Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Compromise v A$$hole approach
Linear Logic, or what I like to call Asshole Logic, insists that one’s initial assumptions are absolutely true and should be followed through with complete fidelity. It’s a black and white world; the pitcher is either responsible for the run, or he is not responsible for the run. He can’t be sort of responsible for the run, which we represent mathematically as half responsible; either he is, or he ain’t. Since in the real world one’s initial assumptions are almost never entirely true, the history of sabermetrics—and the history of every other field of knowledge—is replete with examples of people tripping and falling into a ditch based on Linear Logic. Regarding Game Scores, the question that people used to hammer me with was the "illogic" of treating a strikeout differently from another out. "If a pitcher gets an out," stat lawyers would demand to know, "what difference does it make whether it’s a strikeout or a ground ball? Why should a strikeout pitcher be favored over any other type of pitcher?"
Eventually, because of Voros McCracken, people came to understand that, of course, a strikeout is NOT the same as any other out, that whereas a strikeout is an absolute out, a ball in play becoming an out is largely a matter of luck. Of course, after Voros people began to insist that balls in play becoming outs was ENTIRELY luck, and based on that one can derive a pitcher’s "true" effectiveness based on the "three true outcomes", which isn’t true, either; it is merely Asshole logic beginning with a different assumption. Believing that all balls in play are the same except for luck is not an absolutely true assumption; it is merely a better starting point than the "old" assumption.
This partial v binary approach certainly scares people. The best example is the WAR implementations at Fangraphs (fWAR) and Baseball Reference (rWAR).
At its core, fWAR is FIP, which is based solely on the "three true outcomes", which therefore ignores all batted balls, baserunning plays, and sequencing of all events.
And at its core, rWAR is RA9 (runs allowed per 9IP), which presumes that the pitcher has complete responsibility on the batters that manage to get on base, and the runners that manage to score, and the sequence of all that.
The true answer is somewhere in-between. But, try selling to someone the idea to weight things differently. And at its core, that's what Game Score is. It weights runs allowed with hits allowed, even if a hit doesn't lead to a run. Game Score gives partial credits and debits for each event.
Anyway, that's why I happily accept what rWAR and fWAR are doing, and I simply take a position half-way between the two. I don't know what the true answer is (one-third one way and two-thirds the other? three-fourths the other and one-foruth the first?), but taking a 50/50 spot puts me in a comfortable position, enough that I don't have to take a political position of going all-in on one or the other. ?
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