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Is Mookie Betts the best of his generation (2010's-present)?
1948_Swell_Robinson
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With Trout quickly dropping both physically(and production wise) and Betts continually consistently great and also showing he is a MLB SS and 2B, is he now the best?
Also, with knowing that Betts is a viable MLB 2B and SS, why is he penalized in a stat like WAR just because his manager or GM didn't have the wisdom to play him at 2B and SS earlier and more often?
What would Bett's WAR be if you valued him like he should be, a player who can hit like he does, and play 2B, SS, RF, and CF?
None of the measurements truly captured his ability because they only viewed him as a RF and he clearly is not only a RF.
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WAR itself is subjectively calculated differently but it is adjusted based on the position a player plays. I believe both fangraphs and bbref have a scale that equates to about 25 runs a season between SS and DH. A players WAR is accumulated and it does capture changes in position even in the same game.
One thing else about WAR. These measures have their flaws but the stats will always exist in their raw form. We might be missing statistics which denote greatness. Some intangibles that we don’t track today. Like seeds eaten or rally emotes declared. But assuming we have all the juicy stats we can always conjure up better metrics to measure those statistics in the future. Especially when we look back at talents that don’t fit into a single box during their career. Or guys like ohtani.
Not close to an answer to your postulations - not even an attempt. Just some thoughts.
I am not a big fan of WAR. I agree, players are penalized because of managerial decisions. example: Trout should not have been a MLB center fielder for the last 6-7 seasons. yet, because he was positioned there, he gets the positional adjustment. at the same time, Betts was talented enough to play CF all those years he was in Boston, but was put in right because no hit jackie bradley jr. was the CFer and he could have been the answer at 2b as well. same talent, same player but penalized because of managers decision.
look at ARod. he was by far the best SS on the Yankees the entire time he played there, but had to play 3b because Torre wouldn't remove Jeter from the position.
that is a long way around your question. Betts certainly could have been (should have been) the more versatile player had his managers used him as such. WAR did not reflect that versatility when comparing trout and betts.
I think that looking at the trajectories, Betts will overtake Trout as the greatest of his generation.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I think you mean that you're not a big fan of how people use WAR as the one true metric of measure for a player's achievements.
WAR, and there are many differing calculations, is just a way to characterize, and perhaps classify, past results.
I would love to hear some good arguments why WAR is a bad measure. It's one of those metrics which is easy to test and it applies to different scenarios; measuring a player's career accomplishments, measuring a team's success, attempting to predict future outcomes (obviously gets less valid and WAR, itself, doesn't tell anyone how to use the data -- it measures the past).
If you look at players...
Over 80 and you are a lock?
Over 60 and you're in the discussion?
Below 40 and you're in the "why" conversation if you're in.
I think WAR is a good conversation starter on a player.
I think WAR is a useless exercise in crunching numbers in the wonderful world of sabermetrics. What happened in the past is no indication, or IMO the value of a player's future performance. Some people just love to live in the minutiae of decimals that mean zip. Many kneel at the altar of Bill James, the inventor of sabermetrics. As a statistican, baseball historian, etc, etc, he decided to crunch numbers that appear very flashy, but, yesterday is yesterday.
Those that follow this stuff obviously have their own opinions of the value, or lack thereof at statistician's efforts. I would equate this to blackjack card counters, who live and die on the sword of the system they choose to use in casinos. To name a few...Hi-Lo; Hi-Opt1; Hi-Opt 11; Knock Out; Red Seven; Zen Count, and the list goes on and on. They get into side counts of Aces, true counts, depth of penetration in the shoe, search tirelessly for the right games, and do mental mathematical gyrations that only a really, REALLY dyed-in-the-wool, obsessed card counter could achieve. I have a friend who's more than an avid card counter. I sit there happy as a clam with my rock solid basic strategy, while he's keeping so much in his head as to defeat the joy of being there. This guy does NOT need the $$, he just has this obsession to beat the casino. He actually asks me not to converse with him during the shoe, this is so he can focus on the count.
