Posted by bad_luck on 9/7/2016 9:46:00 AM (view original):
You realize that all formulas are "man-made," right? It's not like scientists stumbled upon Slugging percentage while looking for a cancer cure.

I wasn't talking to you, troll

It seems like your only problem with WAR is that it's calculated two different ways. Which is a weird thing to get hung up on.

Posted by bad_luck on 9/7/2016 9:53:00 AM (view original):
It seems like your only problem with WAR is that it's calculated two different ways. Which is a weird thing to get hung up on.

Ya, silly me for wanting a "stat" to have a concrete formula.

When was the last time people disagreed on how to calculate slugging percentage?

Well, people actually do think slugging percentage is wrong in the way its formula weighs each event. But instead of coming up with a new formula and calling it slugging percentage, they call it something else (wOBA).

WAR is to baseball as polls are to politics.

Meaningless numbers calculated with whatever slant the person wants to put on the results.

Posted by bad_luck on 9/7/2016 10:05:00 AM (view original):
Well, people actually do think slugging percentage is wrong in the way its formula weighs each event. But instead of coming up with a new formula and calling it slugging percentage, they call it something else (wOBA).

Slugging percentage doesn't weigh anything. It's total bases per AB. You count up all the total bases a player achieves and divide it by the number of ABs. There's no weighting or room for interpretation in that. It calculates something specific using concrete values.

WAR doesn't calculate anything specific. It was arbitrarily created to measure "a player's total contribution to his team." There's no way you can ever have a set formula to accurately measure something like that because it's subjective from the get-go.

I get the distinction is hard for you to make though, as you've proven oh so many times already.

Posted by all3 on 9/7/2016 10:05:00 AM (view original):
WAR is to baseball as polls are to politics.

Meaningless numbers calculated with whatever slant the person wants to put on the results.

"This"

Meaningless and subjective.

Posted by Jtpsops on 9/7/2016 10:07:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 9/7/2016 10:05:00 AM (view original):
Well, people actually do think slugging percentage is wrong in the way its formula weighs each event. But instead of coming up with a new formula and calling it slugging percentage, they call it something else (wOBA).

Slugging percentage doesn't weigh anything. It's total bases per AB. You count up all the total bases a player achieves and divide it by the number of ABs. There's no weighting or room for interpretation in that. It calculates something specific using concrete values.

WAR doesn't calculate anything specific. It was arbitrarily created to measure "a player's total contribution to his team." There's no way you can ever have a set formula to accurately measure something like that because it's subjective from the get-go.

I get the distinction is hard for you to make though, as you've proven oh so many times already.

"This"

Ditto to all3's comment.

Posted by sjpoker on 9/7/2016 10:09:00 AM (view original):

Posted by all3 on 9/7/2016 10:05:00 AM (view original):
WAR is to baseball as polls are to politics.

Meaningless numbers calculated with whatever slant the person wants to put on the results.

"This"

Meaningless and subjective.

Careful. Now BL is going to demand that you give him your definition of subjective, then tell you ad nauseum that you don't understand English.

Posted by Jtpsops on 9/7/2016 10:07:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 9/7/2016 10:05:00 AM (view original):
Well, people actually do think slugging percentage is wrong in the way its formula weighs each event. But instead of coming up with a new formula and calling it slugging percentage, they call it something else (wOBA).

Slugging percentage doesn't weigh anything. It's total bases per AB. You count up all the total bases a player achieves and divide it by the number of ABs. There's no weighting or room for interpretation in that. It calculates something specific using concrete values.

WAR doesn't calculate anything specific. It was arbitrarily created to measure "a player's total contribution to his team." There's no way you can ever have a set formula to accurately measure something like that because it's subjective from the get-go.

I get the distinction is hard for you to make though, as you've proven oh so many times already.

Well, there is room for interpretation regarding slugging percentage. When you calculate SLG, you multiply singles by one, doubles by two, etc. Doubles are weighed twice what singles are. Now, I get that it's done that way because you get two bases on a double, but we know that doubles aren't actually twice as valuable as singles.

So we can adjust the weight of each event (.89 for a single, 1.27 for a double, etc) and get a stat that more accurately measures a player's offensive production. The stat isn't called slugging percentage, but it's doing the same thing with different weights.

Second point, you're applying a made up definition of statistic. WAR is a statistic. So is wOBA, so is pitcher W/L. The fact that something is a stat doesn't mean it's also good or useful.

