my 9Ts sucked out on someone else’s aces. I’m all-in-in-the-dark next hand.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
heh
what are you playing? I’ve played enough lately to get to the PlatinumStar level on PStars. Highlight of the past few weeks (since I made my initial $75 deposit) was beating Greg Raymer heads up for a seat at the WSOP main event. He had 16.5k chips at the start of heads up play, I had 7.5k. I won in five hands. I’ve never had people calling me up after a win in an Internet poker tournament, but…I was flooded with voicemails after that one.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:42 PM PDT up reply actions
skeptic here
While it is theoretically possible to do what you claim to have done in just a few weeks—parlay $75 into a seat at a $10,000 buy-in tournament—that’s basically a 1-1400 proposition, consider me more than skeptical that that is in fact what you just did. I suspect that you either are fibbing period or had a lot more money in play (or a lot longer to build it up) than $75.
And I have played against a lot of top pros and do reasonably well though obviously I’m not a pro/phenom or I wouldn’t be hanging around here, would I?
Well if you need to know...PokerStars has...
a 6-step system, where you can buy it at any step, and then ascend to the next step until you reach the 6th, at which point you need to be the outright winner to win the WSOP seat and money for expenses. I bought in at step 3, which cost $80 or $85. I finished in the top two, and moved to step 4. Top two again, step 5. Top two, step 6. Step 6 has a cash value of $2100, so 2-6 are awarded various amounts of money, but all less than the buy-in (ranges from $1500-$500, descending order obviously). So it’s pretty top-heavy. The last person to enter the tournament (these are all 9-person sit-n-go tournaments, btw) was “FossilMan.” We got to heads up play after he gambled in the big blind by calling an all-in for 90% of his stack with A6 preflop to knock out the third place finisher. I beat him in five hands. Look up the cash qualifiers to the WSOP on PokerStars if you’re familiar with the site. Cutthemullet is listed.
And I built up my bankroll before that….
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
and of course...
I proceeded to lose much of my bankroll by playing 100-200 limit drunk Saturday night. Still in the main event, though. Can’t wait till July 3rd.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
Some pros just liked baseball more the whole time and missed it.
Also, you are forgetting that it might be attempt 8 million with $75. I once parlayed like $200 bankroll into a $25k seat.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
I always love the stat guys
at a poker table when Im on a white hot streak. They keep calling and I keep betting.
by asfaninpismobeach on May 2, 2008 5:29 PM PDT up reply actions
and Sacred#24...
mentions many of the nuances that I was referring to in his post below. Some of the factors shouldn’t even be considered nuances. They’re pretty fucking obvious. Albert Belle would look for reasons to get angry before games, because he fed off of that. Baseball is not the same as football, where I could cite that Jaguars’ DT John Henderson has a coach slap him in the face before every game, but still, there are so many factors in play that may on average even out over a prolonged period of time, but not on a case-by-case basis. Looking at Mark Wohlers’ career, statistically, one might call the end of it a statistical aberration. That would not exactly be doing his demise justice, now, would it?
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 11:55 AM PDT up reply actions
in case Wohlers has been forgotten...
He had an Ankiel-eque ending to an otherwise Koch-esque career.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:00 PM PDT up reply actions
except...
he didn’t reinvent himself as a power-hitting centerfielder. Maybe Micah Owings will do that in ten years.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:01 PM PDT up reply actions
By "current performance level"
I mean something like his Marcel the Monkey projections (which move up and down slightly over time as a player’s performance is regressed to the mean and to his prior performance levels).
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
No, it's not
There are factors that need to be considered that can’t necessarily be quantified. Believe it or not guys, you can’t measure every aspect of sports with statistical analysis.
And yes, confidence plays a huge role. Hitters tend to press and swing at bad pitches when they’re in a slump (Paul, is a slump just a long case of bad luck?) and tend to get better wood on the ball when they’re hot.
This is an obvious part of sports and I’m amazed that you can’t accept that. Any athlete will tell you that they play better when they have confidence in they’re ability. Likewise, concentration plays a huge role, as does health, motivation, and a slough of other factors that can’t be measured. You can call it luck if it makes you feel better, but please explain why “luck” tends to come in bunches then.
There are certainly aspects of sports you can't measure with statistical analysis
This just isn’t one of them. This one CAN be measured with analysis, and the measurement turns out to indicate that confidence has zero impact on a guy’s hitting ability.
Hitting luck comes in exactly the number of bunches we would expect it to if there was no such thing as a hot hitter. There will still be lots of bunches, because that’s what “random” means.
Slumps are a different story, not least because a lot of them are actually injuries or illness causing players to play below their normal talent level. There’s also the Devo conjecture—that players are far more likely to play below their talent level when “under pressure” (whether the pressure comes from a high-leverage situation, fear for their jobs, or a long slump) than they are to play above it, because they normally play at essentially the highest level possible for them.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
If you were to direct me to a study which convincingly quantified "confidence"...
I would concede my point. Instead, I can decisively say that there has never, ever been a measurement that
turns out to indicate that confidence has zero impact on a guy’s hitting ability.
I mean, do you realize what you’re saying there? That confidence has been SHOWN to have zero impact on hitting? That is false. Even if it were the case that confidence had zero impact on hitting ability, it certainly hasn’t been shown.
Absurd.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:11 PM PDT up reply actions
I'm not the one who implied that hot streaks were a symbolic proxy
for mental focus, a la Cust’s performance last night.
We can retrace our steps if you’d like. Replace “confidence” in the above sentence with “success in immediately preceding games.” Happy?
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Mistaken inference, perhaps intentionally
That was an example, which will necessarily oversimplify. Don’t intentionally misinterpret, as you accused someone else of doing upthread. I was using that example to make the point that focus is one of many factors that can fluctuate and affect performance. Cust last night was an immediate example. It does remain to be seen whether or not this past game will trigger what I and most others would consider to be a “hot streak”, since a “hot streak” emerges over some number of games.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:29 PM PDT up reply actions
If we take Cust's postgame comments at face value...
He claimed that the then-costly error made him “bear down” at the plate and increase his concentration…well, that is indeed one possible effect that error could have on one’s psyche. And then the increased concentration carries over for some period of time until some unforeseen event diminshes it. This is the inconvenient boundary for statistical analysis…now, admittedly, he could just be saying that to offer an explanation of the events as they happened, as in, trying to make sense of what happened rather than actually knowing or thinking that that happened. “That must have been what happened, but I don’t really know” vs. “that did happen, or I think it did happen.” In the former, we wouldn’t be taking his comments at face value, then; for the latter, we would be. But I think in either scenario it’s hard to dismiss the impact of an error on later at-bats. The old mythical observation about a guy making a great play in the field, then immediately hitting a home run, well, that’s a phenomenon for which we don’t even have a sample size, because that’s one of the few aspects of any part of the game that has yet to be subjected to stat. analysis, but…it makes sense. Natural testosterone boost, you know? And it’s not like we don’t know what effect artificial testosterone boosts can have at the plate.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 10:52 AM PDT up reply actions
Post facto rationalizations are the easiest thing in the world to come up with
Seriously. Give me any scenario, and I will come up with a post facto rationalization that fits the fact pattern.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Hence my acknowledgment of it
You reduce your credibility considerably by taking the strongest possible stance in an argument—it’s ok to qualify what you say. In fact, it’s preferable.
