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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: playoff slugging + onbase avg.
Message-ID: <820@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Nov-85 07:23:26 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.820
Posted: Fri Nov 22 07:23:26 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Dec-85 20:32:27 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: 48


In article <516@philabs.UUCP> dpb@philabs.UUCP (Paul Benjamin) writes:
>> A statistically insignificant test proves nothing.  [Me]
>
>You haven't shown it is statistically insignificant. You try to draw
>such a fine line between evidence supporting my position, and evidence
>supporting noone, but you obviously don't apply such rigorous standards
>to yourself. Where is your evidence that the results of the last 25 series
>do not constitute enough data? And don't forget, we can always go to the
>game level. In other words, during the last series, StL won the first
>two games in spite of KC having a higher SA+OBA in those two games. Since
>the 25 series' results do show a lot of teams with higher SA+OBA losing
>the series, there are probably a good deal of games in which the team with
>higher SA+OBA lost. The number of games in those  25 series is nearly a
>whole season's games, which is not likely insignificant.

Sorry, if you want to argue from the game by game evidence, you will have to
actually present it.  The inference from series to games doesn't wash -- the
statistical validity of the sample depends on the size of the sample, not
on the size of any underlying statistic.

>> If you do not expect a positive result, it lets you go on not expecting a
>> positive result.  But don't use that test to back up your argument; it is
>> irrelevant.
>
>Not if my argument is that those who expect a positive result have no
>evidence. Do you remember the original postings, in which David Rubin
>posted screen after screen of numbers which supposedly showed that
>one player was superior to another on the basis of SA+OBA? My argument
>is that there is no evidence to support SA+OBA as such an important
>determinant of quality. The lack of a positive result in the last 25
>World Series IS evidence to support my position.

No, because the evidence for the use of the statistic *isn't statistical*.
It is based on theoretical analysis, based on the assumption that situational
variations in performance is mostly random; that any personal differences
from this (clutch hitters, etc.) are small if they exist at all.  *This is
a reasonable, although unproven, assumption.*  Reference to statistical
results is made primarily to show that they do not invalidate the hypothesis.
Pointing out that those statistics don't support the conclusion is no reason
to reject it, because there are other reasons for believing it.  There are,
by contrast, no reasons for believing in aliens in flying saucers.

I note that although the Elias Sports Bureau did find statistically signif-
icant differences in clutch performance, those differences are not large
enough to invalidate the analysis.

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