Friday, May 24, 2013
Paul Daugherty: Old-v-New schools of thought
(cincinnati.com)
One, two big schools
All the worlds are
Colliding all around you
Read More...I was going to write something today for SI.com re Votto. Specifically, that Votto represented one of the clearest cases of Old-v-New schools of thought, re hitting production. The idea was discussed when The Technician was sitting on 4 HR/20 BI. Now, he’s up to 7 and 22. Both #s are subpar for him and, in fact, for a No. 3 hitter. The obvious question being, can a guy who ranks 11th among NL 1Bs in BI be seen as having a ...
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1 2 3 >But I'm sure it is true that some people think this is essentially a form of math, and they don't like math. The ideal way to disavow someone of that notion would be to get them into it via James. Not all that practical nowadays.
(Seriously, though, lady, graduating high school is a great time to stop talking about "nerds" and "geeks", if not preferably sooner.)
First paragraph of TFA:
Hey, you know what will make the nerdist position on the argument more amenable to people not already in the choir? Casually and rudely dismissing anyone who writes an honest accounting of why they're not inclined to enjoy the mathier side of life out of hand.
You kids are such dumbasses sometimes.
This. SABR newsletters of the mid-1980s (I joined at the end of 1984) were still promoting basic demographic information, such as newly discovered birth dates for particular players, not trafficking in Runs Created or Linear Weights.
Thinking too hard gives you wrinkles!
Having just watched The Bunker...every time she says nerd or geek (which she does seven times) I read it as "Jews".
I dislike math, I guess. I still remember how happy I was the moment I realized that I didn't need to take a single math class in college. But I love what math is capable of, and I love attacking problems with data, and math and baseball seem like good friends to me.
(Forget) that. Has Chavez chimed in?
FTA:
You're absolutely right. A totally good faith exploration of both those she went to high school with and the SABRmetric community. Especially given the innocuousness of the post you quoted, it seems like you're just pushing an agenda here irrespective of the actual discussion going on here.
Sorry, it was the whole "..and their sympathizers.." .
When I left the futures and foreign exchange area and went to the equities side of the business, I was able to see that it was all about determining proper value of an asset and its productive abilities.
The oppressed have become the oppressors!
Weren't we supposed to get villas, dachas, or something? Or at least T-shirts, when this glorious day fulfilling the promise of the revolution came to pass?
She is not trying to start a conversation and is not asking to be persuaded. She is using ad hominems toward people she irrationally dislikes due to youthful insecurities she couldn't let go. The article is not a dialogue- she literally says she is scared of long division- so dismissing it as stupid is a response in kind.
Not to mention that it would be redundant, since the main point of the article is that she's stupid, proud of it, doesn't want to be bothered learning anything complex, and people who are smarter than her are mean.
Despite that, she admits she's actually learned a few things (like W-L record not meaning anything). I actually take out of this that if she can manage to make progress, however slight, then it's actually an encouraging sign that people who aren't complete Luddites must be doing even better, and continued progress is inevitable.
If you can't understand the math--or choose not to--you can't understand the music. You may like the music, but understanding it and having a more richly rewarding appreciation of it is lost.
There's an app for that.
...anyway, after RTFA, she thinks Duane Kuiper is a journalist. He's one of the few former players who does play-by-play as opposed to commentary, but that's still not journalism. I'll quit feeding the troll now.
This is as stupid as anything in the article (which is pretty stupid). Everything in the universe is "mathematical". Everything in the universe is also other things.
Nomination for most pretentious comment of the year.
So basically the dumb thing about this article is the author kind of stupid and is proud of it. That's kind of like the definition of dumb, right?
I disagree that you need to understand math to understand music.
Simple, logical concepts almost exclusively based in algebra.
Opposite. While I often do, I don't here.
Disagreeing with you is no problem, though, Eso! :-)
Getting an engineering degree (OK, not getting the degree but taking the classes and learning exactly what's going on) made lava lamps no fun at all.
They were very little fun in the first place, but now - zero fun.
Trying to figure numbers makes most people feel dumb, so they don't do it; people who are good at numbers are (occasionally) envied or (usually) scorned as "nerds" and worse. And using numbers to evaluate a sporting event? That's just wrong.
I was obsessed with numbers AS a little kid, but when literature really got going for me, calculus just started to be annoying.
Haven't met my daughter, then, or my (now retired) math teacher sister-in-law. Ü
However, the above mirrors my experience - quickness in arithmetic/algebra that became aversion to calculus (even when I got good grades - on my 2nd try at the subject.) I've long realized that I was the weird one, not my friends for whom numbers remain something of a mystery.
Trying to figure numbers makes most people feel dumb, so they don't do it; people who are good at numbers are (occasionally) envied or (usually) scorned as "nerds" and worse. And using numbers to evaluate a sporting event? That's just wrong.
I had occasion to read a book titled "Innumeracy", wordplay on illiteracy, and it aptly described not just folks' dislike of math but their frequent and blatant misuse of it. I think this lady might qualify on both counts.
But, but...
You have to add AND divide!
When I was starting 4th grade, Joe Torre was in the process of winning the batting title for the local team. I remember the playground discussion taking place about exactly what was meant by 'batting average'. The first theory was that it represented 1 for a single, 2 for a double, etc., and added (i.e., total bases). That was quickly shot down -- at least one smarty-pants recognized that you had to divide by at-bats. Only after consulting the back of a baseball card -- I believe Rod Carew's -- did we recognize it for what it was. So the fourth graders figured out SLG, total bases, and BA right there at the monkey bars. This all took place literally among the chickens in rural southern Illinois (Cardinal's fans, even), quite a ways from some MIT-prep academy like Hunter College Elementary on the Upper East Side.
One can listen to and enjoy music on many levels, from analytic (such as: hearing how motivic fragments are used throughout) to not (such as: cool tunes! cool sounds!). I'm not convinced it's a bad thing to experience music on one or several levels, including just non-mathematical, non-analytic ones. Some folks never reach an analytic or mathematical level of appreciating music but love it just the same. I've written music before, and it's equally enjoyable for me to hear someone say they liked the work on a purely visceral level, on a purely analytic level, or a combination of these.
Second, I agree with Sam H. I don't think it serves the best interests of BBTF, baseball or statistics to heap scorn on this writer. She might visit this site and then what will have been accomplished? She doesn't sound stoopid, although she holds some positions that I and many of us disagree with. Judging her may be a nice way of amusing oneself, but it serves no practical purpose. I am sure many posters will disagree with my approach. But I thought that, along with a love of baseball, the premise of this site was to understand and explore what really works in baseball -- what scores runs, what prevents runs, how should a roster really be constructed, etc. And the scorn and judging on display here does not meet the standard of "What works?"
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