Thursday, June 23, 2005

I'm supposed to be impressed?

From a globe article about a polymath (He's also written a full-length rock opera!) statistician who works for the Red Sox:

>When he was 16, Van created a stat of his own, something to measure a hitter's productivity beyond batting average. He added on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and batting average, and called it ''combined triple average."<

Wow. He created a stat (of his own?) by adding three other stats together. Trouble is, they are all related, and the water just gets muddier, rather than clearer.

OTOH, we have the OOPO. It tells us the offensive production of a player relative to his opportunity to contribute, without being redundant. A truly unique stat.

Bias is an ugly thing.

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