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Sunday, January 17, 2010
How is Steven Levitt as a prognosticator of baseball?
He said this in April 2005:
I stand by my statement that if Oakland wins 81 games a year for the foreseeable future, it will not be very impressive and the Moneyball mystique will be debunked. If Oakland wins 90 games repeatedly in the future, then Billy Beane is clearly doing something very, very right.
For all of you who disagree with me - and the betting markets - go to tradesports and bet on the A’s. The market thinks they will only win 82 games. If they are as good as you believe, there is a lot of money to be made. And after you all bet and drive the odds up, I will bet the other side.
In 2005, the A’s ended up winning 88 games. And in 2006, they won 93. Does this count as “repeatedly” enough? Of course, their last 3 years, they were just under .500 each year. But, really, what are we supposed to do with n=2 and n=5. Nothing really.
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He all said this:
I bet if you asked Billy Beane why Oakland was successful, he would agree with me it was not primarily the stuff emphasized in Moneyball. Two other high ranking baseball executives I’ve talked to agree with me on this too.
Ah, the classic reporter method of “I will give you my opinion by cherry-picking the opinions of experts who agree with me, while not reporting on those who disagree with me”. Steven, Steven, Steven.... really?
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Also note that I went to the classic blogger publication-bias of only reporting what Steven said if it made him look foolish, because if the A’s actually did end up below .500 after Steven said that, maybe I’m not so quick in putting out a blog post on it.
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Can we agree that all forecasting threads where n=1 is nothing but bullsh!t that proves virtually nothing?
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