THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Of course even looking at 2 years back, we STILL have a selective sample!  You could say that if I have a lucky season (the 112 wRC+) followed by an average season (96wRC+), I might get frustrated as well.

Might be a little bit of both, especially if the league average wRC+ is 100 (is it?).  Is there any reason for a player who gets Lasik to be a well-above average player in true talent (112 wRC+)?

Plus the author makes a statistical error:

Average, years before LASIK: 104 wRC+
Year after LASIK: 109 wRC+

Hooray! Mildly interesting. Based on our very limited sample, it seems that LASIK eye surgery can indeed help hitters perform at a higher level. Which we’d expect, given that a good hitter has to be able to, you know, see.

If the year before Lasik is biased (a “down” year - the impetus for getting Lasik), then all the years combined before Lasik will be biased as well, hence the 104 wRC+.

Probably the only way to analyze this is comparing a projection to actual.

In any case, as at least one person pointed out in the comments section, people generally see BETTER with glasses or contacts than after Lasik.  Lasik is more of a cosmetic (and convenience) procedure than anything else.  So I am not sure why we would expect to see Lasik patients hit better unless as a group they were either having problems with contacts or were not using any correction at all.

The author also thinks that LASIK is the same as taking HGH and Anabolic Steroids (PEDs).  One builds huge muscle mass and allows you to hit the ball further, while the other just helps you see.  Yes, LASIK, contacts, eye glasses, arm surgery, eating right, excercising, getting enough sleep, sunglasses, cleets etc..., are all performance enhancers but to lay them nakedly in the same bed as HGH and ABS is misguided and dull-witted.
vr, Xei

Xeifrank, can you point to anywhere where the author expands on his views about LASIK and PEDs?  Based on that article, there’s very little to go buy and “dull-witted” seems pretty harsh.

Sky right here.  The part where he says “it is”.
Thoughts?
vr, Xei

>> Now, I’m not going to use this as an opportunity to post another thread about whether or not vision enhancement is the same as taking PEDs. (It is.)

MGL - absolutely, the best way to do this is to compare projection vs. actual. I just didn’t have that data at the ready, so I had to make do. I acknowledge that this is just a little cocktail napkin study, and that we can’t really do much with the limited sample pool anyway.

As for your other point, I would guess that we are more likely to hear reports of good players getting LASIK than bad players, skewing the sample.

Xei - let’s take Mark McGwire. Mark McGwire’s natural vision is 20/500. With his custom-designed contact lenses, he could see 20/10. I have not yet heard a single convincing argument for why this isn’t “cheating” as much as taking steroids or HGH is “cheating”.

Jeff,

I have no interest in arguing about steroids, but I will say that there is certainly a difference between wearing contact lenses and using steroids—only the latter is actually harmful. Everyone could wear contact lenses and no one would be hurt by it. Steroids, on the other hand, cause all sorts of health problems, and we probably don’t want to encourage players to endanger their health just to be able to compete. (And yes, I know the counterargument is that players are encouraged to do all sorts of unhealthy things, i.e. play through injuries, and we see nothing wrong with that. This brings up difficult moral questions that, like I said, I personally have no interest in discussing.  But the point is that contacts are not bad for you, and so they are very different from steroids.)

"I have not yet heard a single convincing argument for why this isn’t “cheating” as much as taking steroids or HGH is “cheating”.”

Are you serious?  Because one is against the rules AND is illegal and the other one is not.  The defeinition of “cheating” the last time I checked, was “doing something against the rules.” And, because everyone can get Lasik surgery if they want and be out in the open about it, and only those who choose to cheat can use steroids, which puts honest people at a disadvantage.

If using steroids is not against the rules (i.e. not cheating), then there is not a whole lot of difference although you can argue about which one is more dangerous (clearly steroids are), etc.

I realize that certain substances were not always banned, and if they weren’t AND if there were not a prohibition against taking ANY illegal substances, then technically, using steroids was not cheating. Doesn’t make it right and doesn’t make it the same thing as something like Lasik, but technically it is not cheating, as the definition of cheating is pretty clear cut (anything against the rules).

Did you really ask how something that is against the rules can be “cheating” and something not against the rules is also not cheating?  That makes my head spin…

David - I acknowledge the difference in health effects, but vision enhancement (LASIK) is not without its risks, and the risk assumed by high-level athletes taking PEDs is likely overstated. Contacts, of course, have zero negative health effects, but the natural follow-up is, would you be okay with a hypothetical perfect steroid? Many would not.

MGL - That was a stupid way for me to put it. Clearly using PEDs is cheating. What I have trouble wrapping my head around is the ‘why’, much like alcohol vs. marijuana. One unnatural enhancement is against the rules, while another one is not.

However this is a tired old debate and I suppose it needn’t be trotted out again.

Jeff,

I agree this is a tired debate, so let’s not drag it out for too long. Would your hypothetical perfect steroid come without health consequences? If so, I can’t imagine that anyone would be against it—it would just be like any other supplement. Of course, I don’t believe such a steroid is possible, so it’s pretty much a moot point.

As for LASIK, I agree that it is a surgery not with its risks, but since its effects can easily be matched by wearing contacts, and since I haven’t heard of players with perfect vision getting LASIK to get even better vision (and I’m not sure there’s a doctor who would perform such a surgery anyway), I don’t really think this is a big deal. Obviously, if LASIK were the only way to improve your eyesight and if players were getting LASIK to go from perfect eyesight to something even better, that would be a trickier issue. But again, that’s just not the case.

The hypothetical perfect steroid would come without health consequences, and while that may not be possible, I think we are approaching the point at which a player’s use can be monitored and rendered nearly harmless. The public seems to have a very different opinion of muscle development than it does of vision enhancement.

I remember reading an article saying Jeff Cirillo used LASIK to go from 20/30 and 20/35 to 20/20 and 20/12. Obviously this doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens.

Is safety the line? Is it all about player health? That would make some sense.

Yes, I believe it is purely a safety issue.  As long as your choice has no impact on your health, then all’s fair in love and war. Of course, things like meat is not necessarily “safe” either.

In any case, it’s a workplace safety issue, not a viewer-perceives-safety issue.

I think I (and all of Canada) was appalled by Ben Johnson not because he took steroids, but because the athletes AGREED to NOT take steroids, and they’d be subject to testing and they’d have to accept the results of the testing.

This was not the case in MLB for the longest while. 

So, it’s cheating, because the other athletes explicitly said it was cheating.

Corking bats, spitballs, emery boards, etc… all those are fine, or not fine.  It doesn’t really matter.  Unless the players agree to codify the rules and penalties for them, and we, as viewers react to the level of the rules and penalties.

Fighting in Olympics?  Horrible.  NYR v NJD?  Can be cool.

The most important point is that the participants decide on the rules and penalties.  We, as viewers, are only allowed to watch… or not watch.

The public seems to have a very different opinion of muscle development than it does of vision enhancement.

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I don’t think that’s right. You don’t see anyone complaining about players taking whey protein or any of the other hundreds of safe, legal supplements that athletes use.