Cardinals kick field goal instead of going for TD, WTF!!!!

[Greeksquared]

Sports is the only area of society where such mistakes are so open to the public and so blindly passed over. I mean look at how quants have completely take over wall street and that is a "game" where optimal strategy is nearly impossible to figure out.

Football, basketball, and most especially baseball can be analyzed very precisely using relatively simple applications to determine the right play to maximize winning percentage which is all that matters. There isn't nearly as much money in these sports but just imagine if one of these quant hedge funds took over a baseball franchise. This team would break all sorts of records within 5 years and almost surely make the playoffs every year. This Cardinal loss probably cost the team at least 100k, possibly much much more if they fall 1 game short of a playoff game. I guess I'll stop now as I could go on forever but it just strikes me as an impossibility of how sub-optimal decision making is in all sports across the board.

[Dudd]

Baseball's run fairly optimally, it's not like by perfectly running a team you'll pick up 30 wins a season or that wall street guys would just rape the current sabermetricly inclined front offices when it comes to trades/the draft.

[Greeksquared]

[ QUOTE ]
Baseball's run fairly optimally, it's not like by perfectly running a team you'll pick up 30 wins a season or that wall street guys would just rape the current sabermetricly inclined front offices when it comes to trades/the draft.

[/ QUOTE ]

For all of you that have any doubt please read Baseball between the numbers by Baseball prospectus. It is run highly sub-optimal in terms of base stealing, bunting, batting order, pitching rotation,pinch hitting, closer usage and pretty much every other aspect of the game. If you want to discuss this more pm me, I don't feel like unleashing all my pent up feelings on sports management debacles here. Perhaps I will start a blog.

[kyleb]

Dudd's right. Baseball is run fairly optimally; you aren't going to win 10 more games by outlawing sacrifice bunting and stealing. Look at Oakland.

[kidcolin]

[ QUOTE ]
Dudd's right. Baseball is run fairly optimally; you aren't going to win 10 more games by outlawing sacrifice bunting and stealing. Look at Oakland.

[/ QUOTE ]

seriously.. have fun falling short every year because your team can't do the little things.

[Phildo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Baseball's run fairly optimally, it's not like by perfectly running a team you'll pick up 30 wins a season or that wall street guys would just rape the current sabermetricly inclined front offices when it comes to trades/the draft.

[/ QUOTE ]

For all of you that have any doubt please read Baseball between the numbers by Baseball prospectus. It is run highly sub-optimal in terms of base stealing, bunting, batting order, pitching rotation,pinch hitting, closer usage and pretty much every other aspect of the game. If you want to discuss this more pm me, I don't feel like unleashing all my pent up feelings on sports management debacles here. Perhaps I will start a blog.

[/ QUOTE ]
i believe most of this but haven't saber guys determined that batting order doesn't matter much at all?

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Baseball's run fairly optimally, it's not like by perfectly running a team you'll pick up 30 wins a season or that wall street guys would just rape the current sabermetricly inclined front offices when it comes to trades/the draft.

[/ QUOTE ]

For all of you that have any doubt please read Baseball between the numbers by Baseball prospectus. It is run highly sub-optimal in terms of base stealing, bunting, batting order, pitching rotation,pinch hitting, closer usage and pretty much every other aspect of the game. If you want to discuss this more pm me, I don't feel like unleashing all my pent up feelings on sports management debacles here. Perhaps I will start a blog.

[/ QUOTE ]
i believe most of this but haven't saber guys determined that batting order doesn't matter much at all?

[/ QUOTE ]


tell that to the pitchers trying to grind their way through the 3-4-5 batters of a tough line-up.
Tell that to a batter who gets all these great pitches to look at because of the guys hitting behind him....or to the guy who never gets anything good to swing at because the guy behind him is lousy or slumping.

As I mentioned, there's a lot of stuff going on then just the numbers. "Player A hits .320 and Player B hits .210...but if you reversed their order in the lineup and assume they continue hitting at those clips then the team's run-production will stay the same!!"

Ummmm, who says they will continue hitting at those clips if you switched them in the line-up? Pitchers will be approaching them differently now and they will be seeing different looks and situations. So making the assumption that their average, etc will remain the same is just plain wrong I believe.

[Jack of Arcades]

[ QUOTE ]

As I mentioned, there's a lot of stuff going on then just the numbers. "Player A hits .320 and Player B hits .210...but if you reversed their order in the lineup and assume they continue hitting at those clips then the team's run-production will stay the same!!"

Ummmm, who says they will continue hitting at those clips if you switched them in the line-up? Pitchers will be approaching them differently now and they will be seeing different looks and situations. So making the assumption that their average, etc will remain the same is just plain wrong I believe.

[/ QUOTE ]

First of all, your writing style is an attempt to make the other side of the debate look ridiculous. Not only have you made up a ridiculous quote, you've attempted to make it sound even more ridiculous by adding exclamation points, etc. In effect you are arguing against something by creating someone who doesn't exist and creating a stupid version of their argument.

Then you respond with the equivalent of "Ummm, hello?"

Furthermore, you aren't even saying anything. I guess you're arguing against the idea that batting order doesn't matter much, and furthermore that players will hit differently in different spots in the lineup. But you haven't said anything that supports that, other then "pitchers will approach them differently."

So try not to be such a douche next time.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Baseball's run fairly optimally, it's not like by perfectly running a team you'll pick up 30 wins a season or that wall street guys would just rape the current sabermetricly inclined front offices when it comes to trades/the draft.

[/ QUOTE ]

For all of you that have any doubt please read Baseball between the numbers by Baseball prospectus. It is run highly sub-optimal in terms of base stealing, bunting, batting order, pitching rotation,pinch hitting, closer usage and pretty much every other aspect of the game. If you want to discuss this more pm me, I don't feel like unleashing all my pent up feelings on sports management debacles here. Perhaps I will start a blog.

[/ QUOTE ]



From what I have read I believe some significant liberties are taken in some of the assumptions there.
They hate bunting because swinging away works so much better. But swinging away would not work quite as well without the THREAT of bunting. etc etc.

Your theory that a team run by math-geniuses would win THAT many more games is just wrong. Especially since the psychological effects on the players being told what to do by the math-geeks may very well end up hurting them more than helping.

Baseball players aren't robots that you can just program what to do and then let the numbers fall where they may. There's more going on there.

[Gregatron]

[ QUOTE ]
Sports is the only area of society where such mistakes are so open to the public and so blindly passed over.

[/ QUOTE ]
Don't follow politics huh?