sophie
Break My Heart
Right. I have no idea where Mike Miller came from.
Damn your misconceptions!
- Thread starter hobbsyoyo
- Start date
Right. I have no idea where Mike Miller came from.
rugbyLEAGUEfan
Deity
No one seriously believes the five second rule, it's just intended as a humorous justification for eating something you've dropped.
The "clutch" thing is where I part ways with the statheads in sports. There is something to be said for players who can react well under pressure and those who cannot. It might be hard to statistically pinpoint and it might be foolish to base personnel decisions on it or use it as a metric, but that does not mean it does not exist. This seems to be one of those last bastions of "unscientific" sports phenomenons that some statisticians really really want to get rid of for some reason.
Granted for many players it might not matter, but I think there are certainly people who, when the pressure is on, have the tendency to perform better or worse. When I played sports in HS and college I noticed this in others and I also noted it in myself: in key pressure situations I became tense, was more prone to lose my focus, my heart rate went up, etc. etc. Just because it is not subject to clean statistical analysis does not mean it does not exist. It also might not be a useful way to ever evaluate a player in a personnel management position but that does not mean it doesn't happen and is not noticeable.
Granted for many players it might not matter, but I think there are certainly people who, when the pressure is on, have the tendency to perform better or worse. When I played sports in HS and college I noticed this in others and I also noted it in myself: in key pressure situations I became tense, was more prone to lose my focus, my heart rate went up, etc. etc. Just because it is not subject to clean statistical analysis does not mean it does not exist. It also might not be a useful way to ever evaluate a player in a personnel management position but that does not mean it doesn't happen and is not noticeable.
AlpsStranger
Jump jump on the tiger!
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- 5,820
I find that exactly as awesome and exhilarating as I do creepy. Ah, the near future of technology
I don't know about baseball, but in basketball, clutch FG% and clutch FT% are legit Things with actual predictive value.
Jonestown had nothing to do with Kool-Aide. They drank Flavor-Aid.
NetGear
King
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- Dec 11, 2002
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- 729
when a broadcaster is saying that its usually when someone is already in scoring position (2nd Base or more). probably with amount of point being scored being irrelevant, close to being you either stop the point and win or pretty much lose. in that scenario it might be just better to fill the base to allow more play options. As for hating on batters for walking idk. you cant expect them to swing at everything so i cant see where thats coming from. unless youre vladmir gurerro or something.
Besides barry bonds isnt the only one that gets the IBB treatment. Theres tons more reason for walking. L/Rhanded batter v L/R handed pitcher, opposing pitcher up for bat in NL etc etc.
I find that exactly as awesome and exhilarating as I do creepy. Ah, the near future of technology
It will also give us some idea of how easily players are distracted by scantily-clad cheerleaders. Very important info for assembling your Most Important Fantasy Sport Team.
SouthernKing
crickety cricket
That "nucular" is a word. I know this doesn't really count but it's one of my biggest pet peeves. Seriously, I want to go back in time and kill whoever coined that word.
That what happens in the LHC at CERN or at any particle accelerator anywhere will somehow cause the apocalypse.
That all Indians are ethnically/linguistically the same. Replace "Indians" with anything that isn't "European/white" and it works as a misconception as well.
That what happens in the LHC at CERN or at any particle accelerator anywhere will somehow cause the apocalypse.
That all Indians are ethnically/linguistically the same. Replace "Indians" with anything that isn't "European/white" and it works as a misconception as well.
sophie
Break My Heart
Yes, the point is none of this makes actual statistical sense, because walking a batter always increases run expectancy. There is literally no statistical reason to ever walk a player intentionally unless the player is so disproportionately better than everybody else on his team that the following player's batting average is like, 60-80 points lower than the guy you just walked.
Mise
isle of lucy
This American ball game discussion reminded me of this article I read in Wired: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/luck-and-skill-untangled-qa-with-michael-mauboussin/
Very interesting article on luck vs skill in sports, which touches tangentially on a number of things that Owen's been saying. For example, one of the key insights is that games that require a very high degree of skill to play often have the least predictable results. That is, a game like Baseball, where a batter has to be incredibly skilled to hit the 90 mph ball over a fence 200m away or whatever, the observed outcome looks pretty bloody random, even though it's almost entirely a "skill game" (rather than a luck game like Snakes and Ladders). Even if you disagree with it, I recommend reading it.
