Quote:
Originally Posted by Charley575
Ok, yes. Look, I'm a physics major, so I understand that advanced mathematical formulas like VORP tell the "true" story about a hitter's value. That's what they're for. The reason that there is such resistance, however, is that nobody remembers VORP. Nobody walks away from the ballpark saying, "Woa, that was unbelievable the way that guy walked twice and doubled with the bases empty. That's the greatest thing I ever saw! I bet his VORP is gonna skyrocket!" No. They don't say that. But if a guy strikes out three times and then hits a 1-2 pitch 450 feet with the bases loaded to win the game in the bottom of the ninth, people remember that. People "feel" that. It's special. That's what I'm talking about. Because MVP awards are voted upon, and not simply given to the player with the best VORP, one has a legitimate beef in complaining that OOTP is not following the usual protocol for awarding the MVP. I think that was the OP's sentiment. He was complaining that the person who was awarded the MVP by OOTP was not the person who would have been awarded the MVP IRL, and stricly in that sense, he's right.
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Well said, Charley. That's exactly how I felt, in addition to the frustration of not being able to firmly grasp the mathematics involved.
My mind just rebels at the thought of a Bill James coming up with some weird formula and saying, "I'm brilliant, therefore you must believe in this" and the rest of us just following along and nodding our heads. I'm sorry, but many of you who favor VORP really don't understand it either and could not calculate the OOTP version using a spreadsheet if you tried all night. You like to think it makes you look brilliant to support it without knowing exactly how it works. Those of you who think you do, witness the confusion over RC/27, for goodness sake.
I'm taking the traditional view of baseball performance, with the statistics that are tried, true, and simple to understand. If that makes me look stupid and backward in some eyes, so be it. One of the first responders, and now Charley, made the excellent point that it is more
realistic not to allow the computer to select awards based on VORP and RC/27. Why? Because I cannot ever, EVER, recall anybody talking about VORP in terms of baseball award winners and hall of fame members in real life.
So long, from the OOTP village idiot!
