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Originally Posted by abailey3313
I wouldn't.
Why isn't eight at-bats enough to draw conclusions from? If Batter A has only faced Pitcher A eight times in his career and is 0/8 against him, should we be looking at something else to decide whether or not Batter A should be pinch hit for? Same thing if the batter is 8/8. If a player is 0/1 or 0/2 against someone, yeah, the sample size needs to be expanded. But at some point the numbers gain meaning.
And since when do "numbers mean nothing at all"? That's preposterous.
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I had Excel produce a random number between 0 and 1. A number .265 or lower indicated a hit. A number above .265 indicated an out. Each batter got eight at bats. I ran ten such groups.
The batter went 2 for 8 (.250) twice. 3 times he went 3 for 8 (.375). 3 times he also went 1 for 8 (.125). Once he went 0 for 8 (.000). And another time he went 4 for 8 (.500)!
Larussa looks at the outliers and assumes that they represent something meaningful about that player's performance. He will pinch hit the .375 batter over the .125 one. But it's the same batter. It's chance.
Now, it may not be completely chance. No player is a number like .265. He may indeed perform well against certain pitchers, certain pitch-types, or he may have improved his timing by taking extra batting practice swings. But Larussa goes purely on the numbers, and they do not give you any basis whatsoever to judge performance by. Even overall, after 80 at bats, our hitter was hitting .250--close but significantly lower than his "true" ability of .265. That gets us closer to a meaningful sample size, but it's rare that a player faces the same pitcher 80 times in his career. Even so, Larussa would conclude that the .250 hitter against pitcher X was good but not great when what he really is is just what he is.
Edit: This is after ten samples. If we did this thousands of times, doubtless we would have players hitting well over .500, even one or two 1.000s. But it's still the same batter. That's what I mean when I say the numbers may not mean anything at all.