Gautam Mukunda wrote:
> Now this one is hard. By far the most interesting race in the Majors this
> year, and I really am not sure who I'm going to pick. It's obvious that
> it's going to be either the Cardinals or the Astros. The Cardinals seem to
> be the consensus pick by most sportswriters - even Baseball Prospects
> (www.baseballprospectus.com), by far the best baseball site on the web. But
> I'm not sure.
Looks like an interesting site. I took a quick look and found that four Seattle
pitchers were on the top 10 "luckiest" list (using hitter support to define
lucky). Also, Clemens was listed as the luckiest. Helps confirm my own suspicions.
> Anyways, the point of all of this is that, like most statistical analysts, I
> don't understand defense. I know that I don't understand it, and I don't
> have a way to measure it. I think that this causes a significant cognitive
> bias in my ratings that causes me to undervalue defense in my analysis. Rob
> Neyer once stated his belief that winning in baseball is 50% hitting, 45%
> pitching, and 5% defense. I think he understates the value of defense
> significantly in this calculation. James's Pythagorean formula clearly
> demonstrates that baseball is 50% hitting. But the other 50% - there I'm
> not sure. It seems likely to me, for example, that a significant part of
> the Yankees long run of success has been a defense that is, quite possibly,
> better than I give them credit for being. I don't know - that's just my
> suspicion, at the moment.
My gut feeling is that an excellent defensive team with average offense beats an
excellent offensive team with average defense (defense=fielding+pitching that is.)
>
> This tendency to underrate defense is the main reason I picked Seattle over
> Oakland in the AL West - Seattle's defense is excellent, Oakland's
> atrocious.
Really? Atrocious? Do you have a good source for comparing defensive stats? I
couldn't find anything that enabled me to compare stats. The best I could find
was at http//www.sportingnews.com
> Their
> biggest single weakness might be Tony La Russa who really isn't a very good
> manager at all, despite George Will's adulation of him. He has an obsession
> with one-batter relievers that just isn't worth it. He also has another
> problem, which is very difficult to talk about, but needs to be addresssed -
> basically, La Russa has a really bad record with black players. _I'm not
> saying he's a racist_. I have no evidence for that one way or the other. I
> am saying that a large number of black players who have played under La
> Russa have been extremely unhappy with him, and some of them have accused
> him of racism, to the point where this may become a problem for the
> Cardinals in trying to sign black players.
I know what you are saying, but I would be very surprised to find out that La
Russa is racist. I don't remember any incidents in Oakland that did not include
legitimate criticism.
--
Doug
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.zo.com/~brighto
"Now people stand themselves next to the righteous
And they believe the things they say are true
They speak in terms of what divides us
To justify the violence they do"
Jackson Browne, It Is One
