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Friday, June 10, 2011
Mister Pickle comments on The Book review
I don’t mind negative reviews of The Book. Indeed, I invite them. I’m not scared. Go ahead and use this thread if you like.
What irks me is saying we didn’t say something when we DID say something. For example, C. Witt ("Mr Pickle") says:
I was playing in a baseball gaming tournament once (think APBA, Strat-o-Matic, etc.) and my opponent was trying to decide on a strategy. He opened up his copy of “The Book”, looked up something and (I’m paraphrasing here) “Okay… so according to The Book, since I am up this many runs, and it’s this inning, and there are this many outs… I’m going to intentionally walk you...”
The problem here was that there were other variables that did NOT factor in to play at all.
Consider, for example, this situation we were dealing with. Let’s say my opponent had a 3 run lead in the bottom of the 9th. I had one out with a man on 2nd base and a good power hitter coming up to the plate.
What doesn’t factor in is what the ON DECK batter was like. If the guy on deck is a .200 hitter with no power, fine. The intentional walk makes sense. If the guy on deck is a .350 hitter with power, then it makes no sense. It also doesn’t factor in what I have sitting on my bench. If my on deck guy is that .200/no power guy, but I have a guy who hits .330 with power on my bench, then you need to factor that in as well. There were just too many variables to factor in. In my experience, much of the stuff from books like this one (or Freakonomics, for example) is that they miss out on that.
Baseball Between the Numbers seemed much better at covering all the bases. (Pardon the pun!)
I bolded that part. And that part is nothing but bullsh!t (summary opinion without evidence(*) if your ears are more sensitive than my boy’s). We discuss at length the on-deck situation, and it’s the centerpiece for that chapter in Table 126.
(*) Someone actually said that because I said bullsh!t, I was cursing, and so, a reason to not respond to me. I’d hate to list the number of friends and family and children I’ve offended if bullsh!t was an offensive term. The idea that bullsh!t is an offensive term is, well, bullsh!t !
Just because your Strat opponent did not use the right chart isn’t a reflection on us.
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