Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Teaching McCarthy science
Brandon McCarthy is asking for it. Unfortunately, I'm not in the position of doing this study.? But I can tell you how to do this study, and hopefully a Straight Arrow reader does this study, and tweets it to McCarthy.
The issue is that Miguel Cabrera hit 3 HR, and so, "hey, he's locked in!". The idea here is that since he IS locked in, he will CONTINUE to be locked in. Keith Law is simply saying that he WAS locked in, and that tells us NOTHING about the future. The truth is surely somewhere in-between, but if I were to bet, I'd side that it's about 90% toward Keith's side, maybe 95%.
Anyway, the simple way to do this study, so that we can all understand it.
1. Find all hitters who had at least 3 extra base hits in his first three plate appearances. So, 3 HR, 1 double and 2 HR, 2 doubles and a triples. Whatever, so that we're looking for someone who presumably hit the ball rather hard. McCarthy would likely argue that such a hitter is locked in. Maybe not ALL of such hitters are locked in, but at least a disproportionate number would be.
2. Tell us what happened in their fourth time at bat . Present their PA, H, 2B, 3B, HR, BB, IB, HB, K.
3. Compare that to their seasonal line that year.
4. How much of a difference do we see?
(If you can control for pitcher handedness, do so. But, that's a future step.)
If you have your Retrosheet database going back far enough, redo the study, but make sure the batter has at least two HR among his three extra base hits. So, if anything, this group is even more locked-in to the prior group.
Finally, redo the study, but make sure that his first three PA are all HR. I can't imagine we'll find enough hitters here, but, to be fair to McCarthy, this is really the group that he was specifically talking about.
Anyone willing to do this? There's no fame or fortune awaiting you, but you will get barbs from McCarthy on Twitter, and if the evidence goes against McCarthy's prior beliefs(*), hopefully an acknowledgement from McCarthy that he has to change his opinion in light of new facts. (And, there's a tiny chance that it's Keith that's going to have to change his opinion, which might make McCarthy happy, so, again, more Tweets from McCarthy to you.)
(*) The difference between science and politics: with science, new data requires that you revisit your prior opinion, and possibly change it in the face of new facts; with politics, new data requires that you diminish or ignore that data, or find your own data to (on the surface) refute the new data, so that you can maintain your prior beliefs at all costs. The world has too many politicians.
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