Fascinating discussion on stats, scouting, and ego

by Adam J. Morris on Nov 16, 2007 8:35 PM CST in News Comment 19 comments

Over at BTF, there's a fascinating discussion going on stemming from a Voros McCracken critique of a comment by Keith Law in an online interview (and is that meta-bloggy enough?). Law talks about being disappointed after seeing Jordan Schaefer in person, feeling he didn't live up to the hype.

A sampling of the McCracken rant in question:

I didn't see the Fall League game in question, but I've seen Fall League games before and they're little more than glorified batting practices. Only two groups of people are at the games: scouts (or people doing the same thing scouts are doing) and people looking for autographs for future stars they can sell at card shows.

And if it makes me seem like a jerk, or it makes me seem arrogant or makes me seem incapable of understanding things from my garage, fine. But the reality is I remain highly skeptical of the ability of anyone to be able to make long term wide sweeping conclusions about a professional baseball player from 7 or 8 at bats.

There's more along that vein, with the crux seeming -- to me -- to be, its the stats that matter, not what you see.

McCracken chimes in extensively in the thread, and, to me, seems dead set to confirm Dave Cameron's take. Law and Cameron also weigh in in the thread...

You have to wade through a lot of OT "I look like so-and-so" crap, but the other stuff is pretty lively and, to me, interesting...and I almost have to wonder, given McCracken's responses, if he isn't doing this as a persona, sort of a caricature of the antagonistic, uber-stathead jackass...

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Gotta like this:

"Which organizations have the best and worst farm systems in baseball?

I haven't looked hard enough at that to answer it, but I'm pretty sure I'll rank them all again in January. I can say that Tampa Bay and Texas are the clear 1-2 to me right now."

by Brett Perryman on Nov 16, 2007 8:32 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

And along the same line:

"Who are the Braves prospects to watch?

They're all in Texas! Okay, that's an exaggeration."

These are from that Keith Law chat btw.

by Brett Perryman on Nov 16, 2007 8:35 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

didnt BA rate them 2nd to last last year?

one good draft and a few good trades can apparently do a whole lot for you.

by DSheppard on Nov 16, 2007 8:36 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah

They were ranked 28th when they did their org rankings, then after trading Danks and Masset off their top ten (1 and 8 no less), I believe that Callis made the comment that he would drop them to 29.

I don't know that they'll be that high on BA's rankings, because of what I said in the AFL comments. BA is big nowadays on present tools more than extremely young guys with really big potential tools/skills. But 28/29 to top five would still be one of the more impressive jumps in memory.

by Brett Perryman on Nov 16, 2007 8:46 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Also

We shouldn't underrate the solid season that a lot of guys already in the organization had, coupled with the poor year that the system as a whole had in 2006.

by Brett Perryman on Nov 16, 2007 8:51 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

McCracken can

roll around in baseball dugout tobacco spit

Loves me some LSB NMLR NR RFR RFP PFEF GDKAAB STCJW

by hurlerhurley on Nov 16, 2007 9:31 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

dumbass...

"but I'm afraid my writing skills ain't what they oughttenn a be".

Loves me some LSB NMLR NR RFR RFP PFEF GDKAAB STCJW

by hurlerhurley on Nov 16, 2007 9:43 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Man, that was a fascinating read, Adam.

However, did anyone else get the feeling that some of those commenters maybe, just maybe, hadn't seen sunlight in a fortnight or two?

And Van Damn, those "Ive been told I look like Bentley from the Jeffersons" interruptions were fucking tiresome. WTF? No one GIVES A DAMN.

"I'm often told I look like Ted McGinley. That is, if he put on 30 lbs and had a receding hairline..."

Brett Gardner is big, we are little.

by Brian Thomas on Nov 16, 2007 11:03 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Oh shit

I just used the word fortnight. And I thought it was in a funny way. Stupid Bushmills.

Fire away, fellas...

Brett Gardner is big, we are little.

by Brian Thomas on Nov 16, 2007 11:05 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Ted McGinley...

Married With Children, the best show ever!

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."-Socrates

by slc ranger on Nov 16, 2007 11:16 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Scouting mistakes

seem to be made primarily when someone either ignores the #'s because they like what they see with their eyes so much or ignore what they see with their eyes because they like the numbers so much.

This scouting vs. sabermetrics argument has always seemed to me much like arguing that "you only need a wheel" vs. "you only need a tire."

by mjh on Nov 17, 2007 6:25 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

Word

by Adam J. Morris on Nov 17, 2007 9:56 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Most Interesting Point

Voros believes that a value judgment made by a few AB's is not valid. He supports this by the simple fact that baseball has an incredibly long and complex development process (low A, A, AA, AAA, Fall League, Winter League, invitations to Spring Training). The general philosophy, according to Voros, is to get the players as many AB's as possible and then make a judgment. Be it with your eyes or with a computer, eight AB's in the Fall League just is not enough. Saber types call this sample size. Maybe I misread the article, because I don't really see a scouting vs. saber argument. I think people create this animosity because of Voros' background (creator of DiPS).

by Excel Hearts Choi on Nov 17, 2007 11:18 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

BA roundtable

the scouting vs. sabr discussion originates in this roundtable:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/features/050107debate.html

Some professionals get better with age and experience. Lawyers, professors, engineers. Hookers? Not so much. -- DJ Cahill

by tricer on Nov 17, 2007 12:06 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Saber vs. Scouts

I meant in the original comments by Voros - I don't see him taking exception to using his eyes, but rather a limited number of AB's. Since Voros is such a stat guy, I get the feeling that his comments about Law are in the Scout vs. Stat vain.

by Excel Hearts Choi on Nov 17, 2007 12:43 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Seemed to me

The quarrels were more about the authenticity of assumptions made to formulate calculations. Along the way, the inevitable "how do you quantify X?" issues rattled around.

I'm a moron in terms of the acuity of sabrmetrics, but have designed and used models to project network traffic (thus bandwidth requirements and point of service loads). One thing that was troublesome was identification of end user work habits, since the data flow at any point of service tends to depend on employment (usage) mix. To "sell" huge capital expenditures for a network, it was vital to pin down both user variety and data needs by work type. Similar to categorizing AB behaviors and results, I'd expect.

Maybe Voros McCracken is a step up on analysis of the train of finite points. Or maybe his data, as two posters commented, is based on one or more faulty assumptions. That was a great argument if you don't know much (me) and paid attention to supporting detail.

'At Georgia Southern, we don't cheat. That costs money and we don't have any.' Erk Russell / Georgia Southern

by Ed Coffin on Nov 17, 2007 1:42 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs