The Other Fifteen

An extension of last night's fun with graphing.

I'm not saying. I'm just saying.

Labels: Baseball, Defense, Derek Jeter, Enhanced Gameday

There are some things that computers are very good at doing:

• Putting men into space
• Track every aircraft in US airspace in real-time
• Simulate and model a nuclear explosion
• Play chess better than any human being
• Visualize basically anything
• Model the interactions of particles too small to measure
• Discover the nuclear processes in a dying star billions of miles away
• Decode the basis of all life on earth 

Things computers cannot do, due to their innate complexity:

• Analyze how good of a fielder Derek Jeter is

Oh-kay. Let's hear it from Cap'n Jetes himself:

"Maybe it was a computer glitch," the three-time Gold Glove winner said of the report. But Jeter just didn't laugh this one off. He defended himself, saying, "Every [shortstop] doesn't stay in the same spot, everyone doesn't have the same pitching. Everyone doesn't have the same hitters running, it's impossible to do that."

Jeter, 33, pointed out you can get the exact same ground ball off the exact same pitcher and there could be an average runner or there could be Ichiro running. "How can you compute that?" he asked.

That's an interesting question, Derek Jeter! Obviously there's no way that computers could know who the baserunners are on a batted ball! It's not as though a meticulous, play-by-play record of the events on a baseball field are kept.

Well, except for Retrosheet. And the BIS data and the STATS, Inc. data. And the MLB Gameday data you can download as XML files. So there's only several hundred ways we can compute all of the extra variables that Derek Jeter is talking about.

But still: Derek Jeter, more compicated than astrophysics or the human genome!

(Hat tip: Tango.)

Labels: Baseball, Defense, Derek Jeter

This is Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter. I want you to note the lack of infield predators; Derek Jeter's slugging percentage is high enough that infield predators are afraid to roam Yankee Stadium altogether. Apparently this, and his having played alongside Scott Brosius, has given Jeter the godlike gift of the "Intangibles," the sacred trust of baseball journalists and fans, used to show unto others a ballplayer's true value without having to resort to facts or onfield accomplishments.

Jeter posses more Intangibles than any other ballplayer in existance, in spite of being of a ethnicity other than white and being able to hit. Why? Because he's a True Yankee. And because of this, people are given license to say the most absurd things about him possible:

In a way, Jeter’s prospective role reminds me of the role General Douglas MacArthur played near the end of his military career. MacArthur is one of the most decorated and well respected officers in the history of the United States, distinguished for his service in the Vera Cruz Expedition and WWI, and later for his success in WWII. But it was his orchestration of the landing at Inchon in the Korean War when he was 70-years-old that was his greatest accomplishment.

Jeter’s role in the Yankees’ 2008 season is like MacArthur’s role before Korea. Jeter’s career clearly needs no more justification, but if the Yankees want to win the World Series this year, they need the 2008 Spring Training to be Jeter’s Inchon.

Excuse me? Did I hear you right?

Are you seriously... I mean, SERIOUSLY comparing "leading" a baseball team to being a five-star general? Is making sure Phillip Hughes performs well really as emotionally draining a task as sending hundreds of young soliders and Marines to die at the landing at Inchon?

Read up on the Battle of Inchon. Read about Chesty Puller and the 1st Marine Regiment. Read about the long legacy of hard, devoted sacrifice of thousands of brave Marines as they made their way through Korea. Read about the Chosin Few.

And then you want to sit here and tell me that is roughly equivalent to some rich, womanizing dirtbag playing Tammy Wynette for Andy Pettite? Do you even know things? At all? About anything?

Labels: Baseball, Derek Jeter, Intangibles