Posted by bad_luck on 7/20/2017 12:55:00 PM (view original):
Posted by sjpoker on 7/20/2017 12:46:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bad_luck on 7/20/2017 10:32:00 AM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 7/20/2017 10:12:00 AM (view original):
Except when it's not? Like when it says Radke/Schrezer were comparable?
In terms of runs allowed, when accounting for context, they were comparable.
In terms of runs allowed, based on the very narrow definition that BR WAR constrains it to, then perhaps. But it - really - doesn't tell us that Scherzer is a better pitcher than Radke. And we can't reliably assume that if the pitchers were switched, that they would perform relatively the same in each of the other's era/team.
That's all that WAR measures. In terms of runs allowed, accounting for context, how good was the pitcher? It doesn't measure how the would perform, it only measures how he did perform.
We can reliably infer that a 2016 NL pitcher would give up more runs in 2000 AL than he did in 2016. And vice versa, if 28 year old Pedro Martinez popped up in 2016 instead of 2000, he probably would have been even more dominating.
Which is why it cannot reliably tell us who had the better season. Or I guess it can tell us a narrow part of the picture which we know to be imperfect.
We have a program at my job that is supposed to be the end-all audit program. It looks at every type of situation, even if it's customized for a specific client, and gives us a perfect audit - even telling us specifically what is off.
Well I should say that's what it is supposed to do. And that is what I'm told it does. But it doesn't. You end up having to run three or four other reports and you have to know what the inconsistencies are so that you can adjust it so it does tell you what you need.
I actually added some commented out code in the header today unofficially calling it the "Bad Luck WAR" report. Because that's what it is. You can't rely on it to do what everyone says it should do unless you use other inputs.
( I'm fairly certain that the other coder that works on the program is going to think that I have lost my ****. )