P.S. I enjoyed your posts Owen, even though I know literally nothing about Baseball...
Very interesting article on luck vs skill in sports, which touches tangentially on a number of things that Owen's been saying. For example, one of the key insights is that games that require a very high degree of skill to play often have the least predictable results. That is, a game like Baseball, where a batter has to be incredibly skilled to hit the 90 mph ball over a fence 200m away or whatever, the observed outcome looks pretty bloody random, even though it's almost entirely a "skill game" (rather than a luck game like Snakes and Ladders). Even if you disagree with it, I recommend reading it.
P.S. I enjoyed your posts Owen, even though I know literally nothing about Baseball...
Mise
isle of lucy
Anyway, two things that are related to each other:
1) That water flows clockwise down the drain in the Northern and anti-clockwise in the Southern hemisphere (or similar myths) due to the [wiki]Coriolis effect[/wiki]. First of all, water doesn't drain in one direction or the other depending on which hemisphere you're in: it's just a trick they show gullible tourists. Secondly, the Coriolis effect is extraordinarily weak; it affects things like the trajectory of a ship as it crosses the Atlantic, i.e. a few miles over the course of a few hundred miles. If it affected water draining from a bathtub or sink so strongly then my god we'd all go dizzy and disorientated from walking around in circles all the time.
2) That the flight from London to New York is shorter than the flight from New York to London due to the Earth spinning anti-clockwise. First of all, it's not true: the flight from London to New York is longer than from New York to London, which is contra what would be expected if the Earth's spin sort of brought New York closer to London during the outbound flight. The real explanation is due to wind speed and direction: the Prevailing Wind is a westerly wind that slows the plane down as it travels from London to New York, and does the reverse as it does the return trip. Thus the trip from New York to London is shorter than the trip from London to New York.
The two are related because the direction of the prevailing wind is in part caused by the Coriolis effect.
1) That water flows clockwise down the drain in the Northern and anti-clockwise in the Southern hemisphere (or similar myths) due to the [wiki]Coriolis effect[/wiki]. First of all, water doesn't drain in one direction or the other depending on which hemisphere you're in: it's just a trick they show gullible tourists. Secondly, the Coriolis effect is extraordinarily weak; it affects things like the trajectory of a ship as it crosses the Atlantic, i.e. a few miles over the course of a few hundred miles. If it affected water draining from a bathtub or sink so strongly then my god we'd all go dizzy and disorientated from walking around in circles all the time.
2) That the flight from London to New York is shorter than the flight from New York to London due to the Earth spinning anti-clockwise. First of all, it's not true: the flight from London to New York is longer than from New York to London, which is contra what would be expected if the Earth's spin sort of brought New York closer to London during the outbound flight. The real explanation is due to wind speed and direction: the Prevailing Wind is a westerly wind that slows the plane down as it travels from London to New York, and does the reverse as it does the return trip. Thus the trip from New York to London is shorter than the trip from London to New York.
The two are related because the direction of the prevailing wind is in part caused by the Coriolis effect.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
I don't really know baseball, but.. Why couldn't you put this phenomenon into statistical numbers? I can think of a couple ways you could do such an analysis, but maybe I'm missing something.
Mise
isle of lucy
I think he just means that there isn't enough data to get a statistically significant result, i.e. you couldn't prove it but that doesn't mean the effect isn't there.
I think this is a fair enough statement. However, I also think the only logical conclusion is that you can't really say anything at all about a player's "clutch" (what a disgusting word...) with confidence. That is, the statement "Joe Bloggs has a lot of clutch" is no more likely to be true than the statement "Joe Bloggs has a lot of choke".
I hope I'm using those words right
I think this is a fair enough statement. However, I also think the only logical conclusion is that you can't really say anything at all about a player's "clutch" (what a disgusting word...) with confidence. That is, the statement "Joe Bloggs has a lot of clutch" is no more likely to be true than the statement "Joe Bloggs has a lot of choke".
I hope I'm using those words right
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Well, couldn't you just say something like: "Joe Bloggs performs well under these sorts of situations and this sort of pressure" ? I guess those aren't hard numbers, but it is analysis ..
Mise
isle of lucy
"Has performed better than average in the past", sure. But usually those statements are made as a predictor of future success, which, if I understand Owen's posts correctly, are not statements that can be supported by the data.
