Yeah, weird title, I know.
On my way to work every day, I pass a womens’ health clinic that offers, among many other services, abortions. Most days there is a small contingent of protesters outside the clinic, and one of them is usually holding a sign that reads “Women regret abortions.”
This sign always makes me think of baseball and statistics. If I saw someone holding up a sign reading “Joe Carter had over 100 RBI in his age 37 season!!” I would feel compelled to roll down the window and shout “but he sucked horribly that year with a 77 OPS+….77!!!”
Don’t get me started on the loon heralding Dante Bichette’s second-place MVP finish in 1995.
These are all examples of cherry-picked statistics that give the wrong impression without the complete picture. Joe Carter and Dante Bichette DID do those things, but they also sucked those seasons. Women who have abortions probably do experience feelings of regret, but how much more might they regret giving birth to a child they don’t want for some reason? I don’t think the sign about women regretting abortions presents anything close to the full picture.
Just to be clear, I’m not taking any side on the abortion issue–I’m just pointing out an everyday example of the type of statistical misuse we’re accustomed to seeing in baseball.
I think about the same issue in the political arena. One candidate accuses another of voting in favor of some proposal. It could be completely factual, but misses the point that the proposal as it was finally voted upon was some sort of grand compromise painstakingly worked out. The headline may be right, but the backstory would provide a completely different perspective.
I see “Women regret abortions” and “Joe Carter had 100 RBI” as both being emotional appeals. These statements are effective to a large audience because most women (and men, for that matter) readily understand regret and most baseball fans can easily grasp RBI. It is much harder for most people to go through the trouble of understanding the psychology and economics of raising an unwanted child, and it is similarly difficult to the digest park factors, offensive context, risk versus reward of basestealing, and positional adjustments that are part of a player’s value.
Hopefully, in time, the majority of the baseball community will come to trust statisticians and accept statistics like WAR that measure a player’s total value — even if they don’t understand all its nuances — just as most people accept the scientific theory of gravity without having an advanced knowledge of physics.
They *are* both emotional appeals. And that’s not always wrong; we all weigh emotions when we make important life choices. Almost all of us have consciously made an important choice that goes against our rational self-interests, simply because “I couldn’t live with myself otherwise.”
The problem with both “arguments” is not that they’re emotional appeals, but that they’re imprecise and ill-thought-out. “Regret” is a vague term. It can mean, “I really wish I had chosen the other path” — but it can also mean, “I wish things could have been different so I didn’t have to come to that particular choice.”
And it’s our nature to rue the road not taken, to think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Most important choices carry “regrets either way,” so, obviously, trying to avoid all regret is not a very helpful guide to decision-making.
And of course, “clutch hitting” is equally vague.
Fortunately, when it comes to baseball, we don’t have to sacrifice emotions to make sound judgments. I’ll never stop loving Rusty Staub for driving in 100+ for the 1977-78 Tigers. I can retain and savor those emotional experiences — like the time my brother and I ran all the way from a distant parking lot and got up the tunnel just in time to see Staub and then Kemp both crack colossal HRs, upper deck and facing of the 3rd deck — but also acknowledge that he really wasn’t very valuable those years. Fans of Carter and Bichette could do the same.
Did Bichette suck in 1995? He was a good, valuable hitter that season, even after adjusting for the Coors effect. According to b-ref’s WAR he was the most valuable with the bat (i.e., most Rbat) on a Rockies team that made it to the post-season. He was a below average on defense and on the base paths, but overall, b-ref’s WAR has Dante at +1.2 WAR for the season. Considering that the Rox made the playoffs that season by exactly one game, WAR suggests that without Bichette, Colorado may not have made the playoffs.
Was he the second-most valuable player in the NL that season? No, certainly not (that vote is another reminder how much the baseball awards voters have traditionally loved guys with high RBI numbers). WAR suggests that maybe Bichette was the 5th most valuable non-pitcher on the Rockies. But that also does suggest he was a reasonably valuable piece for Colorado, and summing it up by saying he sucked maybe falls into the same trap as those protesters.
As to Carter in 1997, yeah, he was pretty all-around bad. Maybe the one sabermetric stat he comes out well on that season is the Clutch stat. That’s a measure of the degree to which he hit better in higher-leverage (i.e., more important) than in lower-leverage (i.e., less important) situations. Over his regular season career as a whole, Carter had a negative Clutch number, but in 1997 he was good on this measure, with the 6th highest Clutch number in the AL that year.
