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Curtis · 06-22-2009, 12:22 PM

knockahoma, I think what RonCo's saying is that (and I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm misinterpreting) you need to do more than find that there are pitchers who appear to be consistent. You need to find that there are more who appear consistent than pure chance would predict.

I think that can be extended to your original point of stretches of consistency. I think in order to 'prove' (or strongly imply) that there's some causality to what you've observed, you'd need to look at all pitchers with careers of 7+ seasons whose entire careers (or all but the first two seasons) were after 1920. I would throw out their first two 'establishing' and last two 'declining' seasons as being uncharacteristic of most players' careers. There are exceptions, especially for guys who suffered CEIs, but I'd want to treat everyone the same.

After establishing your pitching pool, you'd need to correct BABIP by stadium, team defense and year, so you get a value that would be above or below the standard for each season. I'm sure someone has already done this (and likely also corrected for something that hasn't occured to me), and it probably has a weird acronym name, but I wouldn't know where to find it.

Then find out how many discrete three year and four year periods you have. As an example, a pitcher with a ten year career would have four three year periods to look at (3-4-5/4-5-6/5-6-7/6-7-8) and three four year periods. You'd evaluate the three and four year periods seperately, of course.

After finding the number of periods, you'd establish the mean range for a period, and from that and the number of periods you'd calculate the standard deviation. That would tell you how many of these periods were expected to be twenty or fewer points in range. Then count the actual number of periods that were within twenty points.

THEN come back and tell us whether you were seeing an oasis or a mirage. I wish you luck.

And, as long as I'm here, your stories are the best parts of your posts, and you write them well. So, ignore lynchjm, and keep churning out that fiction. Have you tried your hand at writing a dynasty thread? Fiction would seem to be your 'first, best destiny'.

06-22-2009, 12:22 PM	#136
Curtis Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Watertown, New York Posts: 4,567	knockahoma, I think what RonCo's saying is that (and I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm misinterpreting) you need to do more than find that there are pitchers who appear to be consistent. You need to find that there are more who appear consistent than pure chance would predict. I think that can be extended to your original point of stretches of consistency. I think in order to 'prove' (or strongly imply) that there's some causality to what you've observed, you'd need to look at all pitchers with careers of 7+ seasons whose entire careers (or all but the first two seasons) were after 1920. I would throw out their first two 'establishing' and last two 'declining' seasons as being uncharacteristic of most players' careers. There are exceptions, especially for guys who suffered CEIs, but I'd want to treat everyone the same. After establishing your pitching pool, you'd need to correct BABIP by stadium, team defense and year, so you get a value that would be above or below the standard for each season. I'm sure someone has already done this (and likely also corrected for something that hasn't occured to me), and it probably has a weird acronym name, but I wouldn't know where to find it. Then find out how many discrete three year and four year periods you have. As an example, a pitcher with a ten year career would have four three year periods to look at (3-4-5/4-5-6/5-6-7/6-7-8) and three four year periods. You'd evaluate the three and four year periods seperately, of course. After finding the number of periods, you'd establish the mean range for a period, and from that and the number of periods you'd calculate the standard deviation. That would tell you how many of these periods were expected to be twenty or fewer points in range. Then count the actual number of periods that were within twenty points. THEN come back and tell us whether you were seeing an oasis or a mirage. I wish you luck. And, as long as I'm here, your stories are the best parts of your posts, and you write them well. So, ignore lynchjm, and keep churning out that fiction. Have you tried your hand at writing a dynasty thread? Fiction would seem to be your 'first, best destiny'.