Quote:
Originally Posted by NoOne
well, you say that but then you go on to use small sample data as evidence and completely ignoring the ramifications. like the update that you give is predicated on a small sample of data that cannot tell you anything with confidence. your previous posts used inferences from small samples, too.
alot of this depends on your scouting settings - if you have no ratings on, then you have to resort to trial and error in this situations (pitchers without much of a track record). if you have a good scout and feel comfortable with the ratings, then it's a balck-and-white decision as to when a ph is best for the team and who they should use.
unless those pitchers happen to be the freaky 2-way guys that develop their batting ratings while only pitching in the minors, then they can't consistently hit as pinch htters .. regardless of what the results (good or bad) from a handful of AB tell you. if they were 10-for-50 i'd say the same things if they were 30-50 --you can't know much from that sample.
Chris Shelton - hit ~.400 throgh the first 2-3 months of a season and was virtually never heard of again... way more than 50ab and better resutls. Brennan Bosch hits .340 with power as a rookie for 1/2 the year.. .then bombs... has another 1/2 good year the next and a pitiful other half... soon it's known that he was simply lucky early on while pitchers found his weaknesses. you should be able to think of numerous instances of these types of batters and pitchers from watching your own home team. (i forget the pitchers name started off hot including a no-hitter or nearly and then never pitched well after that - not galerraga (near no-hitter too), but he fits the description - he didn't bomb as fast as the guy i cannot think of the name)
(if they are that competent at hitting, there's a good chance they'd provide greater value in different roles.. especially if the power they are showing is actually real - only a larger sample can clear that up. a couple lucky hits in 50ab can severely impact slugging pct.)
if they don't have better ratings than the player you are pinch hitting for, then you are reducing probabilty of success when you use them. there's no dodging that fact.
if they are successful without good hitting ratings, then you have found a bug in the game - provide data and report it int he bug section.
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then you and i have a different definition of the word 'significant'. let's take the kid who is 17 for 43. for simplicity, let's assume that a pitcher usually hits .100. one hit every 10 at bats.
in 10 at bats, it would be perfectly normal to get 1, 2 or 3 hits. heck, do that twice - 20 at bats. let's say a guy was completely freakishly 'lucky' and got four hits after having gotten 3 hits in the previous 10 at bats. so he is now 7-20. at this point, he is already at the extremes of probability. but it is a small sample size...but one that is getting bigger.
now let's say that this guy who is already extremely 'lucky' then goes 10 for his next 23. the larger the sample, the more confidence you have that the data is significant, that it is an actual trend. unusual would be as pitcher getting three times the number of hits as a typical pitcher. this pitcher is currently hitting FOUR times a typical pitcher and is getting near 50 at bats. the extra base hits also suggest something is different.
do i think that this player is a missed batting star? no. do i suspect that he would regress to the mean? of course he would. but this data sample is suggesting that his mean will not be a typical .100 for batting average.
i do not use anything that shows 'real' ratings. if i did, then i wouldn't be here. so reality unfolds slowly. as far as this being a possible bug, you may be right there. i really hope it isn't. this player is only 21 years old, so maybe there is a bug where a younger player has not yet lost his 'special' attributes. who knows?
prediction:
in his next 43 at bats, it is almost impossible for him to get 17 hits. that is a stretch of success that any position could hardly manage if you looked at the best 43 at bat stretch for a whole season (of course, maybe a whole season does not fit your definition of significant, i suppose). even 10 hits would be well above an average pitcher. but i would wager that the combined hits will be above 21. 21 hits would be the current 17 plus 4 more for a typical .100-hitting pitcher in 43 at bats. why is that? because i CAN infer something from this small sample size. it DOES show something. would you like to wager one million eTacos? 21 hits or less in the first 83 at bats and you win.