Are baseball stats true science?

by foulpole on May 28, 2008 1:01 AM EDT

From today's game thread...

There are exponentially more variables to baseball then there are to coin tosses.

Baseball stats are not the law of gravity, true probability theory ( ie. a coin toss, a dice roll, etc) or physics.

To compare baseball stats to true science is, IMO, a very far stretch.

I do believe that the "truest" that baseball stats can come to reality is platoon stats but they are still far from perfect.

Discuss...

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"I do believe that the "truest" that baseball stats can come to reality is platoon stats but they are still far from perfect."

I can’t even begin to understand what this means.

Of course stats can’t encompass everything about reality, but then again, neither can the human mind. Stats are necessary to flesh out a mental characterization that falls short due to things like small sample size, selection bias and personal biases.

The thing is Foul, I don’t think you are even aware of what people are capable of doing and trying to do with baseball statistics. Seriously, I implore you PLEASE READ THESE ARTICLES.

Since, I doubt that this post will ever even be read by Foulpole, will someone here on his good side please repost the link so that he might actually read it?

by dahlian on May 28, 2008 1:50 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs

I’m not going to be able to read these articles for a while, with finals and all coming up but I have been looking for a concise set of explanatory articles on all the obscure-ish baseball stats out there for a while now. So I have to thank you very much for that link. Thanks man.

by isoldout on May 28, 2008 4:33 AM EDT up reply actions

Just because a problem has a high number of variables

doesn’t mean it’s not eventually solvable, or at least predictive. Take for instance the math involved in predicting if an asteroid will strike the earth, or conversely a satellite, somewhere in the future. There are so many variables that an initial prediction is made, and then has to be redone when the asteroid gets closer because the difference between the two answers can be wildly different.

The problem here is that you’re comparing statistics and predictive math to theories that not only have been proven but are solid and largely constant.

The boys in Sedona Red slugged it out with a pretty pesky poltergeist, then stayed on to dance the night away with some of the lovely ladies who witnessed the disturbance.

by soco on May 28, 2008 9:15 AM EDT reply actions

"...you’re comparing statistics and predictive math to theories that not only have been proven but are solid and largely constant"

Amen. The biggest issue I see with this FanPost is simply that I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about - “true science”? What does that MEAN? Does it mean we’re following the scientific method? Because I’m fairly certain that this is why stats like ERA+, OPS+, BABIP, RZR, DER, etc. are even used - they’ve been tested and shown to have some value. Heck—I know this whole argument began with win probability, which is EXTREMELY scientific, in that it takes the current situation and reviews similar situations in tens of thousands of previous games, determining what % of teams in the present situation ended up winning, with no bias to pitcher, batter, etc.

If you want to attack win probability, don’t attack the number itself or the method, because it’s simply a means of expressing the sum of aggregate data—the number itself, stated in a vacuum, is a fact, because it’s based on events that have already happened. If you want to attack whether or not it actually can predict the outcome of any given current game, well, you’d expect it to be right more often than not, because baseball, as a game, doesn’t change much.

Of COURSE no number can adequately predict, with certainly, whether or not any given team will win or lose a certain game. That’s why they play the games—and it’s not unique to baseball, either. If “stats” were “true science”, by which I assume you mean “absolutely reliable”, then wouldn’t every economist be a millionaire??

Max Scherzer is all out of bubblegum.

by DbacksSkins on May 28, 2008 4:22 PM EDT up reply actions

Fangraphs

Fun to look at the Phillies absolute pounding of Colorado the other day here on Fangraphs. One thing I had never seen that appears on this Fangraph is that by 1 out in the 7th, the Phillies (with a 16-4 lead) had a win expectancy of 100%! That means never had a team rallied from 12 runs down and 8 outs to go (actually, I think they calculated win expectancy from 1979 on, so never since 1979).

"There are only two seasons: winter and baseball"
-- Bill Veeck

by njjohn on May 28, 2008 4:46 PM EDT up reply actions

The problem seems to be him looking at different science and saying, “why aren’t baseball stats like that?” Statistics and predictive models aren’t really the same as biology, sure, but that doesn’t make one any more valid than the other.

The other problem is that what statisticians are trying to measure in baseball is considerably more complex than flipping a coin.

I’d also like to say that I completely do not agree with the OP, and though I don’t spend a lot of time with the weightier ideas of sabermetrics, I still think it’s a useful and interesting tool and field of study. I wish this was something that baseball fans could have a truce on the struggle between the boys club way of measuring talent and statistical models. It feels like sometimes those on the stat side feel under-appreciated or completely disregarded (rightfully so most of the time) and can sometimes lash out in unproductive ways, while the the other side doesn’t help matters by generally falling back to ad hom attacks, such as “propeller-head.”

Why can’t weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee be friends, why can’t weeeeee be friends?

The boys in Sedona Red slugged it out with a pretty pesky poltergeist, then stayed on to dance the night away with some of the lovely ladies who witnessed the disturbance.

by soco on May 28, 2008 8:30 PM EDT up reply actions