Carter in 1997
OPS in Low Leverage Situations: .605
OPS in Medium Leverage Situations: .695
OPS in High Leverage Situations: .789
Congrats on furthering my point by posting an incomplete, deceptive stat. What are league average OPS values in different league-average situations? I bet Carter was, at best, league average for a power hitter. BA are always higher in high leverage.
In the 1997 AL
OPS in Low Leverage Situations: .757
OPS in Medium Leverage Situations: .779
OPS in High Leverage Situations: .772
My only goal with Carter’s leverage splits was to fill in the data behind Carter’s Clutch stat. He was extremely awful in low leverage situations, merely awful in medium leverage situations, and average in high leverage situations. No intention to be deceptive.
BRC:
I don’t believe Bichette was too much of a positive offensive force away from Coors or at least those big numbers were greatly enhaced by Coors.
However, did anyone ever notice both Mo Vaughn and Barry Larkin led their respective teams to the playoffs in 1995, won the M V P awards in their respective leagues and, then, in 1996 had better years to no avail? Obviously, SS Valentin had as much or more to do withy the BRS success in 1995 and one could argue the same for Reggie Sanders for the Reds. I do recall Ron Gant of the Reds hitting the absolute cover off the ball in the 1st half of 1995 as well.
I remember despondent Italian actress Monica Faolenchiese committing suicide over her three Italian heroes (Biggio, Piazza, & Bichette) failure to secure the 1995 NL MVP award. 🙁
Wow now that’s a specious argument, that Bichette was key to the Rockies making the playoffs. Had he not been so horrible on defense, they wouldn’t have been so close to missing the playoffs.
It’s my belief that anyone who takes 30 BB’s in nearly 700 PA’s is not real valuable, unless of course he pitches 265 innings at an ERA+ of 120. No, my argument was that Valentin deserved the 1995 AL MVP award and, perhaps, Larkin’s teammates were as deserving as he (as were Piazza and Biggio).
Re Bichette, per baseball-reference, if you convert him to a Los Angeles Dodger for 1995, he goes .295/.318/.542 with 93 runs created. Hey, good for him. He got traded to the greatest hitters park since Baker Bowl and he got paid for it….
It’s interestng to think of how some hitters have benefited financially from Coors numbers, and conversely how some pitchers may have their longterm financial security impacted. For example, over the five years Steve Reed pitched in Colorado from 1993-97 he amassed a WAR of 8.7, sixth best over that time period for pitchers with no games started. In 1998, the first year of his subsequent free agent contract, he was the 46th highest paid 0 start pitcher in MLB. Had he pitched in San Diego during that time and had better traditional numbers, I wonder if he would have had better contract success.
Andy @7: I tried to follow the overall message of your post by avoiding rhetoric and articulating precisely. When a team wins a post-season spot by one game, the very concept of WAR suggests that each player on that team with a WAR of 1.0 or more can be said to have had a season such that without him, the team would not have grabbed that post-season spot. That was exactly what I said about Bichette, no more and no less.
I agree with 99% of your original post, Andy — I just thought your rhetoric got carried away a bit with the whole “they also sucked” comment. WAR suggests that overall, Dante was a net positive for Colorado in 1995, which was my main point. In a close pennant race every net positive can be important, making it all the more relevant that Bichette in 1995, on an overall basis, was a net positive contributor.
Unfortunately, or comically perhaps, our debate may come down to the issue of how one defines what it means to say a player sucks.
Isn’t the entire point of this trying to find some sort of common vocabulary? In politics, you speak in a way that contextualizes arguments to make them (often speciously) self-evident. So, when you say “X million babies have been killed” you have already cut off further discussion (I’m not taking a side here, just pointing out something obvious). In baseball, the common vocabulary is stats, mixed with more ethereal qualities such as perceived clutchness, leadership, etc. But not everyone agrees on what those stats mean, or what value to place on them, so there really is no agreement on a common vocabulary. Most of us have been raised on counting stats. In 1995 Dante Bichette led the league in hits, HR’s, RBI, SLG, and Total Bases. To try to convince most laypeople that he was barely better than a replacement level player is a virtual impossibility. His traditional stats look great; that implies WAR can’t be a valid measure. Andy isn’t wrong, but the problem is that as long as the “science” is ahead of the conventional understanding, you can’t really have a conversation. Personally, Luddite that I am, I love ERA+ and OPS+ because to me, that contextualizes “bad” “average” “good” and “great” in relation to a baseline number that is very clearcut. WAR feels more obscure, in part because it reflects other factors and weightings I don’t fully understand.