I don’t deny that it’s common for people to offer such explanations. But in this case, it’s not all that important. Because even if, hypothetically, the error and the home run, or any event that immediately precedes the beginning of a :hot streak”, are/is unrelated, that does nothing to dismiss the notion that hot streaks a) exist, and b) can be precipitated by something(s). Evidence and existence are not the same. In your world, though, it appears that they are.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 11:15 AM PDT up reply actions
It's impossible to prove a negative
All we can say is that there’s absolutely zero evidence for hot streaks existing (independent of normal luck fluctuations). That is, literally, what the statement “hot streaks don’t exist” means.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
No, literally, that is not what that statement means
I repeat: evidence is not the same as existence.
The fact that there currently is no statistical evidence for their existence has no bearing on whether there will be statistical evidence for them in the future. This is a simple concept, and I find it amusingly ironic that it’s lost on someone who deploys oversimplifcations as regularly as you do.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 11:33 AM PDT up reply actions
The odds of statistical evidence for hot streaks emerging
are infinitesimally small. Like, 1/(number of atoms in the universe) small.
You can look at any period of baseball history. You will find the same results. I suppose it could be the case that there really are hot hitters but that THEY somehow have, throughout history, had their hotness EXACTLY CANCELED OUT by bad luck to the point where their performance just LOOKS exactly random to confuse us into thinking that it is. And that in future, their hotness will show up and not be canceled out by bad luck.
William of Ockham, and I, think that that is utter and complete nonsense.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
So if a player has the highest avg, hrs, rbis and OPS, for
a whole month, ever in MLB, then hit Crosbyesque for the next month, then went back to the career norm for that hitter, then what would you call that first month? A whole month of luck? He was hot for a month and cooled off. no matter what you think exists, it is what you call a lucky streak, everyone else calls it a hot streak. You are always arguing semantics, or other peoples classification of something that is different from yours.
by theblackpearl on May 2, 2008 12:17 PM PDT up reply actions
You can call it whatever you want
Paraphrasing Lincoln: You can say your dog has five legs, if you call its tail a leg. But if I have a machine that can only be operated by a 5-legged dog, I ain’t buying your dog.
Similarly, you can call Emil Brown’s first month whatever you want—as long as you don’t then say that it’s evidence that he should keep starting ballgames, because it isn’t.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
well, he should surely be starting against LHSPs, shouldn't he?
I mean, I’d prefer we got Jonny Gomes to do that, but …
And what did we do once we discovered a rift in the fourth dimension? We launched a monkey into it. @('.')@
True
In fact, he definitely should keep starting against lefties, because it will inflate his rate stats and make him look like a better trade candidate/make him more likely to be Type B.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
yup
I really hope that’s Beane’s intended endgame.
And what did we do once we discovered a rift in the fourth dimension? We launched a monkey into it. @('.')@
portmanteau: "intendgame"
And what did we do once we discovered a rift in the fourth dimension? We launched a monkey into it. @('.')@
I'd start him over Denorfia (or whoever) vs. RHPs at this point
as they’re doing; then a platoon with Cust when Buck comes back.
The A's colors are green and gold.
You can make that argument
As long as you don’t equate that with the other, completely different argument you’ve made.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:58 PM PDT up reply actions
If PT rephrased
“There is no such thing as hot streaks” to “It’s stupid to make decisions based on hot streaks” would that settle everything? I’m unclear.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
That wouldn't just be re-phrasing
That would be changing the argument completely. And I agree almost completely with the new argument you’ve offered.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:46 PM PDT up reply actions
...................
OK, so hot streaks exist, but it’s stupid to base decisions on them?
Why? Why is it stupid, if they exist? Shouldn’t you act on them?
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
They exist, but they're unpredictable
You’re not getting anywhere.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
Really.
Unpredictable.
You don’t say. You might almost term them… random. Perhaps even, if you had just taken a shot of dutch courage and were feeling particularly frisky, “lucky.”
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Like in other areas, your sarcasm's a work in progress
Well, I like to think there’s potential for progress, anyway.
The onset of a specific hot streak could be brought about by a plethora of factors, we’ve discussed that. Whether or not you choose to account for them, I can’t control that, just as you can’t control for every fucking variable that is relevant in relation to the performance of a particular human being at any fucking job at any fucking time. The end? Can’t really control for that, either. Emil gets hit by a truck tomorrow. Well, that would do it. Emil gets a new shipment of HGH. Well, that wouldn’t. Emil does nothing different from his normal routine. He eats chicken pregame and takes the field at 3:07 (I think…help me out on that one, Wade Boggs fans). Well, who knows?
The key is not in identifying the long-term trends—that’s easy, has been done, even mere laymen like you can do that. The key lies in extracting more truth from them…as of now, we don’t know what to do in every given circumstance. And that’s probably a good thing, because, eh, I’d rather there be some surprises in my lifetime anyway.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
Just because
you cannot account for certain factors does not make those factors “random” or “luck” or “unluck”.
Just because a stathead cannot measure injuries, does not have any clue on how to measure or evaluate injuries does not make injuries a random fluctuating event.
Just because a stathead does not know whether a particular player is partying all night, every night, does not mean that that player paryting all night, every night, is a random fluctuating event.
Just because a stathead does not know whether a particular player has chosen to train like a madman during the offseason, does not mean that that is a random fluctuating event.
You appear to be confusing the unknown with “luck”.
ZIPS: Milledge: 466 HR, 485 2B, 2282 hits, 278-379-524
by rfloh on May 2, 2008 1:50 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
another amen
and note, AN masses, this is from a person who has a ZIPS projection in his sigline. And someone who appeals to BP-provided facts as much as anyone on the site.
Thanks for your contribution.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
I hope you're not implying that PT is a stathead
Because he clearly is not…
No, I appear to be confusing the random with luck
Injuries are not random.
The effects of training are not random.
The effects of partying all night might (hi, Bode!) be random, but it seems unlikely to me.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
My point
The stats we look at do NOT isolate those factors. So, if a player struggles for a couple weeks, because he is playing with a niggling injury, it is NOT a random fluctuation. If a player’s “hot streak” ends because he has just slipped in the bath, and now has a sore and bruised hip, it IS random that he slipped. But,the end of his hot streak is not “random”.
ZIPS: Milledge: 466 HR, 485 2B, 2282 hits, 278-379-524
I don't disagree
Stats absolutely do not isolate all factors. Bobby Crosby’s stats do not isolate the effect of him backing off the plate for the last week or two.
All I’m arguing is that “being hot” is not a factor.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
"being hot" is not a factor in and of itself
it’s a combination of some ever-changing cluster of factors. Or perhaps attributable to primarily one factor, depending on the situation. Factors nonetheless.
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
Well, let's see
The odds of evidence for a hot streak emerging are all but impossible, right? But…how can this be…when evidence already exists that confidence doesn’t effect hitting ability, as you claim? If that can exist, surely the odds of proving the existence of hot streak are high if not an absolute certainty.
Your inconsistency aside, the point is that the very idea of a hot streak and statistical proof cannot be reconciled. What would you be proving, exactly? All you’re looking to do here is identify a hot streak while in progress based on easily observable phenomena, visually or statistically. Hot streaks exist on the individual level first, then on the general level. You’re trying to go about it the other way: “but…if we can’t prove that hot streaks exist in principle, then it can’t exist for player X.” Even if player X is Brian Roberts in April of whenever he was leading the league in home runs. This is a stunningly simple concept.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:24 PM PDT up reply actions
This post is completely incoherent
There is an astoundingly large mountain of evidence that indicates that hot streaks are just luck. There is an infinitesimal chance that actually the evidence was produced through bad luck and that hot streaks really do exist.
Let me give you an analogy. You have a coin. You don’t know if it’s biased. You flip it 100 million times. It comes up heads 50.000002% of the time.
