I guess this conclusion generally doesn’t surprise me when it comes to predicting future behavior based on past behaviors. By the time anyone becomes an expert in something, the basis of his expertise clearly has changed.

I guess where I still have trouble with the statistically analysis in baseball is when it comes to people making broad statements about human behaviors in sport based on their inability to prove something exists statistically. Take for example a topic like “lineup protection.” The theory is that Batter A hitting ahead of a good Batter B will get better pitches to hit and thus is “protected” in the lineup. There are many studies that have tried to show through analysis of plate apperances over the years that the presence of a good hitter behind another hitter is meaningless. But what these studies cannot factor or measure are the very subtle changes that a batter makes in terms of his swing and the pitches he may or may not swing at depending on situations and the hitter behind him.

If you look at Ryan Zimmerman’s offense production in the year directly before and after Adam Dunn started hitting behind him, you’ll see very clear evidence of lineup protection. Now, that’s not proof in and among itself of course.. but we’re talking pretty small sample sizes of studies where you can look at cases where clearly a batter did and did not have a better hitter hitting behind him on a year to year basis.

I was a math major in college. I learned that if something was not *entirely* 100% true, then it was false. No ifs, ands or buts. You can’t have something be 98% true or be “mostly true.” So I have a big problem with people making statements like “there’s no such thing as clutch” or “lineup protection is a myth” or “pitchers don’t pitch to score” or “players don’t play harder in contract years” because in all these cases I have played with players or directly seen players do *exactly* these things in easily measurable ways. So I have trouble accepting these broad platitutes as a result. Now, if you wanted to say that “I did a study that seems to show lineup protection doesn’t exist” and then tell me the statistical significance of your study (was it one standard deviation away from the mean? A half standard deviation? Only supported 55% of the time so you rounded to 100% for your conclusion?) then i’m happy with that, because it gives me a basis of understanding just how significant your statistical proof is. You’re stating something with a 3 standard deviation confidence level? Well then, that’s pretty unassailable.

To say nothing of the complete, 100% disconnect between statistics/accomplishments that players value versus the opinions of analysts on those same stats. Again, i’m drawing from my own experiences; when I see a guy who drives in runs, I think to myself “man he did a great job driving in those runs.” Meanwhile stat-nerds will say “RBIs are meaningless.” And I just have a hard time accepting that, having played the game myself for so many years and seen just how difficult it is to, you know, score runs sometimes.

In one corner, you have an acknowledged expert with *many* years of experience making these judgments. In the other, you have a computer model based on a large set of past data (built by an expert of course!). Both expert and model have access to the same information. (This restriction is, obviously, important.)

Neither expert nor model will predict the future with 100% accuracy. But which will make more accurate predictions? Answer: The statistical model.

The psychologist Paul Meehl wrote in 1986 “There is no controversy in social science which shows such a large body of qualitatively diverse studies coming out so uniformly in the same direction as this one.” And more than 25 years later, that’s still true.

Now consider a wrinkle: Suppose you give the expert the formula & you tell the expert the formula is more accurate than experts. Surprisingly, the formula still beats the experts. The expert will “defect” from the model when the model seems clearly wrong. But when the expert defects, the model is right more often. (It *doesn’t* follow from this that one should never defect from the model. But one should defect way less often than intuitively seems reasonable.)

Even if you buy this literature – and don’t worry, lots of people don’t – it certainly offers no justification for incivility. But it is a point to consider.

There is a large literature on this. It is most closely associated with the psychologists Paul Meehl & Robyn Dawes. If you’re interested, this link offers a nice entree to the topic. http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gv/statistical_prediction_rules_outperform_expert/

So when these cherished, hallowed, century-long meaningful home run numbers were broken and literally smashed by guys who were “cheating” to do so … yeah I think that’s an outrage that just won’t go away.

My guess is that baseball is so angry because of the HRs. These guys messed with our sacred idols; if no one had hit 60 HRs, do you think that there would be this kind of outrage, keeping everything else the same?

How about Lasik/laser eye surgery? Isn’t this a medical procedure designed entirely to enhance your natural body’s deficiency? Isn’t this a performance-enhancing procedure? Or Tommy John surgery? Why is it ok to have surgery that improves the body but not to take certain suppliments?

I love it when you read columnists who still maintain there’s no scientific proof of steroids helping baseball players. As if the scores and scores of stories we’ve already heard, combined with the clear evidence of the power surges seen in late 30s players in the steroid era meant nothing and was entirely ancedotal. The best evidence I heard was a guy recently interviewed with SI who was a middling reliever prospect in low-A. Started juicing, added something like 10mph to his fastball and rocketed up the farm system into the majors, where soon he had a multi-million dollar contract. If I could take a drug, today, that allowed me to improve my performance to the point where I could literally multiply my earnings potential by 100’s of times over … i’m doing it, and I wouldn’t think twice about my “reputation” or whether i’d get caught. Who cares? I’d go from earning a few hundred dollars a week in the bus leagues to millions of dollars in the majors. Who wouldn’t do that?

As you said, it is relatively arbitrary what drugs are legal and not in the sporting world. But then again, isn’t it the same in society? Isn’t it rather arbitrary that marijuana is illegal but tobacco is legal? Despite hemp’s long history of industrial use, marijuana was (as I understand it) lobbied into being classified as a drug by the tobacco lobby and now holds its illegal standing. Meanwhile tobacco companies put dozens of unsavory products into their cigarettes so as to guarantee addiction and continued sales .. and the effects have resulted in millions of american deaths over the last 75 years.

