Very good point about heat and light. But let's talk about the evidence for and against line up protection, because it is just as troubling if a theory is accepted without evidence.
According to my understanding, most of the studies on this subject look at either (1) the performance of players that hit in front of elite batters (Pujols, etc) versus career numbers, or more recently, (2) whether pitchers throw more fastballs to players in front of elite hitters versus their career pitch selection. In both cases, there does not seem to be a correlation--batters do not reliably hit better and pitch selection does not change.
As for the inordinate pressure argument--that the M's collapsed because of pressure to get the big hit--this sounds like the long time clutch debate that again hasn't found much evidence to support it (Tango thinks it exists, but only at an impractically small level). I think the general conclusion among the stats crowd is that MLB players have already figured out how to overcome and succeed in moments of severe pressure during their rise to the most elite level of baseball.
I personally agree more with the "protection does not exist" sentiment than not, but would like to hear the opposite point.
=== Let Me Count the Ways, Dept. ===
1. When I say "There Is Zero Evidence" that (for instance) the moon landing was faked, I immediately declare my ignorance of the subject.
There is a lot of evidence that the moon landing was faked. That evidence -- which does exist, mind you -- is simply overpowered by the evidence that the moon landing did occur.
A person who claims that "No Evidence Exists" does not yet know the subject well enough to know that his education is less than infinite.
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2. If there were zero evidence for anything, and I can't imagine such a situation, how would you prove that there was zero evidence?
Have you even proven, yet, that no evidence exists in each of the 50 states in the U.S.? Much less in the Congo?
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3. There is a certain elitism implied, "Elitism" being the belief that only individuals from a wealthy (educated, etc) class get to talk.
We all know that a guy (elsewhere) who says "There Is No Sabermetric Evidence" means that there is no pseudo-scientific "study" on Hardball Times, Baseball Prospectus, or Fangraphs.*
Look, guys. The internet has destroyed elitism. If there's a guy in Hoboken with evidence, he gets to talk these days.
Just because I haven't seen it on Tango, or HBT, or any of the top ten saber sites, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or doesn't count.
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4. As a completely separate issue (from elitism), the phrase betrays a self-view that is not in contact with reality.
Dr. Detecto's appropriate role, on SSI, is not to educate G-Moneyball. It is to exchange ideas with him. That's not humility on Dr. D's part. It's merely an accurate perception of reality.
"No evidence exists" is the language of a teacher to a student.
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5. It equates "evidence I don't like" with "no evidence," and this is closed-minded bigotry. It is precisely what is wrong with American politics in the 21st century: we believe that the other guys know nothing.
Bill James found, when he invented Win Shares, that if three team leaders had good years, then the other hitters tended to have good years along with them.
Is that evidence?
Or is it "evidence I, Jeff Clarke reject" and, therefore, evidence that does not exist?
That's breathtakingly arrogant, isn't it?
..........
There's evidence for almost everything, guys. And there's a lot of evidence that if things are going bad, then pro athletes quit on their seasons. You've been watching this evidence, in Safeco, for years now.
You'll never hear anything different from an actual athlete: when the season tanks, oftentimes they do too. Funny how "no evidence exists" for a syndrome that is presumed obvious among the people who actually do it.
If what you mean is, "I personally haven't yet seen any evidence that convinces me," then say it that way. That's free advice.
.
Your friend,
Jeff
Comments
"It's just as troubling if a theory is accepted without (what I consider to be) good evidence"?
;- )
I just honestly haven't heard about any studies that suggest protection exists. Not every disagreement is idealogical; we're mostly rational creatures here that would like to weigh and consider the available sources.
I suppose we can dicker about what we consider to be good evidence, however. Off the top of my head, I tend to rank evidence from greatest to least:
1. Historical studies of players and results (such as a study of how successful a base stealer needs to be to help his team);
2. Baseball tradition (there have been a lot of great baseball minds who have developed strategies over the past 100 years, and the most successful strategies are usually the most copied to the point that they become common wisdom);
3. Anecdotal evidence from those experienced in the game (the best strategies have to start somewhere);
4. Random assertions on blog message boards (see: the user feedback underneath every mlbtraderumors and Seattle Times article for some of the worst baseball thinking ever seen).
Ideally, I like to see theories corroborated in more than one way.