There is a nonzero probability that the coin actually lands heads 60% of the time. But the odds are overwhelmingly, staggeringly, in favor of the notion that it lands heads 50% of the time.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
the wager then
is not if Emil is “hot” and likely to cool down… the wager is if Emil is in the midst of a statistical oddity, or if he’s finally emerged as an all star-caliber hitter at age 33. I would bet on the latter and leave him in the lineup every day from here on out.
I really, really hope you're being facetious here
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
let's flip a coin
heads being facetious, tails sincere. Flip enough times and I guess we’ll never know.
lol
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
The large mountain of evidence
does NOT model completely every factor that affects a baseball player. That large mountain of evidence has no way of knowing whether a player is playing with niggling injuries, or a nasty hangover, or not. That large mountain of evidence has no way of knowing whether, and which, players a particular players is facing is playing with niggling injuries, or a nasty hangover.
Uncertainty is NOT luck.
ZIPS: Milledge: 466 HR, 485 2B, 2282 hits, 278-379-524
there is a big difference between emotional highs/lows
and balls falling in for singles or being caught
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
there is a big difference between a couple bloop singles
and a 6-for-6 game that includes a home run.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 11:04 AM PDT up reply actions
So it's impossible for athlete's to be in the "zone" because the "zone" doesn't exist?
Seriously, I think the athletes themselves are the authority on this subject and not some geek with a calculator in his pocket.
by methodrampage on May 2, 2008 1:31 PM PDT up reply actions
Athletes, apologies to the smarter ones, don't know bubkus about probability
Given the choice between listening to a bunch of guys who are, by and large, very smart, and a bunch of guys who are, by and large, kinda dumb, I’m going with the very smart ones.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Given the choice
between listening to people who have real world experiences and those who have only read about shit in a text book I’m going with the ones that have actually experienced what they’re talking about.
by methodrampage on May 2, 2008 1:49 PM PDT up reply actions
OK
No one can force you to behave rationally or evaluate sources based on their actual credibility.
Ignorance is bliss, right?
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Ignorance is bliss? I don't know you tell me.
If Kobe Bryant tells me he was in the “zone” while scoring 85 points I’m going to believe him. Who are you to say that he wasn’t? Can you prove that his ability was heightened artificially by whatever means?
by methodrampage on May 2, 2008 2:09 PM PDT up reply actions
No, but I might be able to prove
that a player of his talent level has a 30% chance of scoring 80 points at some point in his career… or something along those lines.
Obviously I’m making that number up, I don’t know what the actual chances are. But John Hollinger might.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Can you prove that his ability wasn't heightened artificially by whatever means?
If you can’t prove that he wasn’t in the “zone” then doesn’t it seem completely possible that he was, in fact, in the “zone”?
by methodrampage on May 2, 2008 2:32 PM PDT up reply actions
I can't prove that it wasn't because God widened the basket for him
Is it therefore possible that that is, in fact, what happened?
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
read about shit in a text book
And what did we do once we discovered a rift in the fourth dimension? We launched a monkey into it. @('.')@
Athletes, don't know bubkus about probability
True.
Statisticians, or most of them, don’t know bupkus about sports science, about injuries, to use one example. Yet, what they are trying to model depends a lot on one factor that they don’t know bubkus about.
ZIPS: Milledge: 466 HR, 485 2B, 2282 hits, 278-379-524
What on earth do injuries have to do with anything in this thread?
They’re not random. That pretty much rules out “behave as if they’re random” as a strategy.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
What are the effect of injuries?
If a player is struggling because he is trying to play with a tweaked hamstring, his struggles are NOT “random variation”.
ZIPS: Milledge: 466 HR, 485 2B, 2282 hits, 278-379-524
No kidding
Thus it’s probably a bad idea to start a player with a tweaked hamstring if you don’t have to.
OK. What’s the issue here? Players’ talent levels can change, injuries being one mechanism by which they do.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
My point,
player’s talent levels can change, the stats measure the change. The stats do not isolate the reasons for those changes. Just because they do not isolate the reasons for those changes does not mean that those changes are caused by random variation.
ZIPS: Milledge: 466 HR, 485 2B, 2282 hits, 278-379-524
I was never an Emil fan either,
but i have to admit, there is something about his swing that I like. I mean, it’s not a pretty swing. It just looks effortless to me. Almost like he’s not even taking full swings. For the most part, he has impressed me so far. I doubt he will be able to sustain this kind of production over the course of the season, but it would be nice if he could.
"Put some ice on it. After that, there's nothing a few beers won't take care of. " -Pink
Brown's hitting approach seems well suited
for rbi situations—at least that ’s what we’ve seen so far, and Geren has said this very thing. As we all know the A’s have not done well in RISP situations for several years now, so it’s a welcome thing to have someone playing who is making a positive difference.
When he stops doing that consistently, of course you don’t play him every day (assuming you have better options available). But as long as he’s producing he should play…and will.
He’s not great in the outfield, but he’s certainly bettter than Cust.
He's a good fastball hitter (like most major leaguers), and he's clearly not afraid to swing
on the first pitch if he sees said fastball. With the way we work the count and get men on base ahead of him it seems pitchers are throwing him a few ‘get me over’ fastballs. Perhaps they’re disrespecting his ability a little bit, or perhaps Brown is just super locked in. Whatever it is, long may it continue!
Good job boilerdan
“Not liking” Emil Brown because of what he did or didn’t do in Kansas City is just plain stupid. I don’t care if he hit .200 every year and committed 100 errors. I’m not going to form my opinion of him until I see what he does in Oakland!!!!
Statistics are wonderful … but they don’t prove a thing. A guy can be horrible for years, and suddenly it can click … I think some AN’ers forget this is a game played by human beings that will surprise you game in and game out. You can’t predict a thing …
But again, to hate on Brown because of his statistics in KC is absurd. Give the guy a chance and look what he does?! He’s been an unbelievably important piece on a first place team. I’m happy for him … now I only hope the stat guys get out of the basement from time to time and put a glove on … it’s amazing what a little sunshine will do for you!!!
VacaAsFan
A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05
Mom's basement.
"I'm going to take a camera crew and march into Billy Beane's office and demand to know why instituting his newfangled cost-saving measures means that the run manufacturing plant had to get shut down." FJM
Anything's possible
But it’s more likely he’s just getting a good mix of timing of his hits and runners on base. Brown actually produced reasonably well in KC 2 and 3 years ago, just not last year. The bottom line is he makes a lot of outs this year and last year. If Brown kept doing everything he is doing now, but made outs at his rate of 2 and 3 years ago, there would be less complaints.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
Very true
If he still had an isolated OBP of .060 instead of like .010, a lot of us would be off his case.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
it's like your ichiro criticism
He’d do much better walking a lot more, or hitting for more power, but he’d rather slap 5 singles, then hit 1 single, walk 3 times, and HR.
RBI is similar, except it’s like ten times harder to convince people that passing on an RBI for a walk is still a good thing (and also, in Brown’s defense, RBIing is good relative to not RBIing of course).
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
They don't even have to be "hot" prospects...
I’d accept the return they got for Kendall—it would be more than worth the $1 million or so they would have paid Brown.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
misplaced?
but sure, take somebody. but whatever, i think brown is pretty reasonable at $1.4M.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
Yeah, that was misplaced.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Dude, you forgot the word "mother's."
And who, in California, even has a basement? Really?
Statistics are wonderful … but they don’t prove a thing… You can’t predict a thing.
I predict that Manny Ramirez will hit more home runs this year than Nick Punto. I will bet $10 on this, and give anyone willing to listen 75:1 odds.