I have come to view PED usage as just one of those things where you can’t put it back in the bottle when it comes to sports. This knee surgery thing that Kobe/Arod are doing in Germany; why isn’t it legal in the US? IF it were, would it be treated like a Tommy John surgery? We talk lots about drugs … but can MLB pitchers blood dope and replenish their own blood before starts to feel fresh? Is that against he laws? Obviously it is in cycling; we all know how a transfusion can re-energize cyclists after a long ride. Would it work in baseball? I don’t even know if blood doping is banned; perhaps the masking agents are on the banned list. I have a copy of the original drug list somewhere or another, maybe I’ll look into it.

How about this question: why is even the suspicion of PED usage near career death for baseball players and their reputations …. but yet Steroid usage in the NFL is almost universally ignored when it comes to analyzing a player? There’s hall-of-fame calibre football players who have served suspensions … but nobody even bothers to mention the fact in the same sentence. Is this just a football vs baseball thing based on the violent nature of the sports? Is this a function of the writers who cover the sports? Is this a racial thing, since the majority of football players are black but the majority of baseball players are white?

Why is Ryan Braun still considered a cheat despite his test being found to have been faulty? Isn’t it “Innocent until proven guilty” in this country? I wrote this at the time … check out my post here and the links that I found. From what I read … the positive test that Braun suffered was re-created by his attorneys to show that his urine naturally metasticized itself into showing vast amounts of testosterone when stored improperly, and that was the reason the test was thrown out. But no; you still hear just pure invective when people talk about Braun; how he “got away with it” and how he’ll likely never win another major award b/c of it. And there will still be the holier than thou crowd that may or may not prevent him from a justified place in Cooperstown because of it.

Lots of issues here. We’re way off track of the initial topic.

They say that your answer to the question, “what would you do if you hit the lottery?” is your true career goal. If I hit the lottery tomorrow and didn’t have to work to provide for the family, I’d absolutely be some sort of writer. Write books, maybe do free lance baseball writing. I’d love to do more biomechanical research and become a better judge of pitcher mechanics. I’d like to see more amateur baseball and see up and coming prospects more often. Of course, I’d also have to stay involved in my “other” sport, Racquetball (www.bossconsulting.com/irt is my other Labor of Love, which predates this blog and which still takes up time).

As you said in the comments, the vast majority of these banned drugs are legal drugs with legitimate medical purposes to much of society, and administered by licensed doctors. But to some, they get treated like someone creating chrystal meth in their basement. But all it takes is MLB saying ‘uh, you know, we thought about it some more, and that one is probably ok’, and then boom, we are totally ok with it. Should it really be that black and white?; isn’t that exactly what happened with that blood spinning procedure that ARod took last year in Germany? That seemed a lot more far out there many of the banned drugs, but people were like ‘no, its ok now’. Yet people seem to treat the banned stuff like an entirely different animal – something out of Dr Frankenstein’s lab that doesn’t exist for any purpose other than to make Mark McGwire hit homers.

And many of the PED drugs – well, it just seems arbitrary to me what is ok and what isn’t. Amphetamines- no. Five hour energy drinks – I don’t actually know, but I assume ok. Lots and lots of coffee – ok. So where is that line? HGH – from what I can tell, no one thinks it increases strength or quickness, but helps people recover more quickly. That actually seems like a good thing for everyone, doesn’t it, assuming it is safe for the player? ADD drugs – does anyone think it does anything to add strength, speed, eyesight enhancement or quickness?

This may come off as I am encouraging PEDs. I am not. I certainly think that there should be limits, and player health and safety should be the primary guiding force. But I am saying that the rationale between what is ok, and what is not, is fairly murky to me, so it surprises me that when something falls on the wrong side of the line, many people are ready to send out the villagers with torches and pitchforks, but if it makes the ok side of the line, well then by all means, let’s back up the FedEx truck.

In another podcast i listened to recently (to your point of only paying attention to news we already believe in): George Will stated an interesting fact; he said that surveys show that 75% of people who label themselves as “heavily republican” watch Fox News … and ONLY watch Fox News. They’re not getting any angle or opinion that doesn’t already coincide with their own life view.

I try to go out of my way to get news from both “sides” of an issue, to see if what i’m reading in one source is slanted or biased and isn’t telling the whole story. But even that becomes difficult at times.

Hey, at least we can have interesting, intellectual discussions with each other here, talking about the Nats

On the one hand; I think its really hard to tell a guy that he’s 100% wrong about players who he covered extensively (kind of the moral of my hypothetical story). On the other hand, I think its also as a professional you have to adapt, you have to understand new methods in your field. The rise of statistical analysis in the sport isn’t just a fad; it has become a significant method of analysis. Its like the old guy in the press room who doesn’t “get” email and still insists on using a typewriter to do his stories. So I agree that a writer who completely is ignorant of the new rise of stats is no longer being professional enough.

Completely agree on sportswriters who purposely take stances guaranteed to get reactions. I think this is more of an issue in sports radio though. Steve Czabin seems especially prone to taking outlandish stances on sports topics so as to get outraged callers and fill segments.