Is Confidence In Winning A Barrier To Sucess?

[ledzepp8]

I do get what you are saying and give you props for this post but there is still a lot more that goes into who would you rather have up with the game on the line. Your example is about as extreme you can get (Jeter versus Hernadez). Lets say though it was between Markakis and Gary Matthews Jr. GMattJr I know has hit two walk off homers as an Oriole (if not both homers at least two walkoff game winning hits. Markakis probably has at least one, maybe two. Yet say Markakis has say for example 200 close and late ABs as an Oriole in Close and Late Situations and GMattJr 45 AB's and has two game winning walkoff clutch hits. I personally would probably want G-MattJr up there and not Markakis. However, that is not etched in stone because perhaps Markakis is hitting against Riveria and he has a 300 lifetime BA against him and G-Matt 190. In that case I would probably want Markakis. There are just two many variables to be able to predict realistically what is "likely" to happen.

This is the most convoluted crap I've ever read by you. In short, you're wrong and you will continue to be wrong. Mr. Cum laude...

[ledzepp8]

I mean I know Frank Robinson is superior to Vada Pinson.

Oh Christ...BUT WHY DO YOU KNOW THAT FRANK IS SUPERIOR TO PINSON? On what are you basing that?

Geez DUDE...for once in your life just admit that you have no idea what you're talking about and that you're as wrong as wrong can be.

[BaltimoreTerp]

This is the most convoluted crap I've ever read by you. In short, you're wrong and you will continue to be wrong. Mr. Cum laude...

I'm close to making a Mallrats joke, but I figure it's fairly inappropriate. Despite how obscene the lack of logic and intelligence is from a certain poster.

[ledzepp8]

I'm close to making a Mallrats joke, but I figure it's fairly inappropriate. Despite how obscene the lack of logic and intelligence is from a certain poster.

Yeah I was conflicted as to whether or not I should make a similar joke. I decided to keep it clean. Oh and I doubt that this guy was ever close to being a Cum Laude...unless it was a school of like 20 students. I kid Old Fan...I kid.

[Miller192]

Why do you guys keep doing this?

[BaltimoreTerp]

Why do you guys keep doing this?

Because he's there.

[SrMeowMeow]

I won't say I don't believe in the scientific method. In certain situations I find those things to be very valuable. I will give you an example. Say a guy is in the woods and sees a Sasquatch and is scared out of his mind. He knows what he saw and it wasn't a bear or a guy in a suit but the real deal bigfoot.

Along comes a scientist who casts the footprints, finds some hair and scat samples, analyzes all of this and the results are inconclusive. The hair matches no known DNA samples, nor the scat, the footprints are shown though that it would be nearly impossible to fake them, etc.

Now, that scientific study might have some meaning to a lot of folks including creating doubt as to what he saw, but do you think it means squat to the guy who actually saw the damn Bigfoot? He sure as hell knows what he saw!:laughlol:

(This is the only problem I have with sole reliance on a scientific method).

Hahahaha. Oh my god. Greatest post ever. I laughed out loud when I read this, because I was expecting "guy thinks he sees Bigfoot, science proves him wrong, there's an example of how the scientific method can be helpful, but it has no place in baseball."

Instead, I got "seeing Bigfoot means he's real and science can't change that." Why would you use an example of a guy SEEING AN IMAGINARY MONSTER to prove that science gets in the way of truth? Oh my god. I literally laughed out loud at my computer. You are such an idiot.

[Jurczak]

Ladies and gentlemen of the OH, I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: "Did little demons get inside and type it?" I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know - when a baseball players fails to get exactly the same stats as PECOTA predicts, it invalidates the entire concept of statistical analysis. Thank you.

[ChaosLex]

[Old#5fan]

Since Ledzepplin8 is thankfully on my ignore list and I only saw one of his derogatory (as usual) immature posts with zero substance to them accidently before logging in I will address this post to him:

READ THIS SLOWLY AND THINK ABOUT IT USING ALL THE BRAIN POWER YOU CAN MUSTER SON-- The reason I know Frank Robinson was better than Vada Pinson is (unlike you) I SAW THE TWO OF THEM ACTUALLY PLAYING MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. Unlike you, I can watch a game and easily spot the most talented players with out having to read a bunch of statistical gobblygook, which you don't need if you merely observe and know what the heck you are observing. Try watching a game and learning about it. Maybe even before you do that go watch a Little League Game and observe or read a book called Baseball 101.:laughlol: (I kid, I kid)!

[Old#5fan]

I don't even know where to begin with this argument. The method of statistical analysis is sound.

