THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

After 19 votes: .687:

(Highlight area between the two colons if you’ve already voted.)

Coming into 2008, Vidro was forecast for 60 points above what the number in post 1 shows.

Doing a quick updated Marcel, he’d be about 20 points above the number in post 1 shows.

So, the non-Mariner fans are already believing in his current performance as deserving of more weight.  Let’s see what Mariner fans think.  I can’t login to my LookoutLanding account, as my work firewall is treating that site as “games”.  I’ll login tonight, and that should get me a few dozen responses.

so the Mariner fans believe....MUCH MORE strongly in the value of his current performance!

here would seem to be a straightforward test of observation vs statistical analysis, no?

You ‘look’ at Vidro and see a 33-yr-old who not long ago hit very well for the Expos; M’s fans look at Vidro and they see cooked meat....

This is exactly the point of this survey: how much does observational analysis factor into the forecast.  That is, is Vidro an exception or not, and he seems to be.

Of course, I’d have to do this with several more players.  It is possible that the home team fans are more biased, unduly, and therefore, it is possible that being too close to watching the games is not a good thing.

More work to be done…

After 105 votes, the non-Mariner fan thinks that Vidro will OPS .666 the rest of the way.

After 244 votes, the Mariner fan thinks that Vidro will OPS .599 the rest of the way.

Sal recently posted, and I also back-of-enveloped the exact same number in post #2, that Vidro’s Marcel suggests a .707 OPS the rest of the way.

So, who is going to win here? 
a) The monkey who sees all the numbers appropriately, but is devoid of any injury of body breakdown, thereby proving that Vidro is the exception to the rule? 

b) The non-Mariner fan, who is dispassionate, but may have no idea how much to weight recent data? 

c) The Mariner fan, who is deeply involved in the tornado, and is either right in the middle of it, and can see everything without being swept, or is completely being biased as unrealistic as he is caught in the tornado?

See you 10 weeks!  Let’s hope Mariner management continues to use Vidro regularly…

You want to add more to the Vidro story?

http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2008/07/vidro.html

USSM, via Stone, says that his 9MM contract will vest for 2009 if he gets 600 PA this year.  He’s currently at 282 PA after 95 team games.  That leaves him 318 short, with 67 games to play.  He’s hitting cleanup (!), and that means if he were to pull a Ripken, he’d get almost 300 PA.

The odds are of course against it.... but, man…

The option won’t vest.  It was added as a contractual evening out since he waived his no trade clause when the M’s acquired him, and they had to reward him with something to keep the value of the contract even since he was forfeiting the no trade.  The M’s flat out told Stone that they won’t let the option vest.