THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

JC doubles (triples?) down on replacement level:
http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomics/index.php/2010/12/whats-wrong-with-replacement-level-valuing-of-players/.

Matt: Could you elaborate on this thought (below)?  What would you say are JC’s main contributions to sabermetric knowledge?  When have his critics been unfair?

MATT: “JC is right a lot, and lot of his critics don’t really have the information to pick a side but gang up anyway. That’s not to say I always agree.... but I like his approach and his thoughts on issues.”

Guy, you probably missed a recent thread:

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/lemonade/

Guy/3:

I guess the ones that I remember best are on protection, DH/HBP stuff, Leo Mazzone, approximating marginal revenue (though I tend to approach player valuation from a marginal cost perspective), publicly financed stadiums.  I like his blog a lot in general, just for econ approach’s to whatever the day-to-day baseball stuff is.  I disagree with both him and Tango plenty.  I try to demonize neither.

In the freak post, I mentioned that I enjoyed all of JC’s first book except the parts about player evaluation.  I also mentioned that when I reviewed his book in this blog a few years ago.  I think any fair review of the entirety of JC’s body of work would come to some similar conclusion.  And I’m speaking as someone that JC has publicly scorned.

When it comes to player evaluation (replacement level, aging), JC is simply dead wrong.  This is not a question of disagreeing with his opinion, but JC simply being wrong.

Matt can disagree with me on issues but even on those issues, we don’t have a profound disagreement.  There’s disagreements basically on the periphery.  And they are disagreements where we can find enough places where we do agree that should we have a need to form some sort of compromise or rapprochement, we’d be able to do so.

With JC, on player valuation, it is impossible to do that.  JC is so terribly frightfully wrong on this matter.  Not only is he wrong, but he continues to tell us that we are wrong.  All of us.  It’s JC that simply is digging his own hole.

We should be honest here.  Brutally honest.  On issues where you can give someone the benefit of the doubt, you do so.  On this particular issue, the issue of player valuation, every saberist should be honest here and speak out in clear and uncertain terms and tell JC, privately or publicly, that he’s wrong.

Bill James was similarly wrong about his misgivings of linear weights.  I took no prisoners there.  And I correspond with Bill regularly.

Set aside the niceties, and set aside the personalities.  Focus on the truth, and focus on getting the message out.  That means being brutally honest when you have to be.  JC is wrong, JC continues to fight that he is right, and we should do everything we can to beat down his pollution on the matter. 

I think Linear Weights finally resurfaced to its prominent place because of people like me and MGL that carried the linear weights banner for so long.  Pick a side, and fight the fight.

Matt:  I agree the protection study was interesting.  I’m not sure if the conclusion would hold up if you narrowed the study to relevant hitters (say, 2nd thru 5th lineup slots) and relevant situations (RISP), but it’s a solid research effort.  But otherwise, I don’t see what you see.  The first HBP “moral hazard” study was wrong, and the second compounded the error by coming up with an implausible theory about why the AL no longer had a higher HBP rate.  His Mazzone story was and is wildly implausible, and of course the “Mazzone effect” vanished in Baltimore and Leo was soon out of baseball entirely, even though JC’s analysis suggested he was worth at least $25 million a year (twice as valuable as Jeff Francouer!).  I think Phil B. has shown his MR analysis is badly flawed, as are his player valuations.  At least on baseball issues (as opposed to stadium financing or other pure business issues), I think you have to say that the overall performance is below that of a replacement economist. 

But even all that would be fine, if he were willing to acknowledge mistakes when he made them and learn from others.  However, I don’t see much evidence of either process at work.  Even on issues as obvious as this talent distribution issue, he digs in his heels.  So at this point I have a hard time discerning the potential for learning in either direction.

But even all that would be fine, if he were willing to acknowledge mistakes when he made them and learn from others.

That’s his biggest failing.  Lord knows I’ve made my sure of mistakes when I was a younger saberist.  And even now I make a few.  But then I learn, I try to correct then, because I’m principally a student.  I would much prefer being a student than a professor, even if I might make a better professor.

I don’t think it helps that Matt characterizes that he disagrees plenty with me and JC.  You can’t even talk to JC about the stuff he’s wrong, so entrenched is he in his belief that is right.

If Matt disagrees with me on issues, I can guarantee you that after talking with me, he’ll understand exactly why I believe what I believe, and how I am possibly justified to hold that view.  I’m being reasonable.  JC, on the issue of player valuation (and that’s the only thing I’m talking about) is 100% unreasonable.  There’s no comparison you can make to me on that end.

I really get very bored with the politics of sabermetrics.  Did anybody else think any of the other responses were interesting or needed to be explained more clearly?

What politics?!

It’s our duty to review sabermetric articles and offer constructive criticism.  There is nothing nothing nothing political about this.