Let me give you a real world example.

Carlos Pena largely came out of nowhere. He was a decent player for most of his pre-Tampa career. Then, BAM out of nowhere 1.000+ OPS. No one saw it coming or what to make of it. It was, if you will, a statistical "bigfoot".

So predictions for him were largely wrong that year, because he bucked the trend. That doesn't make the analysis wrong. Just because your hypothesis was proven wrong doesn't mean your methods were faulty - it just means that there was something you didn't account for or understand occurred.

Pena has since returned back to something more akin, but still a bit higher, than his pre-Tampa norms. The question then becomes, what happened to Carlos Pena? The same could be said for Beltre, another statistical sasquatch who vanished in Seattle. Many are guessing that Fenway will allow him to return to something closer to his big LA year, I am not one of those people.

Jsut because the results were inconclusive doesn't mean the guy saw an actual bigfoot it means that more data is needed. But if the guy is claiming he saw a bigfoot even still then no amount of data will prove him wrong, even if the guy wearing the suit comes to his door.

I think you just totally missed the point I was trying to make. So I will try to re-state it for you as you seem like a nice fellow. The scientific analysis was to try to support the claim by the person who saw the BF. It's purpose was to convince others who were not able to actually be there at the time to observe the BF that what the person saw was either real or fake. The results could be interpreted either way though as it has been shown that tracks can be faked, there is no DNA on record for a BF to compare to, yada, yada, yada.

Yet to the person who was there and saw the BF, he knows what he saw. Perhaps he saw details or picked up details that scientific analysis would miss such as the terrible odor of it, or how it's hair bristled and it snarled when he saw it, it was 9 foot tall, and let out an inhuman cry, thus eliminating a guy in a suit.

So what I am espousing is the scientific data is meaningless to person who was there, observed the BF first hand and KNOWS what he SAW!

As far as the Pena analysis. You say that doesn't prove the analysis wrong because Pena was an abberation. My interpretation is different in that it shows me these types of analysis are essentially worthless in meaning for situations such as this and because they are so unreliable to predict anything specific enough to be useful.

[SimplyZ]

I think you just totally missed the point I was trying to make. So I will try to re-state it for you as you seem like a nice fellow. The scientific analysis was to try to support the claim by the person who saw the BF. It's purpose was to convince others who were not able to actually be there at the time to observe the BF that what the person saw was either real or fake. The results could be interpreted either way though as it has been shown that tracks can be faked, there is no DNA on record for a BF to compare to, yada, yada, yada.

Yet to the person who was there and saw the BF, he knows what he saw. Perhaps he saw details or picked up details that scientific analysis would miss such as the terrible odor of it, or how it's hair bristled and it snarled when he saw it, it was 9 foot tall, and let out an inhuman cry, thus eliminating a guy in a suit.

So what I am espousing is the scientific data is meaningless to person who was there, observed the BF first hand and KNOWS what he SAW!

As far as the Pena analysis. You say that doesn't prove the analysis wrong because Pena was an abberation. My interpretation is different in that it shows me these types of analysis are essentially worthless in meaning for situations such as this and because they are so unreliable to predict anything specific enough to be useful.

See your logic is faulty. In this bigfoot example, you have to realize that your character that "sees" the bigfoot has an advantage over those silly scientists who are only allowed to come and analyze the site afterwards.

In baseball, everyone has the same timing and same advantages to analyzing a player. There's no "delay" and then lack of evidence for people that use statistical analysis. In fact, statistical analysis is just the next step in understanding WHAT you're seeing.

Imagine it in this way. There is a scientist and a layman walking through the woods. A large, hairy creature appears in front of them. Immediately the layman (because he has now, by your admission, done all the analysis necessary) runs away as fast as he can back to town and tells everyone that he has seen bigfoot and knows this for a fact. Meanwhile, the scientist sticks around, and shoots the creature with a tranquilizer dart. Then, after doing some extra analysis (past just observation) by testing the DNA, etc, etc, he determines that the creature is just a

.

So, if you can assume similar circumstances for baseball, statisticians aren't taking a completely new path to figuring out if baseball players are any good or whatever, but they're doing a little extra analysis to better understand what they just saw.

[Flosman]

I plead guilty to thinking all baseball stats gurus are a joke. Sorry, I probably wouldn't think that way if most every one I have ever encountered wasn't so arrogant yet blatently wrong in virtually everthing they try to predict. I don't see how anyone can be arrogant when they never get anything right.

This post is the most ironic post of all time on any board about any topic.

[Old#5fan]

See your logic is faulty. In this bigfoot example, you have to realize that your character that "sees" the bigfoot has an advantage over those silly scientists who are only allowed to come and analyze the site afterwards.

In baseball, everyone has the same timing and same advantages to analyzing a player. There's no "delay" and then lack of evidence for people that use statistical analysis. In fact, statistical analysis is just the next step in understanding WHAT you're seeing.

Imagine it in this way. There is a scientist and a layman walking through the woods. A large, hairy creature appears in front of them. Immediately the layman (because he has now, by your admission, done all the analysis necessary) runs away as fast as he can back to town and tells everyone that he has seen bigfoot and knows this for a fact. Meanwhile, the scientist sticks around, and shoots the creature with a tranquilizer dart. Then, after doing some extra analysis (past just observation) by testing the DNA, etc, etc, he determines that the creature is just a

.

So, if you can assume similar circumstances for baseball, statisticians aren't taking a completely new path to figuring out if baseball players are any good or whatever, but they're doing a little extra analysis to better understand what they just saw.

You truly don't get what I am saying do you? I don't need all that sabermetric stuff to know what I am seeing. I saw that Frank Robinson was a hell of a player, same as Brooks. I now see that Adam Jones looks like he's going to be a top player. I don't need some b.s. statistical stuff to tell me the hypothetical range of performance, because most of the time its not any more accurate than an observation by someone who has followed the game and observed players anyway. In other words if you watch the games and pay attention you don't need some obscure statistical analysis to confirm what you see. Just the basic stuff is fine" BA RBI HRS. And those are just to track what a player has done as comparable to all past players.

BTW, I have seen the three legged bear video. It is pretty cool. I post on a Bigfoot site and they had it over there. There is a huge difference in what a bear looks like even on two legs from a BF. I think the Patterson Gimlin film is the real deal. I will stop now as this thread has gotten too far off topic already albeit very interesting discussion.

[BRobinsonfan]

You truly don't get what I am saying do you? I don't need all that sabermetric stuff to know what I am seeing. I saw that Frank Robinson was a hell of a player, same as Brooks. I now see that Adam Jones looks like he's going to be a top player. I don't need some b.s. statistical stuff to tell me the hypothetical range of performance, because most of the time its not any more accurate than an observation by someone who has followed the game and observed players anyway. In other words if you watch the games and pay attention you don't need some obscure statistical analysis to confirm what you see. Just the basic stuff is fine" BA RBI HRS. And those are just to track what a player has done as comparable to all past players.

BTW, I have seen the three legged bear video. It is pretty cool. I post on a Bigfoot site and they had it over there. There is a huge difference in what a bear looks like even on two legs from a BF. I think the Patterson Gimlin film is the real deal. I will stop now as this thread has gotten too far off topic already albeit very interesting discussion.

OldFan - we don't get what you're saying because it's non-sensical. You're confusion between statistics and science is a prime example of that. Stats described what happened in the past and can be used to describe what is likely to happen in the future.

You saw Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson play - big deal. Does that prohibit you from having an opinion on Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and the type of players they were? Of course not - we have statistics that describe their greatness and their ability. Besides, how many games did you see them play? I've seen a lot of baseball in my time - and I'm not that much younger than you - but I'm not so arrogant to believe that my visual observation of the games I've seen is a substitute for wealth of information available to me about these players from the many more games that I HAVE NOT seen.

Look - Earl Weaver sat in a major league dug out for 18 years - and watched more baseball than you and I will ever see combined. And how did he decide who to play and who to pinch hit and who to match up with who? His famous 3 X 5 cards with statistical breakdowns of past performance that's how. He saw them play OldFan - yet he used the tools at his disposal to make the best decisions possible. And he was a great manager for it.

If he were active today I have no doubt he would make full use of the statistical arsenal now available - after all - he helped to pioneer its use.

So are you saying you understand baseball better than Earl Weaver? Are you saying Earl was some how deficient in his observational powers? It sure seems like you are.

How many times have you make a statement about how "clutch" someone was or about how someone seldom did this or often did that only to be proven completely wrong by statistics? Too numerous to count my friend.

Look - I'm with you on the hard math behind a lot of the statistics used by modern sabremetrics - I struggle with it myself. Heck - I scored slightly above retarded on the GRE's in math because I've never had a solid background in it. Nevertheless, I don't discount the utility of quantum physics simply because I struggle to understand even the basics of it.

If you don't want to take the time to learn the math behind the stats - that fine - and that's you're choice. If you don't want to take the time to learn from others on here that have - that's also your choice as well. Just don't act surprised when very few people take you seriously in these discussions.