FanGraphs 2nd Opinion
by Rev Halofan on Mar 8, 2010 10:58 AM PST
in Angels News
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PrintI got comped a copy of FanGraphs 2nd Opinion and they said if I liked it to please pimp it.
While I am quite skeptical of the stat-set's orthodoxy, the thing I was most excited over about this downloadable PDF was its lucidity and accessibility. You don't need a post-doctoral math degree to pore over numbers that split hairs - there is meat on the bone here just abut everywhere.
While it is far from Angels-centric, I am already marking crap up everywhere to help with my fantasy draft. If you are going to drop eight bucks on anything hardcore baseball related, I would say this is it.
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Explain: "stat-set's orthodoxy"
Because the way I read sabermetrics, it’s precisely a movement of skeptics and analysts who are trying to defy old orthodoxies and conventions.
Any movement can gain communities and adherents who try to create new orthodoxies, but that doesn’t mean that those folk typify the spirit of something like sabermetrics. Most good sabermetric analysis concedes that this is all a work in progress, and iteration is continual.
Consider this: a decade ago, OPS was considered a serious innovation. Now most sabermetric types spend more time critiquing the metric than trumpeting it.
Here is my explanation:
It started out as a movement of questioning everything.
It is no longer that. It is a new, less forgiving orthodoxy that has replaced old rigidities with new ones.
It has attracted absolutists, has a hierarchy of what it considers to be mock-worthy without offering accurate measurements as to why and among the cool people involved in it there are quite a few humorless fucktards who have the most giant sticks up their tight white assholes.
The smug assertion/assumption that these guys are engaged in “SCIENCE” is the hilarious icing on the pathetic self-serious shitcake.
Bill James said as much when he wrote the essay with the metaphor of FOG about what could and could not be ascertained.
And the similarity here is to astrologers: from the numbers-heavy predictive methodologies that are applied on imprecise human activity … through the ambiguity of forecasts … and all the way to their rationalizations defending their own incorrect picks … the hyper-stat set is living in a fantasy world, defining human exploits by measurements that are hindsight smug, foresight blind and have less and less to do with the human beings they are measuring.
To your specific points:
Most sabremetrics these days RATIONALIZE that it si a work in progress when their shit doesn’t work.
The critiques of OPS are barkings of “park factor” and “fIP” and other one-percent or less minutia.
(Do you hear the astrologers of old reminding us that Obama was inaugurated while the Sun was visiting the sign of Aquarius when he succeeds and then again when he fails.)
The reason the “ITERATION IS CONTINUAL” is that the goal of the “movement” these days is to be elite and apart from the game and the masses, not an informed source to channel outward.
by Rev Halofan on Mar 8, 2010 4:02 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
I have many problems with sabermetrics
Not the least of which is that certain things, like line drives not being considered in defensive stats and speed not being given much, if any consideration in offensive stats. My biggest problem though is in the defensive side of it. The field is broken down into many small sections, and then people watch the video and decide on what play should have or have not been made. It is this human aspect, the reliance on the opinion of so called experts that is the root of much of the inaccuracy.
"Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem".
There's nothing inherent in sabermetrics...
…that devalues speed in offensive metrics or excludes line drives in defensive analysis. In fact, it’s a weird charge, since many in the sabermetric community were arguing ten years ago that the character of a ball-in-play (eg, line drives) needed to be integrated into defensive metrics. Even someone like Ken Rosenthal, hardly one of the guiding lights of SABR, was arguing the same thing in 2001.
The irony is that you’re taking a position in a historical sabermetric argument, and critiquing the limitations of a given metric, which is an essentially sabermetric thing to do.
On the other hand, what you seem to be critiquing is an early iteration of UZR — and part of the critique is factually inaccurate. There’s no individual observer, for example, who decides what play should and should not be made. There is however a statistical quantification of the likelihood that a play would be made by a given position player in a given part of the field based on years worth of aggregate data tracking a number of factors — and yes, in adjusted UZR whether or not the ball leaving the bat in a line drive or not is among those factors.