Give the guy a chance and look what he does?!
Why is there a question mark there?!
"Not liking" Emil Brown because of what he did or didn’t do in Kansas City is just plain stupid.(emphasis mine)
That sentence, followed by that post, is incredibly ironic. Truly Bissinger-ian stuff, that was.
Now if you excuse me, I need to go play Everquest for 9 hours until the A’s game starts, which I will be followng on Gameday. It’s better than actually going to the game. You know, it’s more statistical. I hate the sight of green grass.
Buddy, wake the f* up.
"Looks like you brought two too many."
dude MANNY LOOKS LIKE A HR MACHINE
with those crazy dreads and laid back smile, he HAS to hit HRs. anyone can see that.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
so off the top of my head
...I’d owe you 32.5 cents if I took that bet?
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 11:25 AM PDT up reply actions
Well, I'm glad we're "buddies"
Sorry my grammar isn’t always dead-on … looks as if you got my point, though. I seemed to have hit a nerve … I’m curious which part you don’t agree with? Should I, in fact, dislike Brown because of what he did in Kansas City? Or is it the fact you really will play Everquest for 9 hours and then watch the game on the computer?
VacaAsFan
The Kotsay/Kendall approach?
Beane got such an unbelievable return for veterans Kotsay and Kendall that maybe he’s seeing aging vets as an undervalued commodity. By offering proven veterans like Sweeney and Foulke (and to a lesser degree Brown) a chance to re-establish themselves he could essentially be trading their playing time early in the year ( a luxury that contending teams can’t afford) for a solid return later on.
So far it looks like the gamble could pay off- Sweeney’s smokin’ the ball, Brown has been a huge surprise, and Foulke was looking solid before his DL stint. Teams are more willing to believe that this production is sustainable due to their histories, and their low wages could be a huge factor in extracting prospects.
I don't understand what's been such a surprise abour Emil Brown
Aside from his crazy high – and completely not repeatable – numbers with RISP, he’s been exactly what a 33 year old average-ish corner outfielder should be. Average.
OK, here we go...
A player is paid on the basis of what is expected of him. If a player plays above this level then it’s a surprise. In other words, if he was projected to be a league average corner outfielder then he would’ve been paid the league average for that level of production.
This is not accurate
If a free agent was projected to be a league average corner outfielder, he would have been paid the league median for FREE AGENT corner outfielders.
Brown was a free agent and was paid well below league median for free agent corner outfielders, so it follows that he was projected to be below average.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Are you arguening my point for me, but prefacing it with "this is not accurate?"
So either he’s performing above his talent level due to being a better hitter than initially though or he is what I call “hot” and you call lucky. I guess he’s just the luckiest guy around.
He could have been undervalued by the market
A’s fans of all people ought to know that.
The point I was making was just that you need to be careful to restrict your statement to free agents, because pre-free-agency players often get paid less than free agents even if they’re projected to be better players.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
There's nothing average about being 2nd in the league in RBI
Yes, this is driven by some unsustainable metrics – I understand that. But what I’m saying is let’s praise and enjoy it rather than sitting around pointing out that he’s not going to sustain it. When/if his performance slides, I’ll be happy to acknowledge that (remember Crosby’s hot start?).
well it may even be somewhat sustainable
because the a’s get lots of guys on base and don’t have a lot of power to clear the bases. so brown is going to be batting with RISP a lot, has a good career batting average, and should get tons of RBIs. that’s the key thing—this lineup is tailor-made to get brown tons of RBIs. Its just that RBIs aren’t a great measure of how good a player is hitting.
And there probably is some value in a guy like Brown when the guys after him in the lineup are really bad. The key is most of the Brown complaining originated when his OPS stunk, combined with his really lousy 2007 OPS. If 2008 Emil brown is 2005-2006 Emil Brown, the complaining will drop pretty quickly, but he still isn’t really walking. His RBIs are no reason to block prospects, like I mentioned above it makes it so we can only hypothetically sub him out, because it’s politically unrealistic to expect it given his current production.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
Until CarGon is back, healthy, and puts up another good month or two
I don’t really think anyone is being blocked. If this season were completely lost, I’d throw Sweeney, Denorfia, and Buck out there almost every day until CarGon were ready. But the season isn’t lost, and Brown is making a major contribution. That said, if they could flip him (along with M. Sweeney and Thomas) for hot prospects mid-season, I’d do it in a heartbeat – whether or not they’re in the pennant race.
im not throwing sweeney out there over brown, thats for sure
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
Which raises the point
What happens when Buck comes back? Davis released or Sweeney optioned? Denorfia as everyday CF? Or back to the Buck in CF experiment?
I'd option Sweeney
but I suspect the team will attempt to outright Davis instead.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
damned sweeney and his timely hitting yesterday.
and just when i can’t take anymore of cust he’s gotta go all 100+ points on his OPS in one game.
and no, i won’t blame 5 runs on him. i can only with a conscience blame 1 run on him. that was an excellent example of how ERA can sometimes be dumb.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
ellis, crosby, and suzuki all need days off once in a while
that’s why we have murphy and bowen. please use them, geren.
A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05
I have to agree with the "need another infielder" sentiment
...for instance, a certain infielder in AA.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Emil is not going to be an all star, or lead the league in anthing, but he is the kind
of player, all you guys were saying the A’s needed. Someone who will swing the bat, instead of try to walk with RISP, and now he is doing what you want, you say it won’t last. I don’t see why it won’t. He was on the Royals, and didn’t have as many people on in front of him. He doesn’t strike out a lot, and is doing what people are complaining about Cust not doing, making the defense field correctly. If he keeps getting up with RISP, and puts the ball in play, he will be successful, maybe not to the degree he is now, but still quite successful.
The people who were criticizing Cust
and the people who say Brown won’t continue his RISP ways are, by and large, completely different people.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
except for me
though i wasn’t “really” criticizing Cust per se, I just am not as convinced that his major league track record was a sufficiently large enough sample size to justify weathering an extremely long slump and bad defense. Though he certainly appears to be giving the ball longer rides.
One thing I still cling to is that I think he struggles more than the average player against really good pitching, but also punishes bad pitching a lot more than the average player, which seems reasonable because he can’t hit slop, and good pitcher’s fastballs tend to be a heck of a lot better than bad pitcher’s fastballs, and good pitchers are a heckuva a lot better at finding the right spots to pitch to him in the zone.
But even if Cust should just be a part time, designated-bad pitching punisher that still makes him pretty valuable. You just have to pick and choose your spots.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
People have investigated this
and no, Cust is not any worse against good pitchers than anyone else is.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
He hit a greater % of his HRs against top pitchers than most players last year
The A's colors are green and gold.
Just an observation.
Emil seems to have significantly better numbers in offense when given more ABs and playing regularly. In 2005 and 2006, his OPS is nearly 200 points higher than when his at bats were 366 or less. His average also hovered in the .280s those two years. Keep in mind also that his better numbers also came in his first 2 years in joining KC. Last year’s numbers were not nearly as impressive and his playing time was cut by nearly 200 at bats.
I can assume one of two things, or both:
1. That Emil seems to benefit from a change in scenery.
and/or
2. Emil does better when given regular playing time.
Perhaps Beane has the plan to play him regularly to build up his value and numbers only to trade him for prospects? Then, Buck should take the position once again full time and a call-up for CarGone may be on the horizon at some time before the deadline.
i think he was given fewer at bats last year because he stunk
though i didn’t really follow the royals that closely. i always sort of followed Brown though, because of a Neyer column a few years back.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
Apparently
Emil Brown is unaware of how he is supposed to perform based on his past performance. Sadly he is exceeding his expected level and giving us all something to cheer about. Hopefully he will return to form so we can bench him and feel good about ourselves.
