No, it's not a description of the results. Randomness explains why things happen. I don't know about basketball, but I can give you example after example in baseball.Originally Posted by Bellhorn04
No, it's not a description of the results. Randomness explains why things happen. I don't know about basketball, but I can give you example after example in baseball.
They've ran the numbers for basketball in some of the same studies with the same results.
You see the same thing in Finance, there's always a few fund managers who outperform the market for several years. Sometimes you can find their book in Barnes and Noble but eventually unless you're Bill Miller you succumb to the law of averages.
They're not going to accept something is true just because people say it is or because it seems so right. Doing that would be nonsense. The best thing about the stat geeks is that they don't rest on their laurels. They will continue to test these things, and as new data and new technology become available, they will retest with improved methodology. They also double check and retest each other's work. They may even prove each other or themselves wrong, and that's okay with them.
As I said before, it's much better than to insist the world is flat, because that's what you've always known.
Those who think that what they don't understand or things for which they cannot discern a reason can only be explained by randomness are the flat-earthers.
Attributing everything that we don't understand to the great god of randomness is the opposite of enlightenment. Just because observers and coaches can't put their finger on something different doesn't mean that the player hasn't changed something. Players know what they are working on and tweaking at all times, and they are not going to share that, because it gives the opponent the opportunity to counter more quickly.
Last edited by a700hitter; 12-31-2016 at 06:39 PM.
The King of TalkSox has Spoken.
LOL!!! Were you a ball hog? I was always happy to mix it up in the blocks, but on the rare occasions when I was on, I enjoyed being Jerry West or Pistol Pete for the day.
It seems that your athletic life has been a series of random streaks and slumps. Could you hit the curveball or did the optical illusion of the curve fool you?
Last edited by a700hitter; 12-31-2016 at 06:54 PM.
The King of TalkSox has Spoken.
I remember during that championship game that I was "in a zone", I went up for an uncontested 10 foot jump shot, but I spotted a wide open teammate undeR THE RIM. I drilled a pass to him and he botched the gimmie. On the way back on D, he told me, "Take the shots you know you can make!"
I guess Pistol Pete would have.
I might have been a ball hog - I did like to control things a bit. Anyone who mixed it up inside would have been rewarded by this point guard though. If you got out and ran, all the better!
The curveball question is interesting. I learned to hit it over time but it did take time. My point I think is that my overall statistical accomplishments may have been a pretty good predictor of what you were going to see from me overall but certainly not on a day to day basis. My performance quite often depended as it does today on how I felt at the time. Was I rested? Did I have confidence in my abilities on a certain moment in time. What time of day was the game played. Studying the statistics have always been fun and informative for me, but the games still get played out on the field. As a coach, studying opponents, knowing their trends in certain situations actually was more important than knowing what their statistics indicated about them.
Just so you know, i think I could have waited a bit for you to get to that outside lane. Workers get rewarded!
At some you need to acknowledge you're trying to seperate a 20% chance of success from a 30% chance of success and acting like this isn't the most minute of ranges to judge a player on.
Let's talk about pitchers for a moment.
Was the difference in Josh Beckett's numbers in 2006 and 2007 randomness?
Clay Buchholz 2012 vs. 2013 - randomness?
Rick Porcello 2015 vs. 2016 - randomness?
The initial posit of "randomness" was that it could be used to explain streaks. You're moving the goal posts...
2 Catchers same age in Double AA at that time 22 years olds.
Catcher A caught 837 innings, 10 Errors, 23 Passed Balls, Caught Stealing 46%
Catcher B caught 844 innings, 8 Errors, 0 Passed Balls, Caught Stealing 47%
Which one has more potential would you think has more potential in the Majors as a good Defensive Catcher?
Neither of these Catchers caught a Knuckleball Pitcher those years in Double AA.
Me, I choose Catcher B. Blake Swihart
Catcher A Christian Vazquez
I'm not really meaning to move the goal posts. The discussion has been about what causes sharp variances in player performance. I think this question is pertinent to that topic.
Not all changes in performance are due to randomness, especially when you're talking about year to year performance. No one has suggested that. The smaller the sample size for the improvement or the slump, the larger the role that randomness likely plays.
I acknowledge that factors besides randomness could be the reason for a hot or cold streak, especially as those streaks become longer. However, I do believe that randomness plays a larger role in baseball than most people are willing to give it credit for.
I am also positive that while randomness was not the driving force in the difference between the numbers you listed above, it did play a part.
I see it as the reverse. Some of you are trying to assign an explanation to why everything happens, be it tangible (mechanical adjustment) or intangible (mental sharpness). More often than you think, there really is no explanation other than just pure luck.
I certainly agree that luck plays a big part in hitting. The game of baseball is designed to be quirky. Balls can be smoked 400 feet and caught. Balls can be nubbed and blooped for hits. The luck part is beyond question.
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