Here’s a good recent UZR summary that makes the right points, including the sentence: “UZR…is the most misquoted and misunderstood statistic that is publicly available.” No doubt.
Thanks for the information.
If my approach to looking at PECOTA or CHONE seems sabermetric to you, it is probably because Statistical Analysis is a large part of what I do for a living, although in my work, the data pertains to industrial issues and not sports.
As I stated, it is the human factor that I feel is the likely cause of the flaws in the data, I know you stated that there is no human observer, but in the article by Alex Remington of Yahoo Sports, "Everything you wanted to know about UZR" on 1/07/10, he states "Both ultimately make use of a lot of the same data, which is determined by humans watching video of every play and assigning numerical values to what happened."
Click the link to see his article.
My point is that, just as with the situation with Errors, and even the awarding of the Golden Glove, humans tend to make decisions based on their own pre-conceived notions and any time the basis for a formula relies on that human input, regardless of the inherent accuracy of the formula, it will suffer from the inaccuracy of human opinion.
He further writes the following: "How to calculate UZR: The baseball field is divided into 78 zones, 64 of which are used in UZR calculation. (As Lichtman explains, infield line drives, infield pop flies, and outfield foul balls are ignored. Pitchers and catchers are not included.)" So, indeed, it seems at least, for infielders line drives are not included in the data.
I will however concede the point on player speed and stand corrected by your point there.
"Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem".
Well Turk
if it is the most misquoted and misunderstood stat… whose fault is that, the proseltyzer or the unconverted?
I don't know, Rev. Seems like a lot of wild generalization to me.
And not a little projection. C’mon, man, you’re talking about some spectral “elite” in the same breath as you’re talking about the “masses”. This frankly sounds more like the ravings of a mad astrologer talking about a hidden “universal congress of” unnamed forces than most sabermetric hobbyists.
You’re clearly a bit schizophrenic on this subject. You rail in an exaggerated absolutist way about some “absolutist” strawmen bugaboos, and then confess you’re using a bunch of stuff from a FanGraphs publication to give you an inside edge on your fantasy baseball team. That says it all — you’re not excluded from the sabermetric community and you consider its products valuable enough to use yourself.
Meanwhile, this site’s co-editor rghan uses advanced sabermetrics almost daily in his totally awesome prospect analyses — which I’m sure you are rightfully proud of.
It’s not like people who use statistics to analyze baseball — or who make data-driven arguments — are some massive unified politburo. It’s a big mix of personalities, blogs and publications — a lot of folks who sometimes disagree and sometimes agree and argue among themselves. And again, it’s a community that doesn’t exclude you.
I think you’re making a stand against ghosts. This site ironically is one of the more “accommodationist” in the Halosphere if its flagbearer’s declared posture is to think the sabermetrically-inclided a bunch of shitcake fucktards. We’re only days removed since you were trumpeting the presence of Sean “CHONE” Smith among your registered users.
That’s why it’s telling that the only name you cite among this “smug” “absolutist” “hyper-stat set” is Bill James, and that in reference to a typically self-critical moment where he discusses the limits of what can be ascertained through scientific method — hardly the words of an absolutist.
The sabermetric community and “movement” (such that it is) — from hobbyists to diehards — include writers/editors on your roster and many of your registered users. And they (we) help make this site better.
I am not in dispute over anything you say here
I am not in dispute over anything you say here.
I love good statistical analysis. But there is a lot of BAD analysis out there. And it is pompous. There are empty essays of wordy, turgid uncritical and POINTLESS statistical analyses being published that tells us less that Runs Batted In tell us.
So there is no free lunch given to our self-appointed sabermetric saviors. Tell us why the numbers mean something or shove them up you ass.
If youa re going to make extraordinary claims, I am going to need extraordinary evidence.
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