It's TRUE! (Except, of course, when it isn't.)
0 Comments Published by Colin Wyers on Thursday, March 6, 2008 at 6:46 PM.
The easiest way to prove a point is to discard any data in the sample that doesn't support your conclusion.
The best part:
I don't want to spend too much time on this, because I could probably expend months simply going over everything that's wrong with this article and quite frankly, I have better ways to waste my time.
But even ignoring the complete disregard for sample size and, well, not cherry-picking your sample, this study doesn't even prove what it purports to. For example, let's completely make up some numbers here and take a look. We'll first list our made-up spring training win percentage, and then our made-up regular season win percentage.
2003: .400, .500
2004: .500, .600
2005: .600, .400
So, over three years, we have a .500 win percentage in spring training, and a .500 win percentage in the regular season. Obviously spring training results predict the regular season!
But only in one season did spring training correctly "predict" the team's future success, and then only weakly. It's plausible, I suppose, that over a five year period, spring training results can act as a gauge of team quality. But that wasn't the question asked. Over a single season, spring training results are meaningless and a predictor of future quality.
The best part:
Now realize we are talking about a total of 897 spring training games and 4,860 regular season games. So that’s not just a fluke.Sure, that sounds convincing. But: its a fluke.
I don't want to spend too much time on this, because I could probably expend months simply going over everything that's wrong with this article and quite frankly, I have better ways to waste my time.
But even ignoring the complete disregard for sample size and, well, not cherry-picking your sample, this study doesn't even prove what it purports to. For example, let's completely make up some numbers here and take a look. We'll first list our made-up spring training win percentage, and then our made-up regular season win percentage.
2003: .400, .500
2004: .500, .600
2005: .600, .400
So, over three years, we have a .500 win percentage in spring training, and a .500 win percentage in the regular season. Obviously spring training results predict the regular season!
But only in one season did spring training correctly "predict" the team's future success, and then only weakly. It's plausible, I suppose, that over a five year period, spring training results can act as a gauge of team quality. But that wasn't the question asked. Over a single season, spring training results are meaningless and a predictor of future quality.
Labels: Baseball
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