Enjoy the game
he isn't really exceeding anything except opportunities with RISP
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
his OPS RISP is .802
that’s not particularly out of line with what he’s done in his career.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
oh crap
that was his career OPS RISP lemme recheck and get back to you
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
lol still at like 1300
and bases empty 400. i had thought they had come more inline since i last checked, i was wrong. but he does have a 100 pt career split between RISP and bases empty.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
Two points
1) Emil Brown hasn’t been THAT good thus far – a .753 OPS? – so I don’t see why he is going to come down to Earth. I believe his OBP will end the season at least above .330, whereas it currently sits at .319. His season with royals in 2006 was a hell of a lot better than what he has given us so far, so again I’m quite confused with everyone thinking he is on some ridiculously unsustainable tear.
2) His “clutch” factor, as many have pointed out, does not significantly deviate from his career normals, I’m referring to his OPS w/ RISP here. Also, I really like the point made earlier that he is a guy that has an eye at the plate, but is not afraid to swing at a pitch in the zone. This fits extraordinarily well into the chemistry of our lineup because if pitchers are pounding the zone on some of our, perhaps, overly patient hitters, Brown will punish them, making him an ideal RBI man.
Emil Brown the Anti-A?
Emil Brown is the Anti A!!! He is a good way to “cash in” those guys on base. Beane may have stepped outside himself in picking him up. We can certainly is see the results of peppering in a guy like Emil in the lineup—a guy who isn’t all that similar when comparing to the way the other A’s approach their ABs. Also, being 5th in the lineup gives him the perfect opportunity to rake in runs—especially as the guys before him get on base.
... except that Beane picks up one or two of those guys every year
And what did we do once we discovered a rift in the fourth dimension? We launched a monkey into it. @('.')@
true...
but at the same time It would appear that Brown has been a little more successful than recent A’s from the last couple of years who have a similar approach. I know its a small sample size. Anybody have numbers to back up this claim in comparing Brown to guys like Payton, Chavez etc?
Chavez does not hit like Emil Brown
He might have when he was 22, but he doesn’t now.
Although actually, Emil Brown did not hit like this in prior years either. The Emil Brown we’ve seen is much more swing-happy than he was in any of his KC years.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
yes...
Chavez is a poor example. I guess my point (although not a strong one thus far) is that there isn’t anyone really in recent past (last couple years) that hits like Emil Brown with RISP this year(again I understand that this year is a small sample size). But then again this years early success and change in approach for Brown could be because he is surrounded by guys that consistently get on base (as has been the Oakland way under Beane).
I wonder if opposing pitchers are going to start realizing Brown’s early success and start throwing him nothing but crap out of the zone—crap that can bring his numbers down if he swings at everything. But then again this might not happen as the pitcher’s mentality tends to change with RISP. They may continue to be more inclined to throw some strikes at Emil if they had walked the previous batters.
so you don't have any confidence that Chavez MIGHT come back healthy?
It’s pretty clear his suckiness had to do with a multitude of injuries. I mean I guess usually that’s a bad sign, and that he’ll continue to be injured. But if he’s healthy, you don’t have high hopes?
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
Indeed
It was ambiguously worded on my part. What I should have said was “Chavez does not swing at the same percentage of pitches as Emil Brown.” Less pithy, but clearer.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
My take
1. Everybody should listen to PT in re hot streaks and ignore CTM. Them’s the facts.
2. I think it would be hilarious if Emil Brown were our all-star rep.
stat-addled alien overlord
not a surprising take from someone well-versed in stats
but oblivious to reality.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:31 PM PDT up reply actions
Offer your own argument...
if you want to achieve goal #1, because PT clearly is floundering.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:33 PM PDT up reply actions
Cutthesigline, eh?
Yes, it does need to be 12 lines long, because the poem is exactly 12 lines.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:39 PM PDT up reply actions
virgules, pls
If the intent is to call attention to the poem and ensure that people read it via preserving the line breaks, it’s serving the opposite end.
And what did we do once we discovered a rift in the fourth dimension? We launched a monkey into it. @('.')@
Take a poll.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
by Cutthemullet on May 2, 2008 12:59 PM PDT up reply actions
I wonder if Clockwerks can get an ignore feature working
Because your poem doesn’t contribute anything valuable to the baseball blog you’re posting on.
I think you'll soon find out that one is unnecessary
And what did we do once we discovered a rift in the fourth dimension? We launched a monkey into it. @('.')@
Yeah, two voices of opposition mean a lot to me.
Hey, clockwerks, can we get an “ignore sig line” feature? Can’t wait for the release of AN 4.0 now!
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
A third voice in opposititon.
Why not post your poem with” / “breaks between each line like they did back in English class in high school. It would still get the point across.
"No matter what I talk about, I always get back to baseball." -- Connie Mack
lol
Well, this is a nicer protest, so I appreciate that. It’s Bukowski…the form may not really matter for this particular poem, but sometimes it does. Sometimes he does things like
d
o
w
n
So I like to keep the form intact. If this inspires a new clause in the CGs, well, I guess I’ll honor the complaints. For now, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to change my signature because it’s “annoying” to the resident AN poet (irony, anyone) and others.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
Ditto
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
6 nay, 0 yay?
Still too small a sample for me to take a meaningful action here, right?
Alright guys, I’ll switch it up. Give me a few minutes here, maybe I’ll even bring some fresh content.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
heh...
of the change or how it is right now?
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
You groke the thread.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Broke
Broke the thread.
Well, I think I can be excused the spelling error since I couldn’t see what I was typing.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
I grok the thread
And what did we do once we discovered a rift in the fourth dimension? We launched a monkey into it. @('.')@
I admit, I dictionary.commed "groke"
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
Like GreenSocks
IMO the poem is fine.
And in a short thread, the layout is acceptable. The problem is that AN has a lot of posters and most threads are not short.
ZIPS: Milledge: 466 HR, 485 2B, 2282 hits, 278-379-524
It’s cool. I don’t mind the poem, or that you keep it as your sigline. It just detracts from the argument I’m reading between you and PT cause of the extra scrolling one has to do to continue reading.
"No matter what I talk about, I always get back to baseball." -- Connie Mack
I changed it
Plus: It’s about half as long
Minuses: It’s not a complete poem
And it’s more depressing than the other one, heh.
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
still kind of annoying
clockwerks needs to limit sigs to 2 lines, 3 at the most. somebody please email the guy…
A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05
yeah, limit it to two lines, you're so right...
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
heh
That could be added, but, you know, that would add another line to my sig, and that’s not allowable.
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
Basically, if baseball performance
were determined completely by chance (given a players overall level of skill) you would expect various “hot streaks” and “cold streaks” over the course of the season just as you would expect to sometimes roll a “1” on a die 3 times in a row and sometimes not see a “1” for quite some time.
As it turns out, it has been shown that this is the way that baseball performance is distributed. Player’s performances are distributed in just the way they would be distributed if you took all the various hits and outs for a season and pulled them out of a hat. Using this method, there would be the same number of hot and cold streaks as there are in actual baseball.
The A's colors are green and gold.
Nothing more foolish than a man chasing his hat.
And what did we do once we discovered a rift in the fourth dimension? We launched a monkey into it. @('.')@
wheres your evidence!
I don’t believe you! Emil Brown can get hot whenever he wants to, he’s just a humble man who wouldn’t want to be selfish and have a hot streak for his whole career!