I love OPS+ as well, Mike, and for Bichette in 1995 it gets us a good value for his hitting — 130 OPS+, tied for 12th in the NL, which sounds about right. Andy’s counter of course would (quite correctly) be that OPS+ fails to take into account Bichette’s flaws on the basepaths and in the field. There’s probably no simple, intuitive way to do that statistically, so complicated ways to do so, like Win Shares and WARP and WAR will continue to evolve (all of which show Bichette as a small but positive net contributor to the Rockies success in 1995, even after taking into account his flaws on defense).
While reading your earlier posts I didn’t get what you were trying to do and now that I’ve read them all I see what you were trying to do but disagree with the conclusion that Bichette is a small net positive. Exceeding replacement level makes one a net positive to a team exceeding a replacement level record. Since you are describing Bichette as a net positive not to helping his team merely exceed replacement level, but make the postseason, the question then becomes whether his net contribution actually meets that standard. It doesn’t. A team of of twenty-five 1.3 WAR players is about a .500 team. A team of twenty-five 1.2 WAR players falls a few wins short of that. The Rocks were a .535 team. They did, however, have a .500 Pythag. Anyway, it seems like it’s still okay to say Bichette sucked.
Regarding your statement about Bichette’s net positive contribution to the 1995 Rockies I would like to quote the immortal Elaine Benes on Jerry’s claim of a mutual breakup with his girlfriend in the season eight “Seinfeld” episode “The Foundation”:
“No, no, no. It’s weak. No one’s gonna buy it, and you shouldn’t be selling it.”
WAR suggests Bichette in 1995 was, overall, slightly below average in value, but more valuable than a typical replacement player who would have replaced him had he, say, been injured and lost for the season on Opening Day. Among starting left fielders in the NL in 1995, he was probably not in the top half, but probably not in the bottom 4 either. How that particular value range fits the definition of the term Andy used is up to you.
I certainly agree with the notion that whether Bichette “sucked” depends very much on one’s definition of that highly scientific term. My feeling is that he’s WAY overrated for that year, way overpaid, etc. Did he deserve to be banished from MLB for his performance? No. Was he better than a box of balls? Yes.
Look, I’m sure we’re all similarly politically affiliated since we’re all similarly logical people but I really don’t appreciate using abortion as an analogy for this. The piece is… trashy. The one who comes off sounding poorly here is you Andy, which is a shame because I normally find you a very articulate, factual, and detailed communicator.
I’m not sure your comment even deserves a response, but here goes anyway. I didn’t select abortion for an analogy–this post is about a sign relating to abortion. And I didn’t select this topic at all–as I explained this is a real life situation that’s part of my everyday life. I can’t help but wonder if you’re reading into my post. I make no judgement of the people holding the signs or abortion one way or the other. GrandyMan hit my point exactly, about an emotional vs a factual point. I don’t really see that you have a legitimate complaint.
How do others feel?
Mosc:
Red flag alert. Calm down and try to understand Andy’s use of, not abortion, but the logic on the sign he saw as it relates to the specious conclusion it is meant to illicit.
Like Andy, I guess, I don’t like this kind of emotional appeal, one that eliminates all other considerations.
Sorry to pile in here. I write a political blog, 1200-1500 words once a week. To do it, I probably spend an hour or more a day online reading newspapers and politically oriented websites. It;s ugly out there. Not only can the comments be incredibly nasty, but more and more the columnists are doing the same thing. We’ve pretty much lost the ability to talk to each other in a civil way. I’d contrast that with HHS, which I find to be an oasis of calm and considerate interaction. I think Andy was trying to make a point that had nothing to do with politics and everything about the differences between impersonal math and highly personal emotion.
I get what you guys are saying but the piece does not read that way to me. There’s no reason to use abortion in this analogy independent of whither or not it gets into the morality of abortion. It’s a trigger on it’s own.
It’s a trigger FOR YOU, it would seem. For the rest of us, we seem to be able to discuss the issues raised in the post without sensationalizing or assuming some hidden agenda.