And this time you substituted the word "studies" for the word "evidence." :- )
For the rest of it: spot on dude! :cpoints:
...I understand your point regarding the Zero Evidence mantra...I get annoyed with saberdweebs who overuse that phrase with regards to very...very complicated problems like the mpact of a baserunner on the pitcher or bullpen leverage as a guage of managerial skill or HR/Fly persistance, etc...I chose to use that phrase in this case because I have actually STUDIED the question of line-up protection (not run my own studies, but read VORACIOUSLY on the subject, because I got frustrated with being told one thing by ESPN announcers and another thing by my own life experiences)...dozens of guys amrter than me have tried to find the tracks in the snow from the elephant of line-up protection and utterly failed.
What I am particularly troubled by here is that while you decry my own use of the zero evidence phrase, you speak in absolutes as though your opinion that the Mariners lacked an MLB (TM) clean-up hitter and therefore the rest of the hitters all had bad years from trying too hard to compensate is fact. That's just as bad as the crime you accuse me of committing here. And everyone is merrily buying in...the 2010 crashed because they went obsessively for defense and the results manifestly prove that building a great defensive team will lose you 100 games. That's the line you're selling and most of the readers here believe you. And I think that's unfortunate, because I don't think that's an accurate description of what ailed the 2010 Mariners nor do I think a defense-first concept always ends in failure.
You may think your writing style is just you throwing your opinion out there...and I'm not insulting your writing...it's about as entertaining and generally fair as anything I've ever come across in baseball circles...but sometimes you get stuck in an infinite loop believe you have a key insight and repeating it over and over no matter how hard someone tries to explain why he thinks you're missing something or oversimplifying things. That's what got me up in arms and caused me to be more blunt than even my usual...when I go 1 vs. 100 on this blog, and the ring-leader of the 100 is the blog owner and the blog owner is speaking in terms just as absolute as mine and then accusing me of being an elitist...yeah...that tends to make me defensive and frustrated.
I don't mind conversing about the topic - or any topic.
Case A for "what good are big bats if you have lineup black holes?" would be a team like the 2010 Nationals.
That team had the 138 OPS+ of Dunn, 142 from Zimmerman, and 129 and 133 in half-seasons from Willingham and Morse. So there's 3 combined "big bats" which should be enough to bolster the lineup, right?
655 runs scored, 11th out of 16 in batting average, 12th in OBP, 11th in SLG and OPS.
They got 1570 ABs from their top 7 bench bats, who ALL had OPS numbers between .550 and .690, and another 290 from pitchers who hit like, well, pitchers.
They also got hurt by a 73 OPS+ catcher, a 79 2B and a 73 CFer. 3 big bats (and a decent SS) were not enough for that offense.
I can see arguments that would discount the possibility of a couple of guys shouldering the load making a huge difference for the other guys in the lineup.
I still think the reason everyone for the Mariners had near-career lows at the same time was partly because of that. Ivan Rodriguez didn't slump, he's just done for the Nats. He posted a 73 OPS+ this year, a 74 last year.
Their bench is terrible. Kennedy did well last year but his 82, 50, 86 streak the years before that makes his age 34 season of 79 look about right.
Morgan had a bad year for them. It happens. But the holes in their lineup are holes. They aren't filled with average-decent hitters who cratered.
Do I think the lack of a MOTO explains everything? No. The Wilsons are just bad. Positional and lineup change may have messed with Figgins severely for the first half of the season.
Do I consider it a contributing factor? Absolutely I do. And I know Sandy and Matt don't.
But I thought that's why we decided to post to forums and blogs and chat rooms: to talk about it.
If we had an ignore feature here, I'd be using it on Matt, regardless of what insights I might get from some of his posts. It's not worth it to me to hear that kind of obnoxious noise. I can spend my time posting less and doing other things, that's no skin off my nose. I come here - and to my other forums - to talk baseball, not to get screamed at.
If this isn't the place to do that, I'll find another place. If you feel like you have to scream to be heard, Matt, then eventually you'll get to scream to yourself.
~G
There is a possible bit of equivocation in the term "evidence". On the one hand, evidence could be understood as any data point that would count in favor of a hypothesis, in which case, there is no doubt lots of evidence for a protected hitter effect. In fact, each hit by a hitter preceding a big bopper is "evidence" in this thin sense. However, this can't be what the sabermetricians mean. Rather, the claim "there is no evidence that P", if interpreted charitably, should be read as "given the available evidence, P is clearly not justified". In fact, in common usage, this is what people usually mean when they talk about there being (or not being) evidence. Much of what you've written seems like lack of charity on your part, and a failure to grasp a possible equivocation in the term "evidence".
A few questions for Doc:
Is it possible for someone to believe that P is evidence for Q when in fact P is not evidence for Q?
Is it possible for a person to believe that some set of beliefs X are sufficient to justify a further belief Z when in fact X is not sufficient to justify Z?
