from Amazon
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Knowing enough about numbers to be dangerous
Ben takes a look at how Scott Boras is a baseball pitchman (no pun intended), framing things in ridiculous ways, to make a point that he hopes knowing spends more than 2 minutes trying to think through. Alot like a politician, actually.
There were 137 teams from 2001-2011 with a Boras-approved closer, so I played around with the statistical cutoffs for second basemen until I came up with a group of similar size. Over the same span, 128 teams had a second baseman with at least eight home runs, an OBP of at least .315, and at least 500 plate appearances. You know, the famous 8-.315-500 club. And guess what? Teams with a second baseman meeting that description went .522. All others went .483.