I agree. The lines we draw have to be reasonable. Else shouldn’t we all be offended that one of our most referenced statistics trivializes “an organised and often prolonged conflict that is carried out by states and/or non-state actors”?
I forgot to make a follow-up post earlier where I wanted to say that I absolutely hope that you and other contributors continue to write things in this sort of fashion. One of the reasons Bill James became the face of sabermetrics is not merely because of his good work but because of his writing talent, because of his ability not only to write about baseball (analysis), but his ability to write about (baseball) analysis while not writing about baseball.
One of my favorite James’ posts is here: http://www.billjamesonline.com/wit/ where he does actually take a couple of political positions but uses sports analogies.
wow. Read it all, great stuff. Thanks, Fireworks.
You think that’s bad?
You know that Don Mattingly is probably the only hall-eligible player not in the HOF who has over a .307 lifetime BA, 127 or higher lifetime OPS+, with three seasons over 200 hits.
Not only that, he’s got the 8th best lifetime fielding percentage all time at his position.
Not even Babe Ruth did that.
ha ha ha ha
P.S.: You have your head in too many baseball stats if you think that any statistically significant number of women are going to say that they regret NOT having an abortion, no matter how the kid turns out or how difficult it is raising him or her. Women just don’t work that way.
Well I’ve met a few women who say that they regret having kids, but none of them considered abortion as far as I know. These were people who made the decision to have kids and then later regretted it. But I do see your general point.
You seem to be on the same (wrong) page that mosc is on. Andy’s position isn’t pro- or anti-abortion (notice I used those two terms instead of pro-choice and pro-life–that’s usually my example of how the issue is obfuscated and distorted by emotional appeals). Andy is pointing out (rightly) that the appeal made by the protesters is misleading in the same way that cherry-picking certain statistics is misleading.
One could put up a virtual “sign”on the front page of this site that reads, “HHS readers regret when Andy writes a post relating to abortion”
It would of course mislead a reader of the sign to believe that such a post contains any sort of political content that is upsetting to readers rather than the fact that a small (and predictable) minority of readers are so sensitive to the topic that they completely fail to understand the post.
Gold star.
Mattingly should be in the HOF. OPS+ and Gold Gloves place him among the elite first basemen of all-time. I blame Yankee haters.
I loved Mattingly when I was a kid but I don’t think he belongs in the Hall. Although I know he was the most feared hitter in baseball during his time. What, that’s already been used? Okay, but he batted to the score. What? Okay but so what if he didn’t walk–one does not simply walk out of Indiana. He was paid to drive in runs! Swing the bat, young fella!
I just got sad. I just realized I really wish Harold Reynolds or someone of his ilk to try to say that a guy batted to the score in support of someone’s career. No one will say that, of course, but I want to hear it. Brian Kenny if you’re reading this PLEASE hilariously undermine Harold with this. Like maybe the next time Harold brings up the delicious wisdom of Dusty Baker’s decision to bat Brandon Phillips cleanup.
If wishes were RBI*s* I’d be 2013 MVP.
In support of Dr. Remulak’s comment I will repeat a portion of what I commented about Mattingly last February.
His OPS+ was 127, nothing that would knock you off your chair but still better than more than half of the position players already in the HOF, including the likes of Bench, Hartnett, Berra, Cuyler, Gehringer, Puckett and George Sisler. From 1984 through 1989 Mattingly was second in OPS+, first in SLG, 2B, and RBI, second in OPS and Rbat and third in BA and H. He had one MVP and finished in the top ten 4 times. Impressive stats.
There is a parallel between Mattingly and Sisler in that they both suffered debilitating medical problems in the middle of their careers. In his first 8 seasons Mattingly had an OPS+ of 144 but fell to 105 in the 6 seasons subsequent to his back injury. Sisler had an OPS+ of 155 for his first 8 seasons but fell to just 97 for the 7 seasons subsequent to his sinus/eye problems.
Guys…Remulak is being sarcastic.
Well he did vote for Mattingly in the 1961 COG ballot.
He also voted for Mattingly in ’62. I’m not convinced it was sarcasm.
And considering statistics that don’t tell the whole story, at one point in February the Brooklyn Nets had a 32-0 record in certain conditions…
https://twitter.com/Nets_PR/status/304064907190628352