I'm just wondering how much of a relativist you are about issues of evidence and justification.
I use the "zero evidence" phrase less often than some folks (the SABRJohn character Doc refers to, for example)...but when I do use it,I'm usually trying to refute a claim that seems to be too big of a logical jump to be tenable to me. The 2010 Mariners are an example of why building for defense first will get you 100 losses. That's what Doc is claiming. I think he's way...way off base, and one particularly important pillar in his logical house (possibly of cards) is that many of the hitters we did have had bad years together specifically because we didn't get a line-up legitimizer. I think one hitter wouldn't have done a thing to save the 2010 Mariners other than what he actually did himself...and I've got many examples (which I've discussed here) of teams that did not have a straw stirring the drink for their offense and were a glove-first roster and yet still won 100 games...teams (including the 2009 Mariners) that did not have a legitimizer of any great note without this anti-synergy affect...AND team that had 3 or 4 big boppers and still couldn't score runs.
I don't literally mean zero evidence at all to prove Doc's theory...I do however mean that what evidence there is is very thin and sketchy and deeply outweighed by the evidence I've found to the contrary.
So this:
"If weaker bats need those big bats in the lineup..."
FAIL!!
Sorry, but no. There is no evidence...read this very slowly and a second time for emphasis...*ZERO EVIDENCE*...that there's any such thing as "line-up protection other than for the absolute best of hitters (Edgar Martinez, Albert Pujols types...not Jason Bay types). And there's even LESS evidence that slap hitters are likely to ever...EVER benefit from hitting in front of a power hitter. You cannot argue that the Mariners all hit worse than normal because there was no big bopper to "protect the weaker bats" if the evidence suggests this effect is a myth.
I have therefore completely ignored the rest of your post as it all follows from a logically false supposition.
In your head translates to this:
"what evidence there is is very thin and sketchy and deeply outweighed by the evidence I've found to the contrary."
Fascinating. No wonder you think you're misunderstood.
~G
Read it again, G...I say there is zero evidence for one condition...adn then say there is LESS evidence for another condition...how can I possibly mean there is zero evidence (Literally) for the first condition when the second condition is even less evident. I admit my tone was harsh in that particular comment, but I stand by the basic statement...you acnnot make your argument that the 2010 Mariners all fell flat because there was no big bopper based on evidence that is shoddy at best and speak of it like it's true gospel when the best evidence that we have suggests it could very easily be a mythical affect entirely.
I dunno Matt, it sure looks like hyperbole to me. Especially since you told me to read it twice. Slooooooooooowly. So I was sure to comprehend. Now you've asked me to read it again, with more attention to detail and a finer parsing of the erudite words in between the bolding and extra exclamation points.
Maybe I'm just still too dumb to understand the big words coming out of your mouth. Thankfully you're here to educate me.
~G
Don't worry about a reply, Matt - I wouldn't want you to wear out your CAPS key or have to strain yourself to be polite.
That's my last post here for a while. Enjoy yourself. The floor's all yours.
~G
Ted,
You sound like one of my theology profs! Thanks for reintroducing "charity" back into our lexicon here. It's essential for productive discussions, and we all need to be reminded of it sometimes.
"Evidence" for P can refer to considerations known that are such as to provide epistemic support some hypothesis P. On this view, if some claim i true, but not yet known to be true, it is not yet evidence. Call this sense 1.
"evidence" for P can also refer to considerations that if known would provide epistemic support for some hypothesis. On this view, any claim that is true and would support some other claim is evidence for that other claim even if it is not know to be true. Call this sense 2.
At times Doc seems to be talking in a sense 2 way. This is, by my lights, not the normal way of talking about evidence.
I'll leave the "elitism" diatribe (mostly) to the side. Suffice it to say that I'm happy to highly privilege the opinions of specialists when it comes to issues in the field in which they specialize. I'm going to highly privilege the advice of my doctor over the advice of some non specialist. As for whether people "get" to talk, I don't know, I don't think anyone is actively attempting to stop them. I do wish that there was a lot less talking on the internet by people who don't really know what they are talking about. I didn't like the "everyone's opinions have equal merit" crap when it was being spouted by relativist leftist english professors in the 90s and I don't like it any more now that it's being spouted by the anti-elitist right.
many, many marriages fail is because neither party can just simply put their own egos aside and apologize. Doesn't matter who is right or wrong about the details when we have hurt some one else's feelings or sensibilities.
Who cares who is technically right or wrong when you have alienated a friend and looked like an ass in front of many others?
How hard would it have been for you to simply type: "G, I am sorry I was as harsh as I was." And left the debate for another day? You already admitted to being harsh, why not just apologize and move on?
