Quote:
Originally Posted by Long_Long_Name
Should capitalizing on your chances be more highly prized than the potential to capitalize on your chances that you created? Well, look at it this way: In 2007, Player A had more RBI than player B, and despite having slightly worse OBP and SLG, he capitalized more on his chances. If I look at it in hindsight, I'd rather have had Player A on my team this year. But, if I had to pick a player to have on my team next year, I'd take Player B. Why? Easy: I've never seen anything demonstrating that capitalizing is a skill rather than the fruit of pure randomness, whereas there is evidence of high correlation of performance from one year to the next for stats like, say, OBP and SLG.
|
It can always breakdown to something like what "valuable", but the hindsight and randomness make good sense to me being included for picking MVP. I have no problem with a "lucky" player being named MVP even though sabermetrically he is not at the top of the heap. So I think there is a fair argument in that. The stathead way is to compute the route most likely to achieve positive results, not get the "right" answer in every scenario. Teammates and results can and do matter, though that is no reason to disregard as malarkey tools that were basically constructed backwards from the "right" answer and do usually get it.