Models or no models, I was at Fenway, watched Dioner Navarro swing a bat, and dropped him from my Roto team the very next day.
On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 1:46 PM, William Marino <[email protected]> wrote: > For those slavishly tied to models, this should really rock your world. If > you go back to the earlier discussion re: defense of Bay (and Ellsbury), > there was debate on over reliance on models. This is proof that pure stats > are no better than pure scout. All of it is data and the real value added > is in the interpretation of the data by people. > > > > ________________________________ > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Matt & Olga McSorley > Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 10:50 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: UZR boo-boo > > > > From today's Herald Red Sox blog. This is me feeling vindicated for > contending Jason Bay was not the lousy outfielder we were all told he was in > the off-season: > > > > -- Matt > > UZR owes Jason Bay an apology > > This slipped through the cracks, but the good folks at FanGraphs — who are > constantly tweaking their formulas in an effort to make them as accurate as > possible — recently tackled what many within the game considered one of the > biggest flaws of UZR, or Ultimate Zone Rating, which was treated as Gospel > this winter during all the discussions of defense around these parts. > > That flaw was UZR’s inability to handle quirky parks like Fenway, where left > field and center field are of such strange configurations, they cannot be > judged with a cookie cutter model. > > It turns out that Mitchel Lichtman, the creator of UZR, agreed, so he > augmented his model to better gauge things like left field at Fenway, or > right field in Minnesota, or the entire outfield at Coors, as the FanGraphs > people explain. > > The upshot of these changes is that most players were relatively unaffected. > However — and this is a big however — one player had his UZR significantly > altered by the fixes, which were retroactively applied to old data: Jason > Bay. > > The former Red Sox outfielder, who was killed all winter for his horrendous > defense (which was part of the justification for letting him sign a free > agent deal with the Mets) saw his UZR shift from minus-13.8 runs to > plus-1.9. Bay’s play in 2009 obviously didn’t change. Only the numbers did. > And the new numbers say Bay was not horribly below average last year, but in > fact saved the Red Sox a couple of runs in left. > > It wouldn’t have made a difference as far as the Red Sox re-signing Bay — we > now know that was an impossibility once their deal collapsed at the All-Star > break over his medicals — but it would have at least changed the narrative. > Maybe fans and media members wouldn’t have been so quick to give up on the > biggest bat in the lineup if they hadn’t been able to lean on the “he can’t > play defense” crutch > > -- > 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. > > -- > 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. > -- Author of "FPGA Simulation: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide" www.fpgasimulation.com -- 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.
