Individual Poster Page

See copyright notice at the bottom of this page.

List of All Posters

More Help Requested (March 4, 2004)

Posted 8:14 p.m., March 22, 2004 (#36) - Heteroskedastic Tendencies
  I think the Reds and White Sox ballots are good. They're, in my opinion, incorrect, but they don't appear to be malicious or lacking in thought. I'd be suspicious of the Reds ballot because Larson has only started about 30 games at 3B in his career.

Perhaps you could e-mail the flagged respondents asking that they verify their selections. This could serve two purposes. First, it's possible the respondent misentered the numbers. I remember accidentally putting "1" as the best and "5" as the worst when going too fast. Switch the numbers on the latter Red Sox ballot and it looks reasonable. By reputation Damon is outstanding (although his arm sucks?) and Nomar has a strong, inaccurate arm.

Also, it could act as a Q and D test to see if the respondent believes what they're saying. If the same weird results occur, keep them, since more likely than not the respondent has a bias against that player(s).

I thought the point of the study is that the biases even out in the long run. If you throw out certain results, you're saying some biases are ok while others aren't. The ballots are only junk if the person doesn't believe what they're are saying, not if they're incorrect. Especially since, as has been mentioned, people who think highly of a player's tend to overrate that player.

There seems to be no problem accepting that Mientkiewicz and Pokey Reese are similar fielders. If that really were the case, why isn't Minky playing 2b? There is obviously some problems with the inter positional ratings.

Still, it does give some interesting results. The Jeter/Abreu comparison makes sense once I think about it. And the fact that the comps for the good fielders at certain positions are other good fielders at that position means that something good is happening, since those players excel due to a combination of skills well suited to that position.

More Help Requested (March 4, 2004)

Posted 8:28 a.m., March 23, 2004 (#39) - Heteroskedastic tendencies
  As far as I'm concerned, these are not observational biases, but an attempt to force an outcome. Observational biases even-out. Since I set pretty loose standards to catch junk ballots, I'm sticking with this.

Fair enough. Given the sample, cslling them junk will probably yield the best results.

Heteroskadistic, in what way does the Jeter/Abreu comparison make sense to you?

By reputation, they both have strong, accurate arms, quick releases, and sure hands. Both are fast runners with poor first steps and questionable instincts. Abreu and Jeter are cases in which the physical tools add up to less than the performance. From what I've seen of Abreu, he's average to slightly below average in RF. We know about Jeter. Since the criteria listed isn't exhaustive, they're not interchangeable. Still in an absolute sense they're very similar.

Here's my comparison of the two by limited (and likely reputation soaked) observation:

Player Instincts FirstStep Speed Hands Release Strength Accuracy
Jeter 3 2 4 4 5 4 4
Abreu 3 2 3 3 4 5 4

In my opinion, given the absolute scale of this survey, a "2" for FirstStep for a SS is really bad news. It's ok for for a RF, though.

The Scouting Report, By the Fans, For the Fans - Most Similar Fielders (March 18, 2004)

Posted 5:58 a.m., March 25, 2004 (#15) - heteroskedastic tendencies
  Considering that throwing related activites constitute 3/7ths of the ratings, it's not particularly surprising that Rfs would appear to be better. They're getting triple credit for an aspect of their game that, although a necessar confition for their position, makes little differnce in the OF compared to catching the ball.

The Scouting Report - Compared to UZR (March 23, 2004)

Posted 9:03 a.m., March 24, 2004 (#6) - heteroskedastic tendencies
  How did you convert Izturis' scouting report to runs? Was that just an example to make a point?

Also, do you (or will you) weight all the skills evenly? Will you (or have you)regressing your results vs. UZr so as possibly to establish the importance of your categories? Are positional averages for the scouting report forming a baseline from which each player is judged intrapositionally? Could positional averages be used to create a profile of who might succeed at a certain position? At least average quickness, reactions and hands are necessary conditions to being even a below average SS.

I love this project. It'd be cool to be able to conclude that Mientkiewicz has the profile of a defensively better than Rivas 2B. Or to figure out which position Jeter is best suited to switch to.

Does anyone know if teams do this sort of analysis on their 20-80 scouting?