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
Come now,
who’s making that argument?
ZIPS: Milledge: 466 HR, 485 2B, 2282 hits, 278-379-524
it wasn't really directed at anybody in this thread...
...it was more directed towards people who would rank Derek Jeter like the best shortstop ever.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
Yeah that's not the best attempt at satire
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
I'm down for riding the "hot" streak out.
As long as he continued to bring in the ribbies, let him play until such time as he does NOT bring in the ribbies.
Until it breaks, fix it? Nah. Don’t bring in Larry Davis.
"No matter what I talk about, I always get back to baseball." -- Connie Mack
Confidence
I played baseball for many years as a kid, until I was 18 (I don’t think this sort of baseball is so different for this discussion). I never thought at the time or think now that any fluctuations in my confidence had more than an extremely negligible impact. I don’t think it really had an impact at all.
Aside from the statistical evidence, I’m not sure why people are so inclined to believe varying confidence is such an important thing anyway.
The A's colors are green and gold.
Standard human thought process
Everything must have a reason. Nothing can be “just luck.”
Confidence could be a reason for people’s performance fluctuating, so people latch onto it as though it IS the reason.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
I'm bipolar.
I can run five-minute miles or ten. I can be the best soccer player on the pitch or barely be able to move my legs. I can _ or __.
Different mindsets. You seem pretty level-headed; I wouldn’t expect your performance to be subject to as much variation as that of many. For me and Alonzo Spellman and Demetrius Underwood and millions of others, it’s different. And that’s towards the extreme. There’s a reason the word “psychosomatic” gets bandied about.
To reach here
gliding into old age
the decades gone
without ever meeting one person
truly evil
without ever meeting one person
truly exceptional
without ever meeting one person
truly good
gliding into old age
the decades gone
the mornings are the worst.
You are level headed and analytical
Do you think guys like, say, Milton Bradley share the same tempermant as you on the field? Some guys are just more of headcases than others. Bryce was a much more emotional player than you, for example.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
I think that has an impact way less in baseball than other sports
The A's colors are green and gold.
i agree, but it still has a measurable impact
I mean I don’t remember Milton Bradley’s OPS of the top of my head but its probably like .860. I have NO problem believing that sometimes he’s a .980 player and sometimes he’s a .740 player. But he’s an exception.
Not that I think for sure he’s like that, but if like someone proved it, it wouldn’t shock me.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
and im not suggesting hitters can dial it up by choice
but emotions do have a physiological affect on preparedness, injury recovery, etc.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
oh also
that’s a really bad skill to trust based on self-reporting. fortunately, i’m around to basically back up your claim, but most people, when asked, will say they aren’t affected by emotion or will only report being positively affected.
Jeremy was safe. He jumped over the tag.
thought of something
Maybe in the next interview with AN, Blez can ask BB what he has to offer on the subject of confidence’s effect on performance in baseball. Not while wearing his management hat. While wearing one of his various Mets’ minor league affiliate hats.
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
Heh
Unlike old AN, I have now learned that if you change your sig, it is not changed on posts that were made before the sig change.
And, boilerdan…probably never saw this flurry of debate coming when you wrote your diary, eh…especially considering you wrote it in the least divisive way possible, setting aside “baseball ideology” to just take a moment to appreciate the contributions of Emil Brown to the start of the A’s season.
(Contributions = euphemism for “hot streak,” heh)
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
couldn't figure out which comment to reply to,
so I’m just posting this at the bottom.
Here’s a method for looking at the question of whether or not hot streaks exist:
1. Take whatever statistic you believe is the best indicator of true offensive talent. Over the course of a season or, better yet, a career, the average value of this statistic will give you a good estimate of the hitter’s true talent. However, over any particular small stretch of at-bats, there will be a lot of noise in the values.
2. Calculate the power spectrum of this value.
Now, the power spectrum will tell you how much the statistic in question is fluctuating on various time scales. In the totally unrealistic case where the hitter’s true talent level is constant across their entire career, you would see equal fluctuation power at all time scales (just due to the noisiness of the statistic). However, players get old and their skills decline (or they start out as green 22 year olds and gain experience and muscle mass). This would add fluctuation power at time scales of several years. Likewise, your hitter might be facing Ervin Santana one day and Nick Adenhart the next. This would show up as a feature in his hitting power spectrum at time scales of 3-6 at-bats.
If we’re looking for evidence of hot/cold streaks, you would just look for extra fluctuation power on the relevant time scales (two weeks? a month?). Actually, now that I’ve written all this down, I’d be willing to bet that the power spectrum of pretty much any relevant offensive statistic looks like 1/f noise, in which case it could be a bit tricky to pick out any extra fluctuation power.
oh yeah
Another confounding factor could be that, if we’re looking for something that occurs on two week timescales, we could just end up seeing evidence for nagging injuries that the hitter would play through but which hurt their performance.
Hence my comment above
about slumps probably existing but hot streaks almost certainly not existing.
A lot of slumps are undoubtedly just bad luck, but some of them are real issues.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Why is it not possible for a player to play above their talent level for a short period of time?
That in essence would would be a hot streak. Why are you so quick to write it off as a bout of good luck?
by methodrampage on May 2, 2008 3:34 PM PDT up reply actions
I'm pretty sure that is the definition of a hot streak...
But maybe I’m wrong. Can you tell me your definition of the term, PT?
What IS it?
It’s a sustained period in which a player’s production is above his true talent level.
Hot streaks exist, they’re just caused by random chance.
Look, you can create a model of the baseball universe and have it spit out a guess as to, say, how many 10-game hitting streaks there will be in a season. Say it spits out, I dunno, 500. And then you look at observed reality and find out that, sure enough, most years the number of 10-game hitting streaks hovers around 500.
Well, if all of those streaks are luck-based, where are the skill-based ones? Why are they not showing up as outliers? The obvious answer is “they don’t exist.”
Well, statisticians have done something like this for “hot hitters,” and found out that yeah, the performance of hot hitters mirrors what you would normally expect those hitters to do anyway.
The most logical explanation for this is that hitters are normally playing about as well as they can possibly play. Which is pretty sensible. This is Major League Baseball. It’s serious business. Guys who consistently play under their capabilities aren’t real likely to make it through the winnowing process to the highest levels. I suppose a handful of these basket cases (Milton Bradley might be one) might make it through to MLB—and maybe those guys can have “hot streaks,” I suppose. But calling their performance a “hot streak” is more misleading than just calling their usual dolorous mailings-in a “cold streak.”
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
speaks for itself
Hot streaks don’t exist. Sorry.
It’s a coincidence.
Your 2008 Athletics: It’s Nothing Personal.
by PaulThomas on May 2, 2008 1:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
Hello, irrelevant semantic games!
How are you doing today?
I think the key point here is “it’s a coincidence”... which I’ve been repeating like a mantra since this thread began.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Not in the least irrelevant
To acknowledge existence is crucial. A significant concession on your part. This last post of yours was the most substantive, but it’s not so simple as you still want it to be when you present your hypotheticals. And the worst part is, you don’t even do these studies. You’ve simply latched onto them, and then regurgitate the findings. Way to think.
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
Ah, solipsism
Yes, it’s totally illegitimate to believe anything you haven’t experienced yourself. I SAW the A’s game last night, but I don’t believe that it was an actual baseball game. I believe it was just something which was shown on the television, to me. We should abandon all academic discourse, because it relies on the illegitimate “citing” of “sources”—assuming, of course, that “academics” actually exists as anything outside the figments of my imagination!
