Game 159, Indians at Mariners
DMZ · September 27, 2007 at 6:21 pm · Filed Under Game Threads
Byrd v Baek. With McLaren supposedly assured of retaining his job, it’ll be interesting to see if his… Clement’s DHing? And Ibanez is… really? We’re going to have a whole other year of this?
Cleveland shows their respect for the rest of the league with a sub-tastic lineup.
Comments
66 Responses to “Game 159, Indians at Mariners”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Read Baker’s blog. Bavasi talked about the human element, and how it’s not fantasy baseball they do.
Is Bill Krueger suggesting that the Mariners retain Jeff Weaver?
What-ever… That man has no shame.
The legend lives on from the Ballardites on down
Of the bad team they call Marineros
The team, it is said, never gives up its vets
When their age has made them turn sucky
With bad contracts galore – a hundred million bucks more
Than the Florida Marlins paid Hanley
The fans good and true were about to be screwed
When the hopes of the playoffs came early….
That’s the best I can do. One of you all will have to finish it.
Unfortunately, it’s not reality baseball they do (well) either.
Regarding the official scorer… I wasn’t making an argument. I was stating a fact. Two facts, really.
The M’s official scorer is a friend of mine. We’ve been friends for many many years. I know him very well. We have had many conversations about his scoring decisions and what causes him to decide one way or another when the decisions are close. Based on these discussions, I can say with relative certainty that bias for or against the home-team players, when the home-team is the Mariners, is not a factor in his scoring decisions.
I hope that helps.
To extend it further, we have also discussed the roles of the official scorer in general and the fact that the official scorer is an MLB employee (not an employee of the Mariners). We’ve discussed whether the home team puts pressure on the official scorer to make certain decisions and, if so, how much, and whether, based on what my friend has heard and seen, in talking to other official scorers, his experience with the M’s is similar to the experiences of other official scorers around the league. Based what I have learned in these conversations, I think I am in a position to say that the “home-team” bias is probably a myth. There just is not the connection between the official scorer and the home team that people seem to believe exists.
How’s that?
OK, the 2 things are: bias for/against home team players is not a factor in his decisions, and the home team bias thing is (probably) a myth.
So, CCW, what you’re saying is, he flips a coin? 🙂
Just kidding…
What DOES your friend’s foray into the rule book say about WFB and that wicked bouncing ball tonight?
I didn’t see the play last night. Check out rule 10.12, though, in the official MLB Rules. The standard is “ordinary effort”. So, if by ordinary effort, Willie should have made the play, then it should be considered an error. In practice, I would say that there are fewer errors awarded than the casual observer would think should be awarded. Most of my discussions with my friend have been about errors not awarded, rather than the reverse. This stems from the “ordinary effort” language. If the play is at all difficult, an error probably won’t be awarded. For example, if there’s a bad hop, if the ball is especially hard hit, etc. My guess is that if you believe that there is some sort of bias in scoring, and you adjust your perspective so that the threshhold for an error is a few notches higher, you’ll see that there isn’t really a bias. What you perceive is a bias is really just a different standard for errors than intuition suggests is appropriate.
By the way, we value analysis here. Has anyone seen a study on this question? The critical variables are certainly quantifiable…
If the play is at all difficult, an error probably won’t be awarded.
I think that’s my (our) gripe with the scoring sometimes. These aren’t 16-year-old high school kids out there, these are major leaguer. Every play doesn’t have to be an easy two hopper or a high, lazy fly to be routine.
In my mind the primary, if not only, reason we’re seeing so many fielding records these days is the reluctance of official scorers across the league to hand out errors, except for wild throws or the easiest of fly balls and grounders. Certainly a bad hop requires more than ordinary effort, but a hard ground ball should be fielded by a major leaguer.
Your friend may well be correct that that’s the standard that should be applied, but it’s a different standard than when I was a kid.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but, for the sake of argument, look at it this way: the guys we are watching are the best of the best. Many plays that they make look routine would in fact be muffed by 99.99% of the general population.
Also, I don’t trust your observation that “it’s a different standard than when I was a kid.” Most “back in my day, things were different” arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny. Everyone seems to think things were tougher, more demanding, etc., back in the day. I think this says more about the way our memories work than about the way things actually were…
So you’re arguing that our memories can be biased, causing us to view things in a different way, but we shouldn’t consider that you, arguing on behalf of your friend the scorer, might not see things that favor his assertions of unbias and general fairness.
Based on these discussions, I can say with relative certainty that bias for or against the home-team players, when the home-team is the Mariners, is not a factor in his scoring decisions.
…
Based what I have learned in these conversations, I think I am in a position to say that the “home-team” bias is probably a myth.
…
By the way, we value analysis here. Has anyone seen a study on this question? The critical variables are certainly quantifiable…
Nah. What we should do is find someone who says he knows the scorer, and just see what he says. I’m sure that he would be able to make a certain determination that would settle the issue. Like, say, you, when you started on this subject:
The supposed “home-team bias” of official scorers is an absolute myth.
Oh, it’s a done deal then. I don’t know why we’d go looking for data to investigate this after it’s been so clearly stated that it’s an absolute myth. Why bother?
I’ll just give you the solution, rather than continue to grind my teeth in frustration: there have been looks at whether there’s bias by the hometown scorer. You could find them if you wanted, but whatever.
Short version: some scorers appear to be pretty biased in favor of the home team. The White Sox guy, as of 2006, was the worst in a study Dan Fox ran. Standard caveats apply.
I was trying to remember just who Blowers actually commented on during the season; that he felt was notorious through the years for favoring the home side…
The M’s were 7th in home-town bias: they were charged for errors at a rate 10% lower while at home, and visitors were charged at a 5% lower rate. So even if you argue they’ve historically just been soft, they’ve also historically been twice as generous to home town players.
You know, you could make your point without being so dickish. That said, I still get your point. I’m not sure if you get mine: I have had lots of actual conversations with one of the people whom people think is biased about that very subject. I would think you would find that interesting. I would think the people who read things here would want to hear that perspective. If it really causes you to grind your teeth… then shit, that’s your problem.
Here’s the Dan Fox article, for those interested: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5546
I would say DMZ… overstates… Fox’s conclusions. The articles is chalk full of caveats and qualifications and contains no real conclusions about hometown bias. There is no effort, for example, to correct for the fact that we would expect guys to play better D in the stadium where they play half their games.
Here is a statement from the article: “teams were charged with 3% fewer errors at home over the seven season sample.” Might not that 3% be accounted for by something other than bias?
53: Great job on the lyric, DW…wanted to add another verse myself, but couldn’t come up with any more good lines.
Anyways, too funny…thanx! 🙂