Posted by bad_luck on 9/7/2016 11:34:00 AM (view original):

Posted by Jtpsops on 9/7/2016 10:07:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 9/7/2016 10:05:00 AM (view original):
Well, people actually do think slugging percentage is wrong in the way its formula weighs each event. But instead of coming up with a new formula and calling it slugging percentage, they call it something else (wOBA).

Slugging percentage doesn't weigh anything. It's total bases per AB. You count up all the total bases a player achieves and divide it by the number of ABs. There's no weighting or room for interpretation in that. It calculates something specific using concrete values.

WAR doesn't calculate anything specific. It was arbitrarily created to measure "a player's total contribution to his team." There's no way you can ever have a set formula to accurately measure something like that because it's subjective from the get-go.

I get the distinction is hard for you to make though, as you've proven oh so many times already.

Well, there is room for interpretation regarding slugging percentage. When you calculate SLG, you multiply singles by one, doubles by two, etc. Doubles are weighed twice what singles are. Now, I get that it's done that way because you get two bases on a double, but we know that doubles aren't actually twice as valuable as singles.

So we can adjust the weight of each event (.89 for a single, 1.27 for a double, etc) and get a stat that more accurately measures a player's offensive production. The stat isn't called slugging percentage, but it's doing the same thing with different weights.

"Now, I get that it's done that way because you get two bases on a double, but we know that doubles aren't actually twice as valuable as singles."

This statement proves you're an idiot. The formula isn't created as such because someone thought a double was twice as valuable as a single. It's purely counting the number of total bases. The formula could easily just read Total Bases/AB = Slugging %.

It has ZERO to do with weighting. It tells you the number of bases a hitter gets for every AB. Period.

Posted by bad_luck on 9/7/2016 11:38:00 AM (view original):
Second point, you're applying a made up definition of statistic. WAR is a statistic. So is wOBA, so is pitcher W/L. The fact that something is a stat doesn't mean it's also good or useful.

So you're acknowledging that WAR, wOBA and W-L aren't good or useful. It's about damn time.

Posted by Jtpsops on 9/7/2016 11:47:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 9/7/2016 11:34:00 AM (view original):

Posted by Jtpsops on 9/7/2016 10:07:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 9/7/2016 10:05:00 AM (view original):
Well, people actually do think slugging percentage is wrong in the way its formula weighs each event. But instead of coming up with a new formula and calling it slugging percentage, they call it something else (wOBA).

Slugging percentage doesn't weigh anything. It's total bases per AB. You count up all the total bases a player achieves and divide it by the number of ABs. There's no weighting or room for interpretation in that. It calculates something specific using concrete values.

WAR doesn't calculate anything specific. It was arbitrarily created to measure "a player's total contribution to his team." There's no way you can ever have a set formula to accurately measure something like that because it's subjective from the get-go.

I get the distinction is hard for you to make though, as you've proven oh so many times already.

Well, there is room for interpretation regarding slugging percentage. When you calculate SLG, you multiply singles by one, doubles by two, etc. Doubles are weighed twice what singles are. Now, I get that it's done that way because you get two bases on a double, but we know that doubles aren't actually twice as valuable as singles.

So we can adjust the weight of each event (.89 for a single, 1.27 for a double, etc) and get a stat that more accurately measures a player's offensive production. The stat isn't called slugging percentage, but it's doing the same thing with different weights.

"Now, I get that it's done that way because you get two bases on a double, but we know that doubles aren't actually twice as valuable as singles."

This statement proves you're an idiot. The formula isn't created as such because someone thought a double was twice as valuable as a single. It's purely counting the number of total bases. The formula could easily just read Total Bases/AB = Slugging %.

It has ZERO to do with weighting. It tells you the number of bases a hitter gets for every AB. Period.

Again, I understand why it's done. But, regardless of intent, SLG still weighs each event (even if you can calculate it using TB). That's ok. We should value doubles higher than singles.

If we started with a blank slate knowing what we know now, we wouldn't use 1, 2, 3, and 4 for the weights. There's a better, more accurate way to measure power.

Posted by Jtpsops on 9/7/2016 11:49:00 AM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 9/7/2016 11:38:00 AM (view original):
Second point, you're applying a made up definition of statistic. WAR is a statistic. So is wOBA, so is pitcher W/L. The fact that something is a stat doesn't mean it's also good or useful.

So you're acknowledging that WAR, wOBA and W-L aren't good or useful. It's about damn time.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying they are all stats. Even if we disagree on which ones are useful.