I like how it’s a “significant concession” to acknowledge that some players hit .400 for a month. Um, no, dude. Someone just fucking did it this month: Chipper Jones. Is he a true .400 hitter? No. Is he going to hit .400 in May? Odds aren’t good. He’s not any more likely to do it than he was in any other month.
And finally: get. off. your. high. horse. It’s pretty rich for you to claim that I’m “regurgitating,” when I’ve written more (original) analysis for the site than, as far as I can tell, you ever have or ever will.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
straw-man
I was basically doubting your actual grasp of statistics—I get the impression that you have the intelligence to understand the basic concepts, but certainly not the command that your tone would warrant. I’m not going to administer an exam here, or ask you to demonstrate some degree of knowledge, but I just wonder how much knowledge you have in this area. I’d defer to Sal in the realm of statistics anytime, having not studied math much in college (having not studied much of anything in college, really), but as for you…it feels as though you can cite second-hand information at will, but as for that originality that you claim to possess, I’m not sold on that. You clearly feel the need to prove yourself on this site on a regular basis, whereas a guy like much-maligned Reg can show up at any given time and school you on advanced statistical principles that he teaches for a living but doesn’t feel the need to flaunt. I like to do the same, not impose on others, but when I encounter your pretense, I load the .22 caliber and take a few shots.
Alright I’m off to see a friend off to New Orleans, show some people a good time, let’s go Oakland, keep this collective hot streak alive, and this debate can continue tomorrow or whenever.
And as I post this I see that in your post below you’ve confirmed a good deal of my suspicions.
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
And my response to you is the same
which is, that I have never claimed to be a master statistician, do not base arguments on complex principles that I don’t understand well, and don’t plan on undertaking a prolonged course of study in the field just so I can satisfy your whims. Particularly since I’m already about to undertake a prolonged course of study in another field…
I’d defer to Sal on stats, too—you will notice, however, that his opinion on this topic agrees with mine, not yours. Which sort of begs the question: what was the purpose of this? If it was an elaborate setup to get me to reveal that I was a history major in college… well, you could have just asked me that without spending 5000 words to do so.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
I respect that
But c’mon, do you really think that getting at your academic background was my motive when I first argued against you?
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
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fills.
No.
I just thought I’d rule it out as a possibility.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
bradley
Above-average player who, when on a hot streak, can be elite. Never “mails it in”...the intensity is always there.
SD 2007 MB was a hot streak if I’ve ever seen one. I’d point to that before almost any other.
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
Random chance
Spoken like a true non-athlete.
Random chance is the last thing I think when I see Kobe knocking down shot after shot after on his route to 50+ points (and I doubt he’s thinking “Wow I’m really lucky right now I should keep shooting”) or when Tiger comes from 8 strokes down in the last round of a tourney by making marvelous shot after marvelous shot. It’s not random chance, it’s not luck, it’s something much bigger.
by methodrampage on May 2, 2008 4:30 PM PDT up reply actions
"A true non-athlete"?
A “true athlete” believes in nonsensical notions about “hotness”?
Boy, am I glad I never played sports, then. It might have made me an idiot.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Don't look now, it might be too late.
You’re preaching your stats but you can’t prove any of your theoretical bullshit. You’re in fact grossly overestimating what you think you know. Prove that hot streaks are luck induced, you can’t do it. You’re a fraud plain and simple.
by methodrampage on May 2, 2008 5:29 PM PDT up reply actions
See, the great thing about civilized society
is that we have these things called “sources,” which allow you to make “citations” so that it’s not necessary to re-do someone’s work from the ground up every time you want to say something.
In this case, just read “The Book” by Tango et al. and you’ll be well on your way.
I’m not a statistician, sorry to say. There are certain kinds of analysis at which I am pretty solid; heavy-duty regression analyses and probability distribution problems are, sorry to say, not among them. Nor have I ever claimed otherwise (that really would be fraud, not to mention plagiarism).
If the only way I’m to convince you is if I personally sit around reproducing the work of others, then, well, it ain’t happening. I’m not sitting through six months of stats classes and spending another six months dicking around with Excel spreadsheets to re-prove something that’s already been proven. I’ve read the proof; that’s enough for me. And if it’s not enough for you, you can go jump in Lake Merced, quite frankly. I don’t give a shit.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Go ahead quote a source...
That proves that every aspect of every sport can me measured, quantified, fit to a mathematical model, and predicted. Sorry to break the news to you but life, and any aspect of it, isn’t solely about the numbers. You can’t calculate how someone is going to react under various situations, which is indeed intangible, it’s different from person to person, from time to time, from situation to situation. When you write off special performances to random chance or luck you’re missing the point and you’re more than likely failing to appreciate the beauty that is the game, that people can “step it up” and “come up clutch” and that they’re not just getting lucky.
by methodrampage on May 2, 2008 6:15 PM PDT up reply actions
In lieu of actually posting an original response
I’ll just copy and paste from above.
You know, believe it or not, straw man arguments are not actually very convincing.Feel free to indicate the place where I said "stats are everything." I encourage you to try. It might cause you to actually read what I’ve written instead of instantly channeling it into your rigorous little mental box labeled "stathead."
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
One thing,
in many individual sports, Track and Field, weightlifting, powerlifting, athletes often structure their training and competitions so that they peak during certain periods / competitions.
Now, obviously it’s very unlikely that baseball players consciously do this, for no other reason than it being much more difficult in an adversarial sport like baseball. But, varying physiological states / conditions, is an accepted fact in most sports.
ZIPS: Milledge: 466 HR, 485 2B, 2282 hits, 278-379-524
Nice post,
spoilt by the biggest load of bunkum I’ve come across in years, a more boring set of comments than I’ve ever waded through on this site before, good grief people just enjoy what he’s done so far, hope he keeps it up, and keep watching to see what actually happens instead of wasting hours of finger energy trying to anticipate when he’s going to start playing badly. What about spending the same energy and passion on anticipating something more positive.
Any similarity between my spelling and that deemed correct, is pureley accidental.
Yes
All predictions are a waste of time. After all, only God knows what will happen. Therefore we should spend our time in church instead of predicting things.
It’s only a short journey from prediction to the occult and, ultimately, Satanism.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Go forth and predict my son
just be a little more positive, it does seem a little sad that you can spend so much time trying to predict when someone is going to start playing poorly. If the choice is between church and predicting, I’m predicting, but as for satanism, perhaps the journey will be to one of those chaps who wander around with a placard predicting the end of the world.
Any similarity between my spelling and that deemed correct, is pureley accidental.
I feel this thread requires a CliffsNotes synopsis
(any embellishment is totally accidental)
PT: “Hot streaks don’t exist.”
AN server creaks, bends, doesn’t break as defenders of humanity everywhere simultaneously pound out furious rebuttals.
Cutthemullet: “Streaks exist. It’s about psychology and luck and untold variables. Also, I inadvertently italicized a bunch of stuff.”
PT: “I wasn’t precise, but you know what I mean. Go to hell.”
Interlude wherein PT invokes Godelian logic theory, Sacred#24 corrects him on his use of Godelian logic theory (holy crap!), PT muses about sexual arousal research, and rfloh poses a timeless question: “can we measure love”? (I say yes, definitely, but then, I almost had a stroke today when one of my co-workers failed to freeze the panes on a spreadsheet, so maybe I’m not the best source for this kind of cosmic inquiry)
mrrickyg: “I’m playing poker.”
Cutthemullet: “I’m awesome at poker.”
madmongoose: “I don’t believe you.”
Cutthemullet: “It’s true. Greg Raymer bows to my awesomeness.”
mrrickyg: “I’m more awesome at poker than either of you.”
