Okay, really.

How long before the rest of you begin to say the magic words:

“Robbie Cano is just not that great.”

I’ll speak ill of a Yankee if it’s the truth.

Farnsworth. Myers. Villone. Abreu. Damon. Giambi. CANO.

Please, someone tell me that Cano is NOT terrible this year. I’m begging someone to change my mind.

I do not want him at the plate when it matters.

It’s interesting that most of the good/bad points of was watching are on display here

1. good: the interest in the stat side of the game, bringing to your reader’s attention all the myriad details that the game offers. Many times I’ve seen you (Steve) do a lot of work and you deserve a lot of credit for what you do.

2 bad: the snide partying put down on Cano. Most of us here are Yankee fans Steve and we don’t appreciate the sneering putdowns, the accusations of a team packing it in when you have nothing NOTHING to back up those statements with. And don’t pretend that Jorge’s words the other day had anything to do with packing it in, which is what you put forth periodically with “apathy” etc. Underperformance and focus are issues, giving up is not.

3. worse: when someone offers up a competing analysis, you go instantly defensive and hostile, so much so you need to be reassured that no slight is intended and that it’s coming from a friendly source.

4. Steve, you have one of the best Yankee blogs going. Remember who your audience is and be prepared to debate. You are always too quick to take things the wrong way and toss in that sarcastic barb “Geez, I wonder why they even bother keeping stats at all?” You’re lucky to have someone as obviously smart as bobo to come on and debate you on your stat presentations.

Be like me. Save your cynicism for Lil’ Papi and the Roid SAWKS. Remember Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment:”Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.” Thou shalt not speak ill of a Yankee. I mean, except for Farnsworth and Mike Myers and, let’s see, there’s Bruney and his walks, Hot and Cold Abreu and ah…

~So, he’s whiffing more, slight, in day games. And, his batted balls are turned into out more easily in day games.~

Thanks. I don’t think it has anything to do with partying, just that this year he’s not doing well in day games. Maybe he’s just not picking up the ball and recognizing the pitch as well (while his strike out rates are about the same, his BB rate in night games is much higher.)

There’s enough here, for me, to start to question whether there’s a cause for this effect.
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But there is also enough to suspect otherwise;

Career
D: .299 .328 .448 (469 PA)
N: .310 .335 .479 (908 PA)

Interesting as to the number of night games that are played; near double the day games… Has it always been that way? Or is this a development that has appeared within the last 10-20 years?

“But, if all stats are random, should it not be a 50% chance that it’s a coincidence?”

Not at all. The math gets complicated (and admittedly I’m not a statistician) but essentially it boils down to this:

Let’s keep it simple and talk about batting average. , and let’s talk about a random set of 100 AB. We want to know what the chances of a .265 hitter (26.5% chance of getting a hit) getting 18 or less hits (the .179 BA).

I just wrote a little program to compute this because I’m not nearly good enough with the statistical formulas, and found this:

I gave him 100 AB, and a 26.5% chance of getting a hit in each AB. I repeated 1 million times.

He got 18 or fewer hits 31,524 times, or 3.2% of the time. Pretty low, right? Not when you consider that there are over 400 hitters. One out of every 30 or so is going to have a 100 AB streak this bad.

So yes – given an individual player, it’s rare that he does this bad. But odds are that there are going to be about 14 hitters in the league that are like this – you just found one of them.

Forget all the stats. I’m not a stat guy but i love reading about them. Ask yourself this.

2 outs, bottom of the seveth, runners on second and third and down by one.

Do you want the 2007 Cano out there batting?

Not me. I don’t remember any one of his hits – all I remember is the garbage he swings at and the garbage he strikes out on.

Whether he parties or not, I don’t care. He just flat out is not good this year.

Tell me different.

Ok, so we’ve found where we disagree: 111 PA IS small. You can find streaks of 111 consecutive PA for any player where they’ve sucked.

How about this:

5/27/2001 to 6/24/2001:
Jeter went .208/.286/.307 for an OPS of .593.
This was in 110 plate appearances.

How many more examples will I have to give to satisfy you?

And please don’t take my comments the wrong way – I’m not trying to attack you or anything. Like I said, I enjoy the blog. But I think the more people that understand the part that statistics play, and can tell when they’re meaningful and when they’re not, the better.

~~~It is 99.9% a coincidence that he has sucked during the day.~~~

But, if all stats are random, should it not be a 50% chance that it’s a coincidence?

You said it, not me.

Is it not a coincidence that Posada sucks on turf? Is it not random that ARod was merely average in May?

Funny you mention coin flippin, because here’s my favorite analogy:

Let’s have a coin flipping contest. We want to find the guy who can get heads most often.

We take 32 guys and have them flip a coin 5 times. Statistically speaking, one of them is going to get heads all 5 times. Clearly he’s the best at flipping coins, right?

Saying a player is better at night based on such a small sample size is a HUGE statement.

Just look at random players and you’ll see that extreme splits are very common. Craig Biggio was the 3rd player I looked at – he’s much better at night this year. But he was much better during the day last year.

You will see, if you were to run some regression from year to year, that there is no correlation from one year’s day/night split to future years. This has no predictive value. On the other hand, something like a batter’s split vs. RHP and LHP WILL have a positive correlation from year to year – that’s how we know the effect is “for real”.

It is 99.9% a coincidence that he has sucked during the day. There is a tiny, tiny chance that, like you say, he is doing something this year which caused this. But this is so unlikely it’s not worth mentioning.

I don’t know how to make it any clearer without going into very detailed statistical theory. You take any player, and I think you’ll agree that there will be SOME difference between their day/night stats. You take 400+ hitters, and that difference is going to vary. Some are going to have a large difference, and some are going to have a small difference. You’ve stumbled upon one of the players that randomly has a large difference. It means nothing.

~~~Steve, do you not believe at all in the concept of statistical noise or small sample size?~~~

Sure I do. If a guy goes 2 for 5, I know not to put him in the HOF based on one game. But, I also know that 111 PA is not small. And, I know that the difference between .179 and .311 is huge.

There’s enough here, for me, to start to question whether there’s a cause for this effect.