I like how you guys put words into my mouth. Iīm not ignorant of stats, Iīm over them.
No statistician claims that any combination of stats can account for 100% of variation in performance.
So, the placeholders donīt represent constant values. 1 isnīt actually 1, at least not always. You understand that this little sign (=) becomes a lie, right? All laws derivating from math involving them arenīt really laws, theyīre more like general rules of thumb, yes?
Your answer seems like a non sequitor.
1 isn't 1? What is that supposed to mean? "Constant values"? What are you talking about?
Games stats can describe what happened. For example RBIs can tell you what happened in a game, but they don't really tell us much about the ability of a player. Batting average with runners in scoring position would give us insight into a players ability beyond how it describes outcomes.
We should also take note that a players batting average is typically different every month. Why does that happen? That happens because for a hitting ability N, there is a distribution of likely outcomes. Someone who doesn't understand statistics might assume that if a player hits .320 one year, and the .300 the next, then he was more skilled the earlier year. Not necessarily. There is a pretty good chance that the difference could be accounted for by things other than his skill, such as facing better pitchers on average, fielder position, or other variables.
No stat gives us a full understanding of a players ability. Even Hollinger does not contest this. For example, Harden's PPG gives us good insight into his scoring ability, but PPG cannot give us a full picture. When he had 2 teammates who were elite scorers, he scored less. So, while the PPG is a very useful metric for understanding a player's scoring ability, it only tells us part of the story. Let's say, PPG gives us 25% of the story. That is still extremely significant. If we add to that other quantitative data, such as shooting percentages, and qualitative information, such as information about the system that the team plays, we get a very good understanding of the player's scoring ability.
For those who avoid nuance and want to believe that the world is black and white, I don't see this being appealing.
When they can claim though is that stats can help us find value that is often missed when using our clearly flawed and biased perceptions. They help us make the best choice amidst the always present uncertainty.
Youīre making stuff up now, arenīt you? Which "clearly flawed perception" are you talking about? [/quote]
"Making stuff up"? I suspect this means you are completely unfamiliar with any research in neuroscience/cognitive science. Problems such as confirmation bias are universally accepted as flaws in our perceptions. There is such robust literature on how poor human memory is (and how selective), that there is no need for me to make stuff up. Stats help us to partially control for our cognitive biases by checking our opinions against objective data that independent observers agree is accurate. Perhaps assists may be to a degree a subjective stat, but field goals made is not.
Stats are just a bunch of numbers without proper interpretation, just like the action on the court has to be interpreted. Considering how I read deeply flawed application of stats on this board alone on a daily basis, I have a hard time accepting their, at best, "general rule of thumb" as the incorruptible judge in any debate.
Yes, there are people who wrongly act like throwing out a stat closes their case. The truth is, most of the interesting discussions here are ones that fundamentally cannot be resolved. For example, we cannot run a controlled experiment where in one universe, Perk is not traded for Green, and in one, he is. On the other hand, we also often hear people make absurd claims that the statistical data make exceedingly unlikely to be true. You should not confuse the abuse of statistics with a lack of value.
So, first of all, I question the neutrality of numbers interpreted by humans, and thus, all laws derivating from them. But you understand that, basically, as you wrote
I am not claiming that
interpretation is neutral. What
is neutral is that stats represent shared, objective facts.
There is a reason why front offices love stats. The reason is that their decisions matter. Since their decisions matter, they need to make the best decisions they can. On a forum like this, we don't make decisions about players. We usually just try to justify our opinions. This often leads to the abuse of statistics or to people sticking their fingers in their ears and singing "la la la la" when stats show the unlikelihood that their opinion holds any water.
Topic: Stats. What are they good for? (Read 15685 times)