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Thursday, April 29, 2010
Reader Mail of the Week: There’s nothing to be wrong about
We know that 10 or 20 years from now, some things that are believed by saberists will probably be proven to be wrong. Having rooted for teams with bad short relievers, I think saberists are probably underestimating the value of a top relief pitcher. If you were to guess, what are some of the things you think the field could potentially be wrong about it at this time.
If we’ve already proven something right, how can we proven wrong later on? That’s why it’s a proof. And, our belief has to be proportional to our level of uncertainty. For example, age 27 being a peak is fraught with conditional provisions and type of bodies playing that this can change in 20 years. So, I would not call peak=27 to be a “belief”.
All to say, the premise of the question is ambiguous. If the question were more like: “Given the level of uncertainty you have in pitcher skill on home runs, is this something where we can reduce the level of uncertainty substantially in 20 years?”, I’d like it.
As I always say, you should only argue to the extent of your uncertainty level of the data. I’ll argue strongly on how inflexible the run value of the HR is, because that’s what the data shows, and that’s what a theoretical model shows. But, I’m not going to argue strongly on pitcher HR skill. Almost all arguments relate to the degree that the sample data represents the underlying true of something, and the argument is about establishing that level of degree.
Things are not black and white. And once they are black, they won’t be proven to be white.
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