Matt, you seem like a generally likable fellow when being agreed with and you are obviously very very smart. However after observing my small children (4 and 7) I think that there is substantial evidence that shows they have more social skills and etiquette than you do. If you can honestly read your back and forth with G and not see how you were just plain rude, then I am dumbfounded.
Misses the point here.
This really isn't about evidence. Or about Us vs. Them. Or about elitism. This is about being considerate.
Something that as a father I spend a good deal of my time teaching my children is about what is socially acceptable, about what etiquette is and how it should be followed, and the different situations it applies in or how it changes due to varied situations.
However an even BIGGER portion of my time is spent trying to teach my kids what to do when they have BROKEN one of those socially accepted rules, and to accept and recognize when the have broken decorum.
Regardless of evidence or a particular statistical comment or how equivocal something is. We should all strive first of all to be polite, kind, and considerate. And when we fail (which we ALL are wont to do), we need to recognize this and apologize, or make up for our failings.
By making this a discussion about evidence, we miss the target by 15 degrees, and do a disservice in the process. This isn't about statistical correctness this is about being rude.
I think it's important to remember baseball forums intended as roundtable discussions, not philosophical or scientific conquests. It almost seems that some bloggers and posters prefer to see other people not voice their points of view, and instead defer to their own viewpoint. That defeats the entire purpose. How silly would it be if only one person were allowed to express their views without fear of having their opinions belittled?
Would you talk this way a person in real life? Why be disrespectful at all?
Is it THAT important to be 100% right? Every time I feel like I know it all the universe has a way smacking back into my place with a quickness.
There is no upside to being rude to other people. It is a destructive and insecure behavior that gets stronger each time it is exercise. It is fine, even good, to disagree. Why does ONE person get to be right and ONE person get to be wrong? And furthermore, assuming that that person is 100% right (unlikely), why does that give them the right to belittle the other person's perspective?
I liked the way CA put it one time: No doubt Doc has very strong opinions; also no doubt that opposing opinions are welcome at SSI.
My shtick can sound overbearing, I'm sure. :- ) As to whether I respect dissenting opinion, every poster here gets to vote with his feet. The general consensus will be reflected in traffic flow.
:daps:
1. Sure
2. Sure
3. When you say "in fact X is not sufficient" are you conceding that Truth exists? ;- )
4. If so, do you, I, or Sully arbitrate?
My conviction about having 200 of 1,000 light bulbs on is sincere, I assure you. When I vigorously maintain that the M's need a 100-RBI bat, I'm well aware that I could have a blind spot there.
I don't always get that impresson at Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus. Sometimes the guys there seem to genuinely think that they routinely possess Truth.
Jazayerli's reply to James on PAP, for example, was simply nauseating.
And SSI is the blog that *does* routinely defer to specialists -- G aon the minors, HQ on out-of-town projections, CA on tools scouting, Taro on NPB projections, and so on.
Have G-Moneyball or Taro or CA pop over to USSM and see what deference they get for the fact that they knows more about the minors / NPB / tools scouting than the blog does.
We all defer to specialists; Elitists anoint themselves the group that is in-the-know.
I'm talking about the way a person views himself, and others.
When a guy (present company excepted) genuinely sees himself as the smartest guy in the room, and views others' perspectives as valueless, that self-image comes across.
He can try to paper his contempt over, with politeness, but that won't create an idea exchange.
Would much rather you continued to provide the other 1,999 readers here with your wit and wisdom ---- > and simply skip past the comments of anyone who is annoying you.
It's not like the audience is buying in to the criticism of you. You can afford to ignore.
Why not just address your attention to those whose feedback interests you :- ) and Matt can do the same.
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I guess, at a certain point, we could create a feedback poll (or thread) as to how much collateral is really being suffered here.
If lots of people are remaining silent, for fear of being treated rudely, we'd have to take action. But I don't know if that's the case.
I would hate to see SSI falter...this is by far the best Mariner blog on the web, IMHO. And I never accused you of not welcoming dissenting opinions...if you didn't, I wouldn't be here. I just think that, on occasion, it might calm me down a tad if I was more cheritable in my assumptions about your thoughts and you were more cheritable in your assumptions about mine. Yes...I am a flawed person and I sometimes get too emotional in support of my own position...but when that happens, and the next response is "wow, you're a dick!" and you then tell me to knock it off without saying another word to the other guy involved...that's not going to back me away from being defensive. if I overstep and get too emotional...tell me so without calling me all kinds of unfair names and getting overly sarcastic...99 times out of 100, the emotion will stop there.