Felix Pie

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I've been hearing the term "arbitrary endpoint fallacy" for years with regards to sports statistics, but google doesn't seem to think it's a thing outside of various sports message board posts. Hmm.

 

You don't see any sort of potential logical problem with going back into the past, lopping off at an endpoint that makes the player look better than average, coming up with an explanation based on that endpoint, and going from there? If someone had asked you "What sample size would be the best way to judge how Felix Pie is doing right now," without looking, you would have never chosen "since May 1." So why choose it, other than to conveniently wedge the data into fitting the hypothesis?

 

Anyways, you aren't sure what I'm arguing against? It's everything that sabermetrics has been about debunking: making assumptions based on poorly chosen samples, assuming that random variations must have some sort of explanation, and coming up with an individualized hypothesis that can't be examined for a larger body of players.

 

Either way, the point seems to be that he could end the year with respectable numbers despite a putrid start.

 

It's certainly possible, but I'm not sure why we would project it based on the data at hand. If he has a hot streak, he ends up okay. If he has a cold one, he ends up looking awful again. There's definitely not enough real data to project a "trend" one way or the other.

 

(And not relevant to the immediate point, but he's also being given a major platoon boost with his usage, making him look better than he is).

[Tracer Bullet]

No, you're arguing against a point that's never been made. Raw simply presented 3 sets of data: his brutal April, his numbers since May 1, and his numbers since June 1. In each case, he acknowledged a sample size issue. He didn't draw any sweeping conclusions, but merely observed that if he continues hitting where he is, he could end the season with respectable numbers.

 

There is no projection in raw's post. There's barely a hint of how he thinks Pie will end up. It's simply some stats, and observation, and a possible conclusion. There's no reason to fire up the sabermetrics scare alarm. There's no fallacy. There's no logical problems. It's just an observational post. But you made it more than that so you could rail against it, apparently.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I asked a simple question: Is there any good reason to consider his stats post-April as a separate set of data?

 

The answer is no. Everything else you've said is just hand-waving.

[jersey cubs fan]

I asked a simple question: Is there any good reason to consider his stats post-April as a separate set of data?

 

The answer is no. Everything else you've said is just hand-waving.

 

Why did you ask a question if you don't care about hearing the answer?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

It was rhetorical.

 

"Why would we throw out his April stats?" is a nicer way of saying "There's not one good reason to throw out his April stats."

[Tracer Bullet]

It was rhetorical.

 

"Why would we throw out his April stats?" is a nicer way of saying "There's not one good reason to throw out his April stats."

 

A - No, it's not. It's vague and indirect, but not any more pleasant.

 

B - sure, there could be a good reason to discount April stats. But no one's throwing them out. "Here's his April stats, here's his stats sans April, here's his stats since June 1."

 

BTW - wtf is hand waving? Am I making a fair catch?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

A - No, it's not. It's vague and indirect, but not any more pleasant.

 

Your opinion on this matter has been given its due notice.

 

B - sure, there could be a good reason to discount April stats. But no one's throwing them out. "Here's his April stats, here's his stats sans April, here's his stats since June 1."

 

Saying that he may have figured something out because he's 24 and his April stats are different from his post-April stats is parsing his splits in an unnecessary way that leads to false, or at the very least unsupportable, conclusions. If you want to play semantics as to whether that counts as "throwing them out," feel free, but that seems a bit pointless.

 

 

BTW - wtf is hand waving? Am I making a fair catch?

 

If it's not about the proper way to analyze Felix Pie's 2009 season, or at least tangentially related to the subject of Felix Pie, it's hand-waving. Think of a magician's hand movements that try to distract the viewer from what's really going on.

 

In the end, the most recent relevant things said in this thead were:

 

If you take out his 51 ABs in April where his OPS was .461, Pie has hit .309/.351/.495 for an .846 OPS. Since June 1, granted in only 55 ABs, his OPS is a fantastic .961. If the O's continue to hit him between Roberts and Adam Jones, he could end this season with some respectable numbers.

Why would we take out the 51 ABs in April?

 

I still haven't gotten a good answer, but I've seen a lot of hand-waving.

[imb]

holy crap, the whole point of the "take out his april at bats" was to show that he's recently been much better than his full-season stats would show. I highly doubt Raw was like, "welp, check it out, he's a .300 hitter now."

 

if you're going to be obtuse, you have to do it cool like I do, and be right.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

if you're going to be obtuse, you have to do it cool like I do, and be right.

 

See, here's an example of hand-waving. IMB is going to try to talk about baseball now to avoid posting the pic he promised us.

[imb]

i only send pics of my weiner in PMs, this is a family site

[Guest]

It was rhetorical.

 

"Why would we throw out his April stats?" is a nicer way of saying "There's not one good reason to throw out his April stats."

This is stupid. Time goes linearly. You know, April comes before May and May before June.