Shifting gears, Cutthemullet replies to himself twice in the midst of an earnest ode to psychological nuance and Mark Wohlers. PT responds with something about Marcel the Monkey. Things start to get muddled. The action becomes hard to follow. It’s all symbolic proxies and mistaken inferences and post facto rationalizations and artificial testosterone boosts. Your faithful transcriber swallows four aspirin and a Twix bar and presses on.
Cutthemullet: “Prove that hot streaks don’t exist! Prove it! PROVE IT!”
PT: “There are a lot of atoms in the universe, and dogs have five legs if you count the tail.”
monkeyball: “I want Jonny Gomes.”
mrrickyg: “If I slightly re-phrase what PT has said, would that end this dispute?”
Cutthemullet: “Yes.”
PT: “See? SEE????”
At this point, Cutthemullet starts firing expletives left and right, challenging PT’s manhood (well, actually his sarcasm skill set, which is really the same thing in the AN universe), and hypothesizing crazy scenarios where Emil Brown gets a shipment of HGH then is hit by a truck while eating chicken.
rfloh weighs in again, though not about the nature of love. This time, it’s all about non-random stuff that makes seemingly random things not really random, even though the statheads think they’re random. Or something. I don’t know. Honestly, I’m on my seventh aspirin at this point, and my ears are ringing a little.
Everyone agrees to just flip a coin and be done with it. Oh. Right. Just another phase in the argument. Two more aspirin.
Onward:
methodrampage: “Geeks with calculators suck.”
PT: “Athletes are stupid.”
methodrampage: “Shit in a textbook sucks.”
PT: “You suck.”
methodrampage: “Kobe had 85 points! You cannot tell me that was chance! It was not chance! I am losing my mind here!”
Whew!
Vacafan uses 28 exclamation points and 6 ellipses in the course of explaining why he doesn’t care if Emil Brown makes 100 errors and hits .200. BWH is not amused by this post. Vacafan appears unfazed. Sacred#24 and PT debate market value semantics. oakinboston weighs in with a Scutaro non sequitur. DCinWC gets self-righteous. mrrickyg posts four different versions of Brown’s OPS with runners in scoring position.
The pace is dizzying.
salb918: “PT is correct.”
Cutthemullet: “Figures. Go back to your calculator, stat man. I’m in the real world out here. Where we know about, like, reality.”
Cue onslaught of posts decrying Cutthemullet’s 12 line signature. Cutthemullet relents, pares it to seven. Alas, he makes an equally unfortunate literary choice. I’ll be kind and chalk it up to haste.
mikeA: “When I was a teenager, I played baseball. Emotions did not affect me. I was flipping Leonard Nimoy out there.”
Cutthemullet: “Not everyone is like you. Take me and Demetrius Underwood, for example.”
mikeA: “True enough.”
Cutthemullet: “I want to know what Beane thinks. Someone get him on the phone.”
Colin steps in with a bunch of smart-sounding but indecipherable to me stuff about equal fluctuations power and “1/f noise”.
Three more aspirin.
methodrampage: “Playing over your head for a short time IS A FRICKING HOT STREAK.”
Sacred#24: “Yeah, exactly. Take that, PT!”
PT: “Look, hot streaks exist, it’s just that …”
Cutthemullet: “Ah hah! See? Existence, my man. Existence.”
Now it’s PT’s turn to crank up the expletive machine, as he launches into a diatribe that basically goes like this:
“Stuff … things … fucking Chipper Jones … more stuff … academic sources … fucking .400 for a month … more stuff … fucking regurgitating … get off your fucking high horse.”
Nearing the end now. methodrampage, doing his best impersonation of Donald Sutherland in JFK, hints that “something much bigger” is at play than mere chance (or, to use his words, “random chance”). Maybe Emil Brown was the second shooter on the grassy knoll. Hard to say. PT, no doubt exhausted from such a sustained, stalwart (yet quixotic) defense of principle, just starts quoting himself. Dalesman informs us he’s struggling with this thread at the moment. The game starts. Cutthemullet leaves for New Orleans. The argument dwindles.
by 74mk on May 2, 2008 7:21 PM PDT reply actions 8 recs
Greatest
Post
Of
All
Time
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
That is absolutely tremendous
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
i've been laughing for about 10 minutes now
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
Not gonna read the whole thread, esp after 74's RDCV, but I have a quershun:
At the risk of igniting whole new paroxysms of semantic/sarcastic rage, and if this has been discussed above I’m sorry;sort-of, but isn’t there a difference between saying, with the financial planners, “past performance is not guarantee of future yadayada,” and “hot streaks don’t exist?” I agree with the former, if mostly because there’s such a large accidental factor in baseball.
As to the latter, I’m not sure our statistical/behavioral/physiological knowledge is sophisticated enough to develop proper explanations. I mean, every age considers itself modern, but can’t ascribe causation to things it doesn’t understand, so it ascribes them to the workings of various spirits, like God and Jobu—or random variation.
Periods of higher and lower performance are demonstrable, and to ascribe them only to random variation would be, methinks, both wrong and soulless. I can think of hundreds of internal and external variables that might be taken into account, in isolation or in series or in parallel, that might affect performance/period of time. Nagging injury, sunscreen, fights with the SO v. domestic tranquility , enough sleep, biorhythms, new trainer, mean average game-time temperature, new insights, more or less money or security, a sense of well-being —the list is endless. The fact that we don’t currently understand their functionings of such a list may make it seem random, when its really “currently unknown.”
So, if we’re gonna say random, I’d at least wanna place a big ol’ asterisk next to it and say
- as far as we now know. Research continues.
The meaning of life is not so much 'found,' as it is 'made.' --Opus
Fair enough, but...
most of those things you’ve noted above are either changes in a guy’s true talent level (like the effect of better biorhythm or a better training regimen) or negative effects (money worries, fighting with the spouse, etc.).
Put it another way, if I’m playing a baseball video game, I can decide to lower my batting average at will by just swinging at pitches out of the strike zone. This (or more likely just swinging at ANYTHING because I’m pissed off… that I KNOW has happened before to me) is a mechanism for producing slumps. But I can’t “decide” to increase my batting average at will (OK, there are sliders for that… bear with me…).
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
So a players true talent level can change day to day or week to week?
Because if so, I’m pretty sure that’s what most, well at least me, would consider a hot streak.
by methodrampage on May 3, 2008 11:27 AM PDT up reply actions
Wait, you'd consider a guy changing his trainer a "hot streak"?
I wouldn’t…
Frequently changes in underlying talent level take months or even years to demonstrate results.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Yes, it does.
If you want to call that a hot streak, so be it. True talent is always estimated by regressing all available performance data and weighting the recent stuff most heavily.
it’s just that the effect of a pronounced hot or cold streak usually doesn’t change the true talent estimates all that much. For example, Cust’s frigid April reduced his true talent from .257/.383/.464 to .248/.382/.442. So an ice-cold streak that lasted an entire month changed his true talent by only 22 points of OPS. A hot or cold streak that lasts a a week or two will have an even smaller effect!
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/cust-cussing#comment-33171
stat-addled alien overlord
Just for clarification
one might say Cust’s frigid April reduced his estimated true talent by 22 (23 actually) points of OPS.
I’ll say this—even I’m impressed by how small the change was. His April was something like (guessing) 1/8 of his total career plate appearances, and despite being awful, really did not pull down his estimated ability very much at all.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Right on for the clarification,
and I too was surprised by how little the April slump affects his projection.
stat-addled alien overlord
But can the A's we still ride a player on a luck streak
much like they would a player on a hot streak if those existed?
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