--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > In a message dated 9/18/2006 9:58:12 A.M. Eastern > Standard Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > He has, > rather remarkably, gone from being a truly atrocious > shortstop to one who is basically average (he was > significantly better than average last year, I > think). >
> OK - maybe you will grant that he has gone from a > very good shortstop with > somewhat limited range but a great arm to an > excellent shortstop who can always > make a key play. You really have to watch him every > day to appreciate how > good he is Sorry, I phrased that poorly. He was _always_ an extraordinary, Hall-of-Fame caliber shortstop, because his hitting more than made up for his atrocious fielding. His hitting was never quite as good as people gave it credit for (he was never, ever, in the same league as ARod) but he was always very good. Now he's moved from an excellent shortstop who hits his way into the HOF despite an awful glove to an excellent shortstop who hits his way into the HOF despite a mediocre glove. As for the "you have to see him play every day"...let's talk about hitting for a second. Assume 600 plate appearances in a season. A .250 hitter is a poor one, a .300 hitter is a good one. The difference between a .250 hitter and a .300 hitter over 600 plate appearances is the difference between 180 and 150 hits - 30 hits. That's less than one hit every five days. Even if you were in the press box for every game, the human mind is simply incapable of assessing the difference between the two non-numerically. No one can tell the difference between 1 hit a game and 1.1 hits a game. OK, then think about how much harder judging defense is. Most importantly, being there helps someone in judging hitting, because you always watch the batter and events are unambiguous. The batter gets a hit or he doesn't. In judging defense, though, an observer _isn't_ watching the SS at the key moment (when he takes his first step). Furthermore, the brain has a bias against judging "events that don't happen". You don't remember the balls that go pass a SS in bad position - but you do remember the plays that look amazing because the SS was badly positioned when a better positioned SS would have made them routine - and you remember them to that SS's _credit_, instead of as mistakes on his part. So I really don't think that watching Jeter play every day will help you judge his defense - in fact, I think it will probably _hurt_, because you'll see the spectactular plays that he makes, but not the routine ones that he misses. Does he have a fantastic arm? Sure? How does that balance against all the hits that get by him because he didn't move quickly enough to get them? No one can judge that subjectively - the only way to do it is analytically, and we can tell that, analytically, the strength of his arm just wasn't very important. Best, Gautam Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
