I think Bill James would be unhappy to hear his name used this way. On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 10:05 AM, William Marino <[email protected]>wrote:
> I will take a good scout, with a proven track record, over Bill James any > day of the week. > I got to see Bill James speak at the Museum of Science and I asked him a question about this topic. I asked him if teams go through all this statistical analysis, but then make the decision based on the opinion that "he has a pretty swing." Bill James actually batted me down a bit in his answer. He said that he felt this question of stats vs. scouts was a false question. He believes that while stats are valuable, and need to be used, that scouts have thousands of hours of experience and also know what they are talking about. John's mistake has been to dismiss stats completely, as he did earlier in the thread. Stats provide insight. They especially provide insight to those of use who do not have thousands of hours watching ballplayers and who don't watch them every day. Fans are especially prone to only remember plays that support their opinion. John claims that Ellbury gets to more balls than most players, but objective counting says Ellsbury doesn't. In this case, intuition has to give way to counting. I'm sorry, but no amount of intuition will make the number four into the number five (even if you are being tortured by a Cardassian sadist). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Red Sox Citizens" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/redsoxcitizens?hl=en.