Here's a little silly something I copied from the Baseball Almanac...
Thorn and Palmer’s book will tell you, for instance, that a leadoff double helps the team by an average of .614 runs. How do they know that? Well, they looked at many years of play-by-play data, and they found that, on average, .454 runs are scored in the average inning. But, with a runner on second an nobody out, an average 1.068 runs were scored. And so, the double is worth the difference between the two situations, which is 0.614 runs.
It's all BS nonsense to me. What exactly is .454 runs in the average inning? How do you score 1.068 runs??
I could list so much more, but don't want to go overboard with this.
I wanna just watch the game, pop a few tops, kick back and hope my team wins. If they lose, no big deal to me, my life is happy with either outcome. I don't need the clutter.
It's only baseball, or...es solo beisbol.
Statistics are the counts and metrics are the measure of the aggregate. That you don’t have a full understanding of statistics and how they are leveraged to both look backward and look forward is fine. My wife doesn’t understand much about statistics but she understands patterns and that’s pretty much what it is a study of. She doesn’t know how to collect and manipulate the data to observe subtle patterns like the no out double scenario in the first inning that you mention but when she sees a minivan with the common family caricature of dad, mom, Billy loves soccer and Tammi is a dancer — she knows that statistically she’s behind a moron. That doesn’t guarantee they’re a moron, but to use the example of sabermetrics.. maybe 6 times out of 10 it’s accurate.
I don’t find counting cards to be much of a distraction. I can carry on conversations as I play. Probably the main reason I prefer playing at my own table.
Anyways. I don’t see any issue with a measure of past performance. Especially if we can continue to improve it to normalize outcomes over time. I’m not telling anyone that computers should build rosters.
Past performance is not a guarantee of future outcome. This is a famous regulatory risk warning which financial advisors and planners leverage as a CYA. That doesn’t mean that because it’s July that it could be -20F in Phoenix tomorrow because you know…. Past results can’t be trusted.
Enjoy those frosty tall boys while watching the game and don’t worry about the numbers. Not liking WAR because you don’t understand statistics is a perfectly fine reason. Any reason is fine. I’m not actually trying to convince anyone that my view of baseball statistics is the correct one. I’m here to take information from others and assemble the thoughts I like into my own view. Selfishly for sure. I’m not ashamed.
Correct!
Some people have an obsession over statistical information, and use it to assess the value or future value of a player.
That you can count cards without distraction is fine, pretty rare that you'd be playing solo, even in a high limit pit. I've met several who could carry on a conversation with ease while counting. The big trick is not to be noticed and get 86'd. Things like making big bet increases will surely catch the eye.
My friend is far too greedy, and got perp walked out of a very well known casino in Biloxi. Try as I might to convince him to think of playing blackjack in terms of raiding a farm...take a few cows now and then and be happy with the win. Not him, he goes scorched earth and draws too much attention to himself. Me...I'm friendly to everyone and normally do pretty well, I'm happy with small $1-$2k wins, grab my fob and head home. It's just entertainment to me. I was once RFB at the Mirage.
BTW, I assure you, I have a fairly good understanding of statistics and their usage, I have an MBA. I simply choose not to focus on such nonsense when it comes to sports. Lots of things changed for me when I retired, I jettisoned as much corporate crap I possibly could. I miss nothing but my coworkers. How sweet it was to scrape that sticker off my car and hand over my badge, I nicely survived the asylum.
My portfolio is a different subject.
Well. It’s fine to disagree here. But. I wanted to apologize for my poor assumption.
I thought you were saying that you didn’t understand how statistics were being applied. I’ve also taken the GMAT and I’m aware of how difficult it is. I understand the maths but the quant reasoning questions on the GMAT I found to be difficult to interpret correctly at times. Have you read Nassim Taleb’s books?
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