MLB Off-Topic

[kehlis]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

The point is you don't have to lecture them on anything. You say this number being higher means they're better.

How do you guys use stats? Because I don't understand how a highlight video would tell me who the best player is. That's exactly what we're trying to work against, the idea that seeing a player necessarily tells you what you need to know. I could out together a highlight reel of any decent outfielder with a couple of home runs and diving catches and convince someone they're the best.

When you play a game, you look at overall. If I don't know anything about baseball, I can find the best player in baseball because people who love the sport have already devised a stat that tells me who is best at exactly what needs to be done. I can find the answer, and then ask the questions afterwards. Maybe it's just me but it helps to take one player, figure out what they do best, and then apply that to the context of the game as opposed to learning the entire game and going from there. What is the goal of hitting? To create runs. Now how do you do that most effectively?

The part that confuses me is you guys aren't just pushing aside metrics, but all statistics. To say you don't need someone to tell you why players are good (in Matrix's case) misses the point, they may just not be for you. But some people do need to be told why players are good, and the most effective way to do that is to boil everything down to one number like overall in a sports game. After that, you can determine how each individual aspect plays into the whole. I guess I'm just not understanding how your methods help, I could show someone a Baz reel and have them convinced he's the GOAT.

Your analogy was someone who doesn't know baseball.

If I tell someone who doesn't know baseball that the best player in the league only gets on base 3 out of 10 at bats he is going to think I'm insane. Homeruns would probably be the only stat that would somewhat resonate with a non baseball fan.

Stats without context to anyone does nothing let alone advanced metrics.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Your analogy was someone who doesn't know baseball.

If I tell someone who doesn't know baseball that the best player in the league only gets on base 3 out of 10 at bats he is going to think I'm insane. Homeruns would probably be the only stat that would somewhat resonate with a non baseball fan.

Stats without context to anyone does nothing let alone advanced metrics.

Exactly. If someone doesn't know baseball, they'd want to know who the best hitter is. At this point, it's up to who they asked to determine the best way to show them. If you feel home runs do that then I guess that'd be the stat you chose to show them. I do not.

I think most people can understand the idea that more runs wins the game. I would want to point them to the stat that most illustrates that point, which is IMO WRC+. The stat does all the work. It asks and answers the question, what is the most important aspect of baseball offensively? With the answer, you can see the best hitter. With the question, you can look at the parts that make it up as opposed to just getting an arbitrary raw number. Home runs don't tell me that much. I appreciate the confusion of advanced stats i guess they promote learning. If I don't know what this means, I can look it up. It's a better base to learn the game from IMO when you can see how the numbers combine and affect each other.

[kehlis]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Exactly. If someone doesn't know baseball, they'd want to know who the best hitter is. At this point, it's up to who they asked to determine the best way to show them. If you feel home runs do that then I guess that'd be the stat you chose to show them. I do not.

I think most people can understand the idea that more runs wins the game. I would want to point them to the stat that most illustrates that point, which is IMO WRC+. The stat does all the work. It asks and answers the question, what is the most important aspect of baseball offensively? With the answer, you can see the best hitter. With the question, you can look at the parts that make it up as opposed to just getting an arbitrary raw number. Home runs don't tell me that much. I appreciate the confusion of advanced stats i guess they promote learning. If I don't know what this means, I can look it up. It's a better base to learn the game from IMO when you can see how the numbers combine and affect each other.

If what you understood from what I posted was that I personally would use homeruns to explain to someone who the best player is than I don't even know what to tell you.


That's not what I was saying at all nor would I use homeruns to tell someone who the best player is.

Go try explain an advanced metric to a non baseball fan and see how far you get.

[CMH]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

To be fair, I would just say WAR measures overall value.

That's as simple as saying more RBI means better hitter.

No matter which stat you use, a non baseball fan will need an explanation. RBI can get complicated too when you get into double plays, sacrifice flies, errors. Etc.

A non baseball fan isn't going to know the difference between advanced and traditional stat. They can just learn stats.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

If what you understood from what I posted was that I personally would use homeruns to explain to someone who the best player is than I don't even know what to tell you.


That's not what I was saying at all nor would I use homeruns to tell someone who the best player is.

Go try explain an advanced metric to a non baseball fan and see how far you get.