 

Crappy April

Better May

Better June

 

That shows a trend. Anyway, no one has thrown out his April. It was used as a point of comparison.

 

I'd also like to add that Pie has always shown that he needs an adjustment period where he's getting regular playing time at every level. Will he be what we all hoped he'd be one day? Probably not, but your posts in this thread are really bad.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

It was rhetorical.

 

"Why would we throw out his April stats?" is a nicer way of saying "There's not one good reason to throw out his April stats."

This is stupid. Time goes linearly. You know, April comes before May and May before June.

 

Crappy April

Better May

Better June

 

That shows a trend. Anyway, no one has thrown out his April. It was used as a point of comparison.

 

I'd also like to add that Pie has always shown that he needs an adjustment period where he's getting regular playing time at every level. Will he be what we all hoped he'd be one day? Probably not, but your posts in this thread are really bad.

 

Hmm, you stopped at June. I wonder why.

 

If you look at any set of splits, there will always be a pattern. It's human nature to see patterns. That doesn't mean there's a real causation behind them. It's just random noise.

[Tracer Bullet]

Fallacy and semantics in the same thread. Double-score bonus!

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Fallacy and semantics in the same thread. Double-score bonus!

 

http://escapethedrain.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/hand-waving-goodbye.jpg

 

(you should have point out that I used "human nature" too and went for the triple.)

[Illini Iceman]

Pie looks like he only has had one really good month which was June and in that month he only had 15 AB's so it doesn't seem that counting that as a whole month is completely fair since that is more like a week for a player getting regular playing time.

 

He is at .245 / .305 / .377 right now which is slightly worse than Reed Johnson. Johnson also had a bad April so if you throw out Pie's April and Johnson's April my guess is that it would not change things much.

 

Honestly 151 AB's for the season does not seem to be enough to judge him on one way or the other, though if anyone is making the argument that the 51 AB's in April taught him something that caused his numbers to increase by June I would be a bit dubious of that. It could be that the Orioles were just more careful in picking spots for him to play against pitchers they felt he matched up well against. But as mentioned above it was only 15 AB's so no matter what it does not seem to be enough to really be sure it means anything.

 

The only way to know what he can do is for someone to give him regular playing time and if he was going to get that anywhere you would think it would have been with the Orioles so if they aren't going to do it there is a good chance he will never get a full shot.

 

My guess is that he floats around as a good defensive player and speed guy to have off the bench and the .245 / .305 / .377 line is what teams will get more times than not.

[treebird]

this has not been one of your better threads kyle.

 

have you noticed that you use the word "fallacy" in most of your posts? because you do. stop it.

[TruffleShuffle]

i'm not sure that pie has really played enough in any given month to draw any sort of conclusion about whether or not he's improving. i mean yeah he improved in june, but he also had a .538 babip and 16 PAs, so trying to find a trend there is a pretty bad idea.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

this has not been one of your better threads kyle.

 

have you noticed that you use the word "fallacy" in most of your posts? because you do. stop it.

 

Man, I wish for a world in which people didn't post fallacies for me to point out.

 

Incidentally, Pie has gone 1-for-9 with a single and a walk since his cycle, wiping out a good chunk of his imaginary post-April improvement.

[Rob]

this has not been one of your better threads kyle.

 

have you noticed that you use the word "fallacy" in most of your posts? because you do. stop it.

 

He's a troll. Why would anybody expect any different from him?

[sneakypower]

oh hey guys look who has 2 BBs and a HR tonight and is going .300/.360/.510 since early may

 

yeah good point, i guess i'd still rather have aaron heilman, too

[17 Seconds]

his ops is up to .738

 

it would be the perfect capper to this nightmare season if he ended the year with an ops of like .800

[Irrelevant Dude]

Good for Pie. I hope he can keep it up and be the exception to the rule for Cubs outfield prospects, as long as he stays in the American League and doesn't come back to haunt the Cubs.

[UMFan83]

his ops is up to .738

 

it would be the perfect capper to this nightmare season if he ended the year with an ops of like .800

 

I hope he does well. It was pretty clear that the Cubs would never be able to give him the opportunity to work through his issues at the major league level. They couldn't afford to just hand him an everyday job and wait to figure it out. If they weren't going to do it last year when every other position on the field was producing, and they could afford to have one position solely for defense, they were never gonna do it.

 

It's part of the sacrifice of the "win now" strategy.

 

Of course we could argue all day about how Hendry traded him when his value was about as low as could be.

[UMFan83]

FWIW, the people on Orioles Hangout seem to be fed up with his mental errors and seem to completely ignore his improvement.

[TruffleShuffle]

FWIW, the people on Orioles Hangout seem to be fed up with his mental errors and seem to completely ignore his improvement.

 

they're probably used to not paying attention to anything that happens after may.