Add new comment

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.