THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I knew I was old when I was shopping for printers last night and argued against getting one because it looked too complicated.

Running a country?  I’d be happy if I can run my household.

I think the country is certainly lacking in effective leadership and has been for some time, but looking for the solution among the basement dwellers seems pretty drastic to me.  I think we would be better off taking away the vote from men and excluding them from elective or appointed office for the next 145 years or so. 

We made a mess of things during our period of exclusive control, let the women have their chance.  The rights of men would gradually be phased back in.  Black men would get the vote first after 56 years.  Then after another 50 years men could be allowed to be appointed to office.  This would be limited at first to fulfilling their wives term in office, but gradually would be extended to a few token men appointed on their merits.

And then after the full 145 years men could seek a constitutional amendment to get the vote back.  Might be tough going at first, having to buck the old girls network, but eventually it would happen.  Or maybe not.  Maybe the world would have become a lot better place, and no one, not even the men, would want to risk returning to the way that it is now.

I doubt that the people in sabermetrics would do well running the country. The reason is simple, politics. The problem isn’t that there are a lack of good ideas on how to run the USA, or any other country for that matter. The difficulty is that there are centers of power who apply political and economic pressure to get their way, even at the expense of the overall public good. For example, let’s consider this as a hypothetical. (I don’t want to argue about this specific policy issue, which is why I’m using it merely as a hypothetical.) If it could be demonstrated that a single-payer, government-run health care system is the most effective way to deliver health care to the public, it still would never pass in the USA. The insurance companies, etc., are just too powerful. It’s that way with any number of policies. That’s the fly in the ointment, and a big fly it is.

This has already been tried.  The Simpsons had an episode of it.  It doesn’t work.  Unfortunately, the best system is one that allows someone like George Bush to be president.

It would be like the Soviet Union of the 1930s.

Just read this (particularly the first sentence of paragraph 4), and you’ll know why the regulars on the Book Blog are not the folks you want to elect come November…

http://www.personalitypage.com/INTP.html

Fantastic Greg.

I think the article is brilliant.  Yes, Bill James is smart enough to run the country well.  But, there is an attribution problem.  The country could be run perfectly and we would still complain about our terrible leaders.

"The country could be run perfectly and we would still complain about our terrible leaders.”

That is very much true.  It is similar to the syndrome of “everything was better (and different) in the old days.”

You guys are missing the point.  When I say that we are running the country or at least advising the leaders, that assumes that we don’t have to be elected or reelected.  That being the case, why would I care about what the people think of me and why would I care about the lobbyists and the “power” of the corporation?  Other than them killing me (which would probably happen actually), they would have no influence whatsoever on me.  That is the whole point of my hypothetical!  I don’t care about money or power and I don’t need popularity or support from rich people or corporations to get or stay elected.  That is my hypothetical!

Now, that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t listen to “lobbyists.” The reason for lobbyists in a perfect world is to get the perspective of the people closest to the mill.  IOW, if I am crafting health reform which is clearly going to hurt the insurance industry or I am crafting banking or lending reform that is going to hurt the big banks, I WANT to hear from them and know why they think that what I am doing is bad for the country.  You actually always WANT biased opinion in ADDITION to unbiased opinion.  The way to get at the truth in any debate or discussion is to hear from both sides even if they are biased and have an agenda, AND you want to hear from the unbiased folks as well.

And of course if I (and Bill James, Tango, et. al.) are running the country, we are not supplying the expertise in the multitude of areas that need decision-making.  We are hiring dozens of advisers and experts in their respective fields as well as listening to the lobbyists, as I said.  We are acting as moderators, arbiters, and the ultimate decision-makers.

I doubt that any of us (Tango, myself, James, etc.) would be even close to experts on anything that the government typically has to deal with, unless they took over baseball or something like that.  That, BTW, is one of the problems with politicians.  They like to think that they are actually experts themselves at the things on which they make decisions, such as health care, taxes, the economy, medicine, the environment, etc.  Unfortunately, they don’t know squat about these things and are unable or unwilling to listen to the experts and lobbyists and make responsible, informed decisions that are not influenced by their egos, the wallets, or their desire to be re-elected or gain more power in government.

