McCarthy to Texas for Danks and Masset

[nilodnayr]

...again, the definition of luck. But whatever. We all believe what we want to believe.

 

And I believe I broke my promise to be done with this argument. Sorry.

 

I believe you are correct Soul.

 

Statistics show what was done. They are tangible proof that something happenend. However, the numbers don't "say" anything. It is the inferences that are made about what the numbers show that "say" things. Inferences are opinions based on the data. Two people could look at the same data and come to different conclusions.

 

In science luck/chance is something to be gotten rid of. Usually this is done through randomization of the subject pool. If the scientist has done the right thing, luck plays a very little role in the outcome of the experiment. If the the variable under study is not found to be correlated with the results, the scientist doesn't say the results were do to luck. He/she says he/she doesn't know why it occured.

 

Luck certainly plays a part in an individual baseball game or even a few games in a row. That is why the playoffs are such a crap shoot. But by the way some people talk about luck one would think that these guys/teams are all lottery winners.

 

I seriously question some of these articles about the roll luck plays over the course of 162 games. Random variation and luck are not the same thing. It just means that the results are not likely to be repreated and the data are likely to regress to the mean, either for better or worse. But this is a closed system and without really looking up the data I'd say there is probably a large standard deviation in the data pool (in terms of BABIP). In other words there will always be outliers who overperform and underperform. The mean is just that. If an individual doesn't perform up to the mean or perfroms above the mean, it doens't necessarily say the person was lucky or unlucky. It says that they were better or worse than average.

 

I believe random variation and luck are two sides of the same coin.

 

Luck is defined as a combination of circumstances, events, etc., operating by chance to bring good or ill to a person.

 

Now you can call that "chance" or "results which are not likely to be repeated and are likely to regress to the mean" or whatever you want to call it, but the fact is, is that the 2005 White Sox, produced results which were not likely to be repeated (and were not in 2006).

 

I absolutely agree there will always be outliers in BABIP, but the fact that all members of the 2005 rotation were probably at least one standard deviation to the lower than expected of the mean is luck, chance, whatever you want to call it. It just so happened that in 2006, all of their rotation performed at the mean.

 

If you want to say that the White Sox won the 2005 Word Series due to randomness or chance, I am fine with that.