For it to be political, you’d have to support something blindly, like saying you agree with LEV over LI because you work at BPro or something.  That’s politicizing.

Telling JC that his study is garbage has nothing at all to do with politics and everything to do with honesty.

From what I’ve been told and read, people appreciate that I am tough, but fair.  And they know that if MGL says garbage, I’ll call him out on it.  And MGL does the same against me. 

It’s ok to not want to be part of this particular process, but please, don’t call what we are doing politics.  That’s an unfair characterization.

I was going to write something like Tango/8, but Tango did it better.

When the thread is about replacement level and why you disagree with JC, then it’s about sabermetrics.  When there are about comments about his method of arguing or his expertise, it’s politics.  So far, this is what I see in this thread.  I’ll snip a few quotes:

“It is so fitting to me that Freakonomics picked JC to talk about this stuff.”

“The transition away from Steve Levitt material into other domains and other people really weakened the Freakonomics blog”

“And I’m speaking as someone that JC has publicly scorned.”

“Not only is he wrong, but he continues to tell us that we are wrong.  All of us.  It’s JC that simply is digging his own hole.”

“And I correspond with Bill regularly”

“That’s his biggest failing.”

“You can’t even talk to JC about the stuff he’s wrong, so entrenched is he in his belief that is right.”

“I think you have to say that the overall performance is below that of a replacement economist.  But even all that would be fine, if he were willing to acknowledge mistakes when he made them and learn from others.”

Tell me how any of the above comments taught me more about baseball than of people’s opinions of each other.  Tell me how they relate to the questions posed on the freakonomics blog.

Let’s remember how this exchange began.  It was with Matt offering this judgment:  “JC is right a lot, and lot of his critics don’t really have the information to pick a side but gang up anyway,” and “I like his approach and his thoughts on issues.” So Matt’s position appears to be that offering a positive assessment of the quality of JC’s body of work is appropriate and relevant, while doing the reverse is “boring” and “political.”

Let’s be honest: as an economist, there is zero professional upside for Matt in being very critical of JCB, and possibly some small upside in offering the praise he did.  How much that motivated Matt’s initial comment I can’t possibly know, and he may not even know himself.  If Matt wants to recuse himself from any discussion of the way JC responds to criticism of his work, I have no problem with that.  I just hope he will then also refrain from passing judgment on JC’s critics, rather than taking sides and then—when challenged—claiming to be above such “political” discussions.

Matt, all those points are fine for you to bring up as having nothing to do with baseball.  And you are right if that’s your point.  That me (or others) talking like that is boring, tired, or otherwise a waste of one’s time.  I am totally with you if you want to say that my contributions in this manner leads to all that, that it’s all so inefficient.  That having an opinion on how JC comports himself has no value.  That should be your argument and I have no defense to that.

The opinions I express are legitimate on their own.  They are reasonable and supportable.  But yes, they are tiring, so very tiring, and not much fun to either write or for someone else to read.

That’s how you, or someone, should slam me.

But that absence of baseball doesn’t make it political.  For it to be political, I’d have to have a certain sense of untruth in what I said, that my beliefs overrides the truth or a more reasonable point of view.

Guy/22:

Now THAT is political. I was being consistent-- saying that I agree only sometimes, and I don’t like the personal nature of this. I don’t see how this impacts my career. But if you actually thought it did, shame on you for trying to use my career against me for a stupid internet argument. Do you think this is proving the point that you’re not just getting unnecessarily personal? If not, how about you send me your real name and real job and we have a fair fight?

Matt, I don’t see how Guy knows anything about his second paragaph and thus don’t see why he introduced it into the discussion.  It makes about as much sense to me as MGL talking about how the authors of a particular pa[er might have committed academic fraud.  While it’s true that’s always a possibility, it does no good at all to introduce things like that because they come across as very personal and pointed accusations of below-board behavior, however they were meant.

But I believe Guy’s first paragraph is completely on point.  I don’t see how you can complain that other people are characterizing JC’s behavior and the general nature and value of his contributions and say that is pointless and political when you did the very same.

I think with the last few posts, we may be talking past each other a bit.  Let me offer my interpretation, by inappropriately trying to figure out what other people meant, even though I don’t really know. 

1.  When Matt says “politics,” I think he means “personalities.” He’d rather talk about replacement value, rather than about what’s going on in JC’s mind when he argues things that aren’t correct.  That’s reasonable.

2.  The talk of “politics” gets my attention because “politics,” to me, refers to jockeying for status and power.  There’s none of that here.  I think it’s just the wrong word.

3.  I think Matt is suggesting that *others* also not talk about JC personally.  That’s reasonable too, although other commenters DO want to talk about JC personally.  I agree with Tango and Guy that these issues are legitimate to talk about, and that nothing inappropriate is being said.  However, I respect that some of this is not to Matt’s taste.

