how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?

[ QUOTE ]
A lot more than 24.

[/ QUOTE ] nonsense. anyone who played baseball will tell you that if they faced a guy 24 times, they knew where they stood against him, and i think more often then not this will be reflected in 24 AB's

[BeerMoney]

[ QUOTE ]
If a batter is x-for-y vs a pitcher, and you are wonder how big y has to be...well, it depends on x.

See, if a .300 batter is x-10 vs a pitcher, and x = 0, that's a lot less significant than if x = 10.



Josh

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly, winning 10 hands in a row in poker is much stranger than losing 10 hands in a row. In fact, winning 10 in a row is much stranger than losing 100 hands in a row.

[imported_The Vibesman]

I also think a larger part of the argument is the quality of at-bats. For ex. if player x is 3 for 15 against a pitcher with 2 k's I might not think it is significant, but if he is 3 for 15 with 10 k's, I like his chances less on the next go round.

I think when it gets above 25 at bats or so it starts to be something you can use. Perhaps statistically there is too much variance/noise, but these are also human beings, and there is a psychological effect to being continually beaten by the same opponent.

[Clarkmeister]

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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).

[/ QUOTE ]

C'mon. Obviously Joe Blow, on average, is going to outperform his career average against Joe Blow and underperform against Roger Clemens.

[andyfox]

Nobody wins ten hands in a row in my game. One guy got to eight and we shot him. Dead. Bring us a live one.

[DougOzzzz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

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).

[/ QUOTE ]

C'mon. Obviously Joe Blow, on average, is going to outperform his career average against Joe Blow and underperform against Roger Clemens.

[/ QUOTE ]

You misinterpreted what I said. The "outperform" stat is based on what a hitter with Joe Blow's stats would be expected to do against a pitcher with Roger Clemen's stats (adjusted for handedness). Adjustments are made for the quality of pitcher of course.

[Paluka]

[ QUOTE ]
0-24 against a variety of different pitchers I'd imagine is a lot easier to do than 0-24 against a single pitcher. Plus Jones is only a .260something hitter. 0-24 isn't impossible with that kind of an average.

[/ QUOTE ]

This makes absolutely zero mathematical sense. 0-24 should actually be much more common against a particular pitcher, because there are particular pitchers that extremely difficult to hit. But obviously 0-24 against various pitchers happens more than 0-24 against a single pitcher, because there are so many strings of 24 consecutive at bats.

[Paluka]

[ QUOTE ]
Thurman Munson was 2 for 44 against Frank Tanana. I think that's a lot more significant than if he was 10 for 44. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously this is meaningless. I'm sure we can find some other good hitter who killed Frank Tanana. Frank Tanana was a very good pitcher, so by definition some hitters will have horrendous stats against him.

[Triumph36]

Well, this sounds closer to what I wanted to hear - because it seems to completely miss the actual experience of playing baseball. What is essentially being said is that everything that goes into preparing for an individual pitcher or batter ultimately cancels out, regardless of the pitcher or batter. Whether or not a pitcher's style of pitching is bound to cross up a certain type of hitter, or a pitcher's strongest pitch is also the hitter's strongest pitch - these factors are irrelevant.

The rebuttal to that claim is 'Well, it doesn't ultimately cancel out - it's just unquantifiable without a decent sample size with which to judge - which we don't ever have.'

That claim I could accept, so long as it put some humility into those who've swallowed the statistical dogma whole, and regurgitate it far too often and confidently.

[Josh W]

I won the last 9 I played against Andy. This is why I don't play in the same game as him anymore.

Josh