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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: playoff slugging + onbase avg.
Message-ID: <792@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Nov-85 23:16:56 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.792
Posted: Thu Nov 14 23:16:56 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Nov-85 03:43:59 EST
References: <483@philabs.UUCP> <941@water.UUCP> <489@philabs.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Distribution: na
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 74
Summary: 


In article <500@philabs.UUCP> dpb@philabs.UUCP (Paul Benjamin) writes:
>> >"Also, regarding the (SA+OB) argument, I looked it up for all World Series
>> >from 1940-1981 (the year of my Baseball Encyclopedia).  The results follow:
>> >
>> >>1940's :  7-3
>> >>1950's :  7-3
>> >>1960's :  5-5
>> >>1970's :  5-5
>> >>80 & 81:  0-2
>> >>-------------
>> >>42 years 24-18
>>
>> Did you read the rest of what I wrote?  42 series aren't statistically
>> significant either.  It takes hundreds.
>
>42 Series aren't significant?!?! That's over an entire season's worth of
>games! Perhaps you should look up the definition of statistically
>significant. If we ignore these stats, we might as well ignore all season
>stats.

If you are looking only at who wins the series, you only have 42 cases.  If
you want the results to reflect the number of games, you have to have the
statistics by game, not by series.

Also, the statistics for the 42 series *do* tend to support the importance
of the statistic.  Not as strongly as I would have expected, but well
within the normal range of variation.  If the expected number is 30 out
of 42, the standard deviation is about 2.9.  Thus 24 is not much more than
two standard deviations away.  About a one in twenty shot.

As for season stats, most of the variation in a player's batting average
from season to season is explainable by statistical fluctuation.

>> >Also
>> >note the circular nature of your argument #2. You state that the Yankees
>> >dominated in all statistical departments. This applies only to those stats
>> >in which the Yankees dominated!
>> But batting average, slugging average, on base average, earned run average,
>> and runs scored weren't retrofitted to the data.  These are standard
>> statistics which are generally applied.  Since the measures are pre-
>> selected, the argument is not circular.
>
>Think again. They dominated only in the stats in which they dominated. Also
>please note that those "standard" stats are highly redundant - they all
>are different ways of saying similar things. For example, team runs and the
>opposing team's ERA are very similar. And note that there are stats in which
>the Pirates led, such as game-winning RBI.
>
>Also realize that these statistical categories were not handed down by
>God. They arose because they were retrofitted at one time to previous data.
>Thus, they were never pre-selected. BA and ERA did not exist before
>baseball!

They were pre-selected *for that series*.  That is, they were the established
criteria by which the play in the series would be judged, when it was played.
Game winning RBI, by contrast, is a retro-fit for that series.  (It also
bears such a trivial relationship to winning that one can hardly regard it
as a *predictor* of victory.  Any more than pitcher's win/loss records are.)

>> >The only thing we can say with certainty is that SA+OBA clearly does not
>> >correlate with winning a short series in the last 20 or so years (since
>> >artificial turf, night baseball, etc.).
>> 
>> The only thing we can say with certainty is that we don't know.
>
>No. We DO know that SA+OBA does not correlate with winning a short series
>in the last 20 years or so, which is EXACTLY what I said.

But that data is not statistically significant, so we don't know; which is
EXACTLY what I said.  (By the way, night baseball goes back to the 30's.)

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108