Comments on: On the Cy http://gashousegraphs.com/2009/11/19/on-the-cy/ Sun, 19 May 2013 03:52:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: stevesommer05 http://gashousegraphs.com/2009/11/19/on-the-cy/#comment-118 stevesommer05 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:46:45 +0000 http://playahardnine.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/on-the-cy/#comment-118 I’d have to guess that even if you built your WAR model using a more “results” based stat such as ERA Lincecum would still have come out ahead of the Cards duo. Basically you could argue that Lincecum’s quality was better Wainwrights and his quantity better than Carpenter enough to cancel out either Cards pitchers lead in the other…

]]> By: Liam http://gashousegraphs.com/2009/11/19/on-the-cy/#comment-117 Liam Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:58:59 +0000 http://playahardnine.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/on-the-cy/#comment-117 I didn’t see Law’s argument but saw a lot of tut-tutting the worth of sabermetrics on account of it.

In any case, I’m glad Greinke got it in the AL. There were three very worthy candidates in the NL. That two of the three were on the same team put the smart money on Lincecum. I would like to know who Carp was left off two ballots in favor of, though…

]]> By: greenback06 http://gashousegraphs.com/2009/11/19/on-the-cy/#comment-116 greenback06 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:27:06 +0000 http://playahardnine.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/on-the-cy/#comment-116 I don’t think you have to be anti-stat to have some problems with Law’s argument. His case against the Cardinals’ duo apparently rests on the Cardinals’ defense being pretty good, turning Carpenter’s and Wainwright’s non-TTOs into outs. But FanGraphs’ team UZR has the Cardinals’ defense below average actually (and the Giants above average), and that’s not a surprise when Schumaker and Khalil are involved. Then there’s Wainwright’s big split with runners on/bases empty, which FIP and tRA just completely ignore.

I do statistical modeling for a living, and one of the rules of our trade is “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” I’m not sure people really understand how to use the models that have been developed. Does it really make sense to ignore balls in play, as FIP does? Does it make sense to treat a Carpenter groundball like a Thompson groundball as tRA does? Since the justification for the very existence of tRA and FIP has been that they predict future ERA better than current ERA does, does either of these make sense in the context of a Cy Young discussion, where presumably we’re more interested in the results attained strictly in 2009?

It looks an awfully lot like folks found a new toy, and they’re going to use it even in places where it may not be appropriate. This is how a couple people in my line of work helped to create a worldwide economic meltdown. Now there won’t be 12% unemployment because of the Cy Young vote, and Lincecum was a reasonable candidate anyway, but the “we’re the smart guys” attitude is really annoying, in part because the smart guys may well be oversimplifying based on a clever model yet again.

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