Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Sniff test is usually a memory test
The test of a metric is always whether it's better than the alternative available.
Usually, the alternative is someone's preconceived notion of players they've never seen, or have seen play a handful of games thirty to fifty years ago. And those are the same people who forget to take out the garbage every Monday and Thursday.
Even today, there are some 180,000 plate appearances. How many of those can any one person see, without cherry picking them from highlights? If you watch 225-250 games, start to finish, you'll get 18,000 PA, or 10%. I presume that's going to be the limit. And of course, it won't be a random 10%, but rather you'd have some 80-100% of your favorite team (and their non-random opponents), then whatever other games you can somehow include in a 180-day season. Realistically, chop all that in 2, and still with a skew in teams that you follow.
Just the whole idea of the eye test and sniff test and memory test can't hold water. But when you have a preconceived notion, all those lampposts look more appealing to hold onto than to use them to illuminate.
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