how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?
 

watching a game on tv I'm sure you've all seen those stats like 'batter X is 0-3 lifetime against pitcher Y', which essentially means absolutely nothing. But at what point does it become significant? does it go by performance? In other words, if the batter went 3-3 is that somehow significant now? The reason I ask is because I'm watching the Angel game and it said Garret Anderson is 12-24 with 2 homers off of Joe Kennedy. I think that's pretty significant. But I'm wondering where more or less the cutoff is... 8 at bats or so? 10?

Re: how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?
 

A lot more than 24.

Re: how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?
 

I'm pretty sure 30K ABs is a large enough sample size.

Re: how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?
 

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A lot more than 24.

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a lot more

plus, it takes hitters forever to accumulate those ABs and stats from years ago arent really relevant, players age, peak, change, etc.

Re: how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?
 

24 at bats against a single pitcher? I don't know, I figure by then you'd have a really good idea of his stuff and his release point/timing. So are you guys saying that no batter ever has a significant amount of at bats against any one pitcher?

Re: how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?
 

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24 at bats against a single pitcher? I don't know, I figure by then you'd have a really good idea of his stuff and his release point/timing. So are you guys saying that no batter ever has a significant amount of at bats against any one pitcher?

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Pretty much, yeah.

Re: how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?
 

So if instead it was revealed that Garret Anderson was 0-24 against Joe Kennedy, that still wouldn't be significant? I find that hard to believe.

Re: how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?
 

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So if instead it was revealed that Garret Anderson was 0-24 against Joe Kennedy, that still wouldn't be significant? I find that hard to believe.

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It might have a very minor effect. There has to be a very large regression to the mean, though. For projecting future performance in pitcher vs. batter matchups, you are FAR better off going by each player's overall stats.

In fact I'm not really sure it's been proven that certain hitters actually outperform or underperform their projections against individual pitchers at all (other than by random luck).

Re: how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?
 

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So if instead it was revealed that Garret Anderson was 0-24 against Joe Kennedy, that still wouldn't be significant? I find that hard to believe.

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you cant be this stupid without trying really hard

Re: how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?
 

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24 at bats against a single pitcher? I don't know, I figure by then you'd have a really good idea of his stuff and his release point/timing. So are you guys saying that no batter ever has a significant amount of at bats against any one pitcher?

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If you look at some HOF pitcher splits, you'll find that some guys just absolutely killed them in upwards to 50 at-bats.