General Cubs Chit-Chat

[Transmogrified Tiger]

1 hour ago, CubinNY said:

The outcome is whatever happened. You make an attribute about that outcome that is in no way an explanation of the outcome.  it's an attribution. You could say a hard line drive that gets caught is bad luck or a bloop that drops is good luck. It doesn't matter what you call it. Both may be statistically unlikely outcomes, but luck has little to do with it except it is a convenient and common way for people to talk based on our shared verbal histories. Humans have a much longer history attributing events that are not easily understandable to mysterious entities than they do to physics and science. In other words, a guy who can make contact more often is likely to be considered more lucky than a guy who strikes out more. There are likely other unknown variables at work as well. Where luck (chance) comes into play may be weather events, etc. that are not controllable skills.  

You seem to be making this a backwards facing conversation when it is a forward facing conversation.  The point of looking at peripherals like this isn't to re-litigate past games(otherwise we'd just change how we keep score), it's to understand what it means for the future.  Even when we say 'the Cubs ought to have been better by X games based on this', the point of saying so is it serves as the justification for saying what their chances are in the games or seasons that haven't happened yet.  And for that purpose, the top line result that happened is less important than the probabilistic outcome that isn't bound by those literal top line outcomes.

[CubinNY]

1 minute ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

You seem to be making this a backwards facing conversation when it is a forward facing conversation.  The point of looking at peripherals like this isn't to re-litigate past games(otherwise we'd just change how we keep score), it's to understand what it means for the future.  Even when we say 'the Cubs ought to have been better by X games based on this', the point of saying so is it serves as the justification for saying what their chances are in the games or seasons that haven't happened yet.  And for that purpose, the top line result that happened is less important than the probabilistic outcome that isn't bound by those literal top line outcomes.

That's not what I'm saying at all. This conversation started out with someone lamenting that the Cubs were unlucky because their record should be better based on some model. But their record is their record. If the model is a close approximation of reality, their record should improve. If it does not improve, it doesn't make them unlucky, it makes the model less relevant to reality. 

[David]

1 minute ago, CubinNY said:

That's not what I'm saying at all. This conversation started out with someone lamenting that the Cubs were unlucky because their record should be better based on some model. But their record is their record. If the model is a close approximation of reality, their record should improve. If it does not improve, it doesn't make them unlucky, it makes the model less relevant to reality. 

And the record has improved, lol

[CubinNY]

1 minute ago, David said:

And the record has improved, lol

Which you attribute to luck. That's fine with me. 

[David]

Just now, CubinNY said:

Which you attribute to luck. That's fine with me. 

[CubinNY]

Just now, David said:

If it was bad luck that they weren't better, it must be good luck that they are. That's the implication of your previous posts. Your funny memes don't change that. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

13 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

This conversation started out with someone lamenting that the Cubs were unlucky because their record should be better based on some model.

Correct, based on the underlying inputs we would normally expect better outcomes.

 

Quote

But their record is their record. If the model is a close approximation of reality, their record should improve. If it does not improve, it doesn't make them unlucky, it makes the model less relevant to reality. 

Their record should improve *more often than not*, because just like looking at the underlying inputs is a probabilistic exercise(hence why it doesn't match to begin with), so is projecting it forwards.  And that assumes that the underlying inputs remain good.  You can play well in the past and be unlucky and then play poorly in the future and not be unlucky, leading to an overall bad record.  That doesn't mean that probabilistic model is wrong, the point is not to predict exact reality but to predict what is most likely.

[CubinNY]

1 minute ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Correct, based on the underlying inputs we would normally expect better outcomes.

 

Their record should improve *more often than not*, because just like looking at the underlying inputs is a probabilistic exercise(hence why it doesn't match to begin with), so is projecting it forwards.  And that assumes that the underlying inputs remain good.  You can play well in the past and be unlucky and then play poorly in the future and not be unlucky, leading to an overall bad record.  That doesn't mean that probabilistic model is wrong, the point is not to predict exact reality but to predict what is most likely.

I agree. And the data are clear, given certain inputs the record will broadly reflect the predictive model (both Pythagorean and baseruns). When it does not reflect that model, the error is in the model and not reality. Whatever attributions people make for that aren't disprovable facts. 

[jersey cubs fan]

12 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

If it was bad luck that they weren't better, it must be good luck that they are. That's the implication of your previous posts. Your funny memes don't change that. 

What the hell are you talking about? This is nonsense. You have a phd? Was it honorary?