I don't think I'd get far in general, how do I explain what a balk is when the league can barely do it? My point is to give a stat that most easily explains what I'm trying to say. The best hitter is measured by WRC+, period. There's no stat IMO that better measures value as a hitter than that. So I'd start there and say the object of the game is to create runs, well how do you do that? Then explain traditional stats through that lens. My point is what number answers a question, that's what stats should do for me. You said earlier stats without context are useless, advanced stats literally provide the context you're looking for, they tell you everything.

[kehlis]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

You said earlier stats without context are useless, advanced stats literally provide the context you're looking for, they tell you everything.

But again, they provide the context to someone who understands baseball.

Not someone who knows nothing about it.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

But again, they provide the context to someone who understands baseball.

Not someone who knows nothing about it.

The number itself just gives an answer to who the best hitter is, which is what the person wants to know.

From that point, you'd look into it to see what it's made of and how things are weighed. But as a single stat, it's far more informative than others and that's why I'd show it to a new person. The purpose of setting 100 as average is so that people can even easier understand the differences between players.

[CMH]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Not my discussion but I think both of you have good points.

I can see one side for a few non baseball fans and the other side being the best approach with another.

Could also depend on how much sports a person even knows or exposes himself to.

If I try to tell a particular friend of mine about RS/27, he is definitely going to want to know the purpose and value of it.

Another friend of mine would simply say cool. I may actually have to warn him it's only one measure so he wouldn't get carried away with believing it as the best and only value.

[kehlis]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

The number itself just gives an answer to who the best hitter is, which is what the person wants to know.

From that point, you'd look into it to see what it's made of and how things are weighed. But as a single stat, it's far more informative than others and that's why I'd show it to a new person. The purpose of setting 100 as average is so that people can even easier understand the differences between players.

I guess what I'm saying is YOU can use whatever stat you want to use to tell him who the best hitter is.

But describing said stat to someone who doesn't understand the intricacies of baseball is futile even if the individual wants to understand.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Describing OBP to someone who doesn't understand what a walk is would be futile. I just think it's more useful to be able to understand a number. You're talking about describing it like people need to know how to calculate it, but they don't, it's a stat, a measurement, they just need to know what it measures. It measures offensive value. If you want to know how, hop into the rabbit hole and let's find out where the number comes from. It's about creating runs, how do we do that? Well the most important part of that is to get on base (represented in woba), well is it more valuable to walk than hit or vice versa? Honestly, these concepts are not baseball, they're math. There are baseball fans that don't fully understand metrics, but you don't need to know how they're calculated to understand what they mean or represent.

If all someone gets from WRC+ is that it's about creating runs, and sees that Trout is number 1, and concludes that Trout must be the best at creating runs, that's fine. That's the stat. Now how do you go about creating those runs? That's baseball.

[kehlis]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Describing OBP to someone who doesn't understand what a walk is would be futile. I just think it's more useful to be able to understand a number. You're talking about describing it like people need to know how to calculate it, but they don't, it's a stat, a measurement, they just need to know what it measures. It measures offensive value. If you want to know how, hop into the rabbit hole and let's find out where the number comes from. It's about creating runs, how do we do that? Well the most important part of that is to get on base (represented in woba), well is it more valuable to walk than hit or vice versa? Honestly, these concepts are not baseball, they're math. There are baseball fans that don't fully understand metrics, but you don't need to know how they're calculated to understand what they mean or represent.

If all someone gets from WRC+ is that it's about creating runs, and sees that Trout is number 1, and concludes that Trout must be the best at creating runs, that's fine. That's the stat. Now how do you go about creating those runs? That's baseball.

OBP isn't a number?

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Of course it's a number, but it's much easier to understand how far something is away from 100 and realize that's a percent above average than it is to figure out if a 364 OBP is good or not.

[kehlis]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Of course it's a number, but it's much easier to understand how far something is away from 100 and realize that's a percent above average than it is to figure out if a 364 OBP is good or not.

So if I were to say this hitter has the fifth best OBP in the league it's hard to figure out if that's good or not?

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

So if I were to say this hitter has the fifth best OBP in the league it's hard to figure out if that's good or not?

It's not about figuring out whether or not things are good necessarily, its about figuring out which individual statistic gets to the point quickest. No it's not hard to figure that out, but it doesn't tell you that much because OBP doesn't weigh more valuable hits against each other, it doesn't tell you that the purpose of baseball is creating runs and there are different ways to do that. It doesn't give you as much information as WRC+ does with its number.

[countryboy]

Re: MLB Off-Topic

Why would anyone talk to a non-baseball fan?