4.  Matt is trying to be diplomatic.  Whereas Tango says, “JC is dead wrong, terribly frightfully wrong,” Matt wants to ease up on JC by also pointing out that JC has done some things right.  He’s just trying to be nice.  This is not so much the way Tango and Guy and I operate.  When Matt talks about what he’s learned from JC, he’s trying to be good and fair and nice and civilized.  But we don’t see the intent, and take it literally.  “Really? What have you learned?,” we demand!  If our personalities were more politically correct, we would grasp the intent, which is to ease up on a colleague, and we’d nod our heads and say, “yes, we may strongly disagree with this one point, JC is a valued scholar and we’ve learned a lot from him.”

5.  Interpreted that way, perhaps Matt is trying to be diplomatic and to show respect for JC.  But, it rubs me the wrong way (with respect to Matt).  Diplomacy is the art of saying the truth in the nicest way possible, but I think Matt is trying to avoid making a judgment about what the truth is.  What needs to be said is, “JC is really, really wrong a lot of the time, but some of his work is interesting and I’m glad he’s around.” What Matt is saying (to my ear) is, “JC is sometimes wrong, but so is everyone else, including Tango, on a roughly equal basis.  I don’t know why everyone gangs up on JC.” That is something I *strongly* disagree with, and I think it’s very unfair to Tango.  (Read the answer yourself—your mileage may vary.) Having said that, I think it’s inadvertent.  I think that, in the current context, Matt just doesn’t want to speak ill of anyone.

6.  However ... well, the implication of Matt’s comments is still that Tango and JC are equally right and wrong in these debates, and that’s just not true.  The fact remains that Tango is right, and JC is wrong.  For a diplomatic way to say that, although Tango’s “JC should be professorial on certain things, but a student on this issue” is wonderfully polite, better than anything I could ever have come up with.

To a literalist like myself, it’s as if I said, “I disagree with Joe Morgan on some issues, and I disagree with Bill James on some issues.” That is absolutely, literally true, but I would never phrase it that way, because the implication is one that I don’t mean. 

7.  If anyone’s point is that you’re uncomfortable talking about JC in the way the thread has gone (which has almost happened to me on other occasions (but not this one, which I think is fine)), maybe we just need to say so directly: “I’m not saying JC is right or wrong, but, either way, I think we should stop hammering on him the way we’ve been doing.”

Once, a couple of years ago, mgl said something that wasn’t right.  I hedged my words a bit, “I think that might not be the case because ...”.  MGL wrote back instantly, “are you not sure, or are you just trying to be nice about it?” Beautiful!  (That’s why I love MGL.  MGL, free hug when I’m in Vegas next week if you look me up!)

I think a lot of us are like that.  We prefer to be told directly.

----

Er, on rereading, it sounds in a couple of cases like I’m pompously trying to read people’s minds, especially Matt.  Matt (or anyone else), if my interpretations of your comments aren’t right, I will take them back on demand, no questions asked.  You know what you meant, and I don’t.

Phil is a wise man.

***

Disagree with integrity and respect and not with your a$$.

Not that my statement was directed at anyone.  Just a motto.

Matt:  I wasn’t trying to “use your career against you.” I was speculating on one possible reason you might be applying such a double standard to commentary on the quality of JC’s work.  I think most of us (myself included) would tend to avoid being harshly critical of someone in our professional field.  But as Mike F correctly says, I really have no idea why you are doing this, and it wasn’t productive for me to speculate.  So I retract that, and no offense intended. 

But I stand by the point I was making: it’s not kosher to praise JC’s work, and accuse his critics of being unfair and uninformed, and then assume this “I’m above all this politics” pose when challenged to back up your position.  If you want to stay out of the larger debate, and comment only very narrowly on specific claims in JC’s work, that’s fine—a totally reasonable approach.  But you should pick a path and stay on it.

Both Tango and I said we liked some of his research but not others. I’m not giving blanket praise of his work. I just said don’t think 100% of JC’s critics have a 100% understanding of the arguments being made, but that it has gotten what I called political. I agree politics was not the word I was trying to use. Just don’t get personal.

i’m not even sure they are being personal since it’s not like they are saying he is a horrible person and kicks dogs or anything, only that when defending his work he’s not terribly open minded or responsive to constructive criticism.  their comments are all based on his work and periphery topics related to his work.  if nothing else i like JC because he either A) has something that is interesting and correct (the stadium financing in Gwinett he did was awesome) or B) he comes up with something “wrong” and I get to either learn or reinforce my own knowledge by having tango/mgl/etc. bust it to pieces.

Ran across this great quote from George Orwell, which seems relevant here:

“The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”