[David]

Let it be known that like 15 years ago I had this exact same argument with him and that is why I (mostly) have avoided getting involved this time around

[CubinNY]

2 minutes ago, jersey cubs fan said:

What the hell are you talking about? This is nonsense. You have a phd? Was it honorary?

He doesn't need your help to defend himself. 

Logically:

The Cubs record should be better than it is based on model x

Reason for why their record isn't what the model shows: Their record is not better because they've been unlucky

What is the logical conclusion of that statement if their record improves? 

Their luck has changed. 

[bukie]

Aggressive ignorance is the most annoying trait in online discussion.

[CubinNY]

Variance is definitely part of the equation, but its substantialness is overestimated.  I think most would agree that process is more important than product when looking at individual events. It's the frequency of the event that is most important. Putting the bat on the ball is an important skill. Throwing strikes in the zone that are more likely to induce weak contact or no contact is an important skill. Having great hand-eye coordination is an important skill. When all those things come together more times than not, variance is going to be in favor of whoever can do those things best. 

[WrigleyField 22]

This place is as nsbb-y as ever I see.

[David]

4 minutes ago, WrigleyField 22 said:

This place is as nsbb-y as ever I see.

All it took was a little positive variance to get us back on our game.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

58 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Variance is definitely part of the equation, but its substantialness is overestimated.  I think most would agree that process is more important than product when looking at individual events. It's the frequency of the event that is most important. Putting the bat on the ball is an important skill. Throwing strikes in the zone that are more likely to induce weak contact or no contact is an important skill. Having great hand-eye coordination is an important skill. When all those things come together more times than not, variance is going to be in favor of whoever can do those things best. 

That's certainly a testable hypothesis 

[CubinNY]

2 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

That's certainly a testable hypothesis 

It's called a 162-game baseball schedule. It's no fun to say whoever has the best record at the end of the season is the best team and just end things there though. 

[sneakypower]

this is still too mystical for my liking- we've finally stopped given tons of playing time to bad players and naturally the outcomes are better

it's not luck or variance reversing course that we're doing much better with our best player back in the lineup, or showing Mancini/Hosmer/Mervis, Mastrobuoni, Boxberger the door

having a nice run differential in the past doesn't promise a nice RD in the future and ROS projections still have us plainly mediocre so mostly we're just saying "we probably should've won more games than we did given how the team played on whole"

[Tim]

11 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

this is still too mystical for my liking- we've finally stopped given tons of playing time to bad players and naturally the outcomes are better

it's not luck or variance reversing course that we're doing much better with our best player back in the lineup, or showing Mancini/Hosmer/Mervis, Mastrobuoni, Boxberger the door

having a nice run differential in the past doesn't promise a nice RD in the future and ROS projections still have us plainly mediocre so mostly we're just saying "we probably should've won more games than we did given how the team played on whole"

Depending on the ROS projections you're looking at, they may be based on preseason predictions. That's the default at Fangraphs. If you want to look at ROS based on how we've played to date, you have to make that selection in the options. We're much better there.

[sneakypower]

24 minutes ago, Tim said:

Depending on the ROS projections you're looking at, they may be based on preseason predictions. That's the default at Fangraphs. If you want to look at ROS based on how we've played to date, you have to make that selection in the options. We're much better there.

ok yeah, but that's also not a projection

like basing on Rays April season to date stats they'd have been 'projected' 130 wins or something goofy, right

Edited August 4, 2023 by sneakypower

[CubinNY]

A good example of what I'm talking about was Votto's first HR the other night.

He got fooled on the pitch and hit a HR with a 93 MPH EV. One could say he got lucky. 

The pitcher threw a ball over the plate belt high.

Votto has elite bat-to-ball skills and hand-eye coordination. He was able to keep his hands back long enough and get full extension to hit the ball hard enough in the air.

The luck part of all that is that the wind was blowing out. How much it helped the HR I don't know. But if he didn't have the skill to do the rest of what he did, he wouldn't have hit a HR.

[David]

15 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

ok yeah, but that's also not a projection

like basing on Rays April season to date stats they'd have been 'projected' 130 wins or something goofy, right

Sure, except for the part where this is August, not April.

[Rob]

2 minutes ago, David said:

Sure, except for the part where this is August, not April.

Which is what made it his lucky day.

I'll see myself out.

[sneakypower]

6 minutes ago, David said:

Sure, except for the part where this is August, not April.

...ok?

[Tryptamine]

See psd people,  you might have thought you argued about petty stuff, but when it comes it comes to hot takes and arguing meaningless minutiae,  NSBB is top tier.