ode to small sample size

wilyc — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:08:19 -0000

Twenty games into the baseball season, and we've moved from delicious possibility:

LA 0 W, 0 L; Oakland 0 W 0 L

to the quirky beauty of april 21st and just a few games. The baseball flies around the diamond; a few young pitchers have great stuff on spring nights against hitters who've never seen them; Crosby, Suzuki and Buck hit a statistically improbable load of doubles. And now we have:

LA 12 W 8 L; Oakland 12 W 8 L.

20 coin flips, and 142 to go. I think (unless your a statistician) that one of the most appealing things about baseball is it's randomness (unlike real life where we try to avoid randomness, like stray buses while crossing the street).

Anything can happen, and, in that possibility is the joy of being a baseball fan.

Why watch the game tomorrow? Joe Blanton could throw a no-hitter; Daric Barton could hit for the cycle; Bobby Crosby could turn a triple play. They probably won't, of course, but in a each pitch, each at-bat, each half-inning is a delicious, stochastic event that can be intriguing, or else pleasantly boring. More importantly, in these million coin flips come together, story arcs will emerge: Eveland and Smith will learn new ways of pitching and/or reveal their Achilles heal of predictability and get thrashed. Houston Street will lose the movement on his fastball, find it again, then lose it again. Hannahan and Sweeney will make it as a major leaguers or they won't (a major turning point in their lives; but for us mildly interesting). Crosby will stay in his mini-groove or slide back into the morass of injury and self-doubt.

The A's will make the playoffs or they won't (pecota's best "playoff odds" = 34.37%, a flawed number that doesn't really capture the true randomness of a young baseball team in April). Either way is okay with me: it's spring again, and it's baseball.

SB Nation User Blog: wilyc

ode to small sample size