You actually always WANT biased opinion in ADDITION to unbiased opinion.

Besides the oxymoron of “unbiased opinion”, it is interesting that you should suggest desiring multiple conflicting viewpoints.  I don’t think that many people realize that for the first 75 years or so in this country the newspapers made no pretense of being objective in reporting the news.  There were Federalist newspapers and Whig newspapers and they selected events and reported on them through the filter of these biases.  If you weren’t sure where you stood on an issue you read multiple papers to get different viewpoints. 

It is completely unrealistic and unhuman to expect reporters and their editors and publishers to be unbiased.  Much better to be up front about what those biases are as they were in the early 19th century.

Peter, I don’t know anything about the media in the old days (when you were a kid and I was not born yet ), but there is a difference between trying to report the news yet doing so through the lenses of your own values and viewpoints (which every journalist and newspaper does), and editorializing the news.

There is also a difference between editorializing and spinning and lying.  I don’t care if a journalist editorializes. I do very much care when they lie about and distort the facts and mislead their readers.

Joe Poz quotes Bill from The Gold Mine:

“If you add a low-average power hitter to a bad team, the low average power hitter will lead the team in RBI — and the team will score fewer runs, not more”

He (Joe) just naturally assumes it is true. I don’t.  Is it? Again it depends on several things:  One, what makes the team “bad” and how bad are they?  How much power and how low an average does the player have.  And of course, what are his overall numbers (lwts, wOBA, etc.)?  And what do you mean by “add?” Who is he replacing? 

Overall, a very incomplete and meaningless statement, I think, but because it comes from BJ, Poz treats it as if it is the gospel?

MGL/13,

I bought the first gold mine in 2008, but haven’t since. I wasn’t impressed by it. Should I reconsider for 2011?

"When I say that we are running the country or at least advising the leaders, that assumes that we don’t have to be elected or reelected.  That being the case, why would I care about what the people think of me and why would I care about the lobbyists and the “power” of the corporation?”

In theory the idea of a benevolent enlightened dictator would be best for society.  In practice, no man or woman should ever be trusted with that kind of power.

Say the low average power hitter is a 240/310/500 hitter.  Not unlike some of Joe Carter’s seasons.  If he’s replacing a crappy hitter who hits 240/310/370, you are going to score more runs.  If he’s replacing a guy who hits 270/360/440, then you’ll score fewer runs. 

That doesn’t have anything to do with the first guy being an RBI man.  It’s an organization that doesn’t know how to evaluate talent, sees 31 HR, 110 RBI for the first guy, 17 HR, 65 RBI for the second guy, and thinks Joe Carter is going to help them score 45 more runs.

"In theory the idea of a benevolent enlightened dictator would be best for society.  In practice, no man or woman should ever be trusted with that kind of power.”

Right, I agree.  One of those, “It’s OK if it is truly a benevolent, really smart guy, but how can we be assured that it is, and even if it is, maybe it’s still not a good idea.”

As to your second point, yes of course, if the guy is an RBI guy, but ain’t any good, then of course his team will scorer fewer runs.  But if the guy he replaces is even worse, then they will score more runs.  So what is his point exactly?

We know that the value of a power guy is enhanced by on base guys and vice versa, but that certainly doesn’t mean that a power guy will decrease a team’s run scoring if that team is deficient in on base guys.  Plus, he didn’t say that this “bad” team was necessarily deficient in OBA - just that it was “bad,” so we have to assume that it is deficient in everything.

So, again, is what he said true?  And if it is true if only the RBI guy is not good overall, then wouldn’t that also be true for a player who is an on base guy but isn’t good overall?

If you speak in generalities, when someone questions the veracity of your words, you can always defend yourself by saying, “Well, if THIS was the case (and I never mentioned whether it was or wasn’t), then what I said is true ...”

Heaven and Hell are both dictatorships, the results depend on the dictator.

Since power corrupts, the way to reduce corruption is to reduce the power of government. What we have now is equivalent to a manager that not only bets on the game, but one that bets on every at bat.