Kimmi

First off, we both know and agree that you can never get a complete assessment of any player based off of one stat. I would never try to determine who the best pitchers are based on FIP only. However, the fact remains (and it is a proven fact) that DIP stats (FIP and all its cousins, SIERA, etc.) are better predictors of a pitcher's future performance than ERA stats are. None of the stats are that great, just by the very nature of how difficult it is to predict future performance, but stats that rely mostly on Ks and BBs do the best job. I do agree that there are several pitchers who are very good without high strike out rates. But listing example after example is anecdotal evidence. It does not prove or disprove anything.

Not knocking Leon's defense at all. I've been a fan of his since we signed him, even before he started hitting last year.

Of all the positions, catcher is the one that should be the most defensive oriented. I remember having arguments with posters about Varitek when he became a black hole offensively. I didn't care. I still wanted him behind the plate. It's the same way I feel about Vazquez behind the plate. I don't care if he's a light hitter, if he provides that elite defense. The rest of our line up should be able to cover him in the 9 hole. That said, it does come down to which catcher provides the best overall value. Therefore, if Swihart improves his defense enough to where that, coupled with his offense, makes him the better overall catcher, I think we have to go with Swihart, as much as it would pain me to lose the elite defense. That said, if their value turns out to be fairly equal, I'm going with the elite defender every time.

That could be. I didn't follow Harper closely enough to know. I just remember seeing a heat map of pitches made to him during that slump. Of course pitchers are always going to stay out of Harper's happy zone, but sometimes they miss. During this slump, pitchers were making unreal quality pitches to him outside of his happy zone. I'm sure that Harper did start pressing after a while.

Of course it happens. And it's not voodoo. It's randomness, or luck. That's not meant to be some kind of magical explanation. It's like if you flipped a coin 10 times and it came up heads 10 times. That was just randomness. Not voodoo, not magic. It can't be explained. It just happens.

If the Sox were going to sign Bautista, I would have much rather just kept Buchholz and his $13.5 mil. We don't know how serious ERod's knee injury is, but starting pitching depth is once again a very real concern for me. It's funny how we can go from trying to figure out the roster ramifications of too many pitchers to having no quality rotation depth in the blink of an eye.

I hope we keep Swihart. I read this morning that our former GM Hazen has asked about trading for either Vazquez or Swihart. He knows these guys as well as anyone, and his interest in them makes me want to keep them even more. Thankfully, Dombrowski said that trading either of them was 'not likely'.

Agreed. I would rather save what financial flexibility we have to address what might be a real need over the course of the season.

Vaz was that good in the minors, and he was that good for us in his short stint in 2014. IMO, he was rushed back last season. Even with that, he was still pretty good defensively, just not elite. I am hoping that his step back was due to the injury, and than he can recapture his elite status defensively.

The original question posed was about an 0-20 streak. The exact type that is largely due to randomness over a much too small sample size. I would venture to say that an 2-30 or 5-40 streak is also due to randomness. If the streak extends beyond that, at some point, I would agree that other factors, such as falling into a bad habit in an attempt to end the streak, start to take over.

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying. The statement I bolded is kind of my point. There's no way to predict when a streak will begin, and there is also no way to predict when a streak will end, or more to the point, that the streak will continue for another at bat. That said, there are ways to predict that someone is having good or bad luck, and that they will regress to their norm.

The premise of the hot hand fallacy is that if someone has success in a random event, then that success is likely to continue. If a player makes an adjustment, then his success is not random. If a player is injured, then his slump is not random. Again, my argument was not about those types of identifiable streaks. The hot or cold streaks that are random, which most are, are the ones that fall into the hot hand fallacy. If a player is streaking for no reason other than luck, then his chances of getting a hit in his next at bat are based overwhelmingly on his overall talent and the talent of the opposing pitcher, not on what he has done in his last 20 at bats.

Nobody ever said that randomness is the explanation for all hot or cold streaks. I would say that it is the primary reason for most hot or cold streaks of the 0-20 nature.

Randomness is a much larger factor in baseball than most people realize. It may be an unlucky bounce. It may be an umpire having a larger zone than normal. It might be a fly ball out to the deepest part of Petco Park that would have been a HR anywhere else. It might be wind blowing in. It might be a lefty hitter facing an unusual amount of tough lefty pitchers. It might be the batter missing his pitch by one centimeter. I could go on and on. Most streaks are due to randomness over a way too small sample size. If a streak becomes prolonged, then I would agree that other factors are probably playing into it, like an injury or a batter altering his approach at the plate because he's pressing.

I didn't say that slumps were easily identifiable. I'm the one saying that more often than not, slumps are the result of mere randomness. In other words, there is no identifiable reason for the slump other than flukiness. There is enough video and data available to realize this. A player's mechanics have not changed. A player's line drive rates, swings outside the zone, strike outs rates, etc. have not changed. Nothing has changed outside of balls not falling in for hits. I was recently reading about Bryce Harper's slump last year. The largest reason for his slump is that the opposing pitchers he faced had an uncanny streak of making excellent pitches against him. They weren't even necessarily great pitchers, or weren't even necessarily pitching great games. That is randomness.

I disagree. Many streaks are random streaks, especially the hot streaks. Or does an adjustment and hard work only make a player better for a week?

I think that BABIP kind of makes the point of streaks being due to randomness or 'luck'. And we know that regression back to overall talent level is coming.

I can live with that. If there is an identifiable reason for the slump, then until it is corrected, the slump is likely to continue. Again, I was thinking in terms of hot or cold streaks that seem to come out of nowhere. Why does a player have an 8 for 10 streak with no identifiable reason? A lot of randomness. Therefore, there is little predictive value.

The data suggests that the chances of a batter getting a hit on one particular at bat has more to do with the overall performance and talent level of the batter and the opposing pitcher than anything else. Once again, randomness always plays a role.

If a player is injured, makes an adjustment, is a slow starter because he takes longer to get their timing back, or other similar reasons, then the player may very well have a streak which is identifiable and somewhat predictable. I believe we are talking about the streaks that seemingly come out of nowhere.

Believe it or not, I am a huge believer in the human element. I remember JD Drew having a very sick child and thinking how that must be affecting his performance. There's a thread on here somewhere where posted about how I believe Pedroia is the player that he is because of his grit. I believe that Bobby Valentine was such a terrible manager in terms of having his players' backs and creating a positive 'work environment' that it adversely affected the play on the field. I strongly believe that confidence and trust between a pitcher and a catcher affects the performance of the pitcher. None of those things can be quantified. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have to remind myself not to say "Keep Ciriaco in the lineup! He's on fire!", maybe because I'm having a hard time being completely convinced. I do believe confidence affects one's performance, but I don't think it can raise one's performance to otherworldly. This is very similar to the arguments on 'clutch'. Anyway, no one has said that streaks don't exist. They most certainly do exist. They're just saying that there is little predictive value in the streak (wasn't that your original question?), and that the streak is likely due more to randomness than things like a player being able to raise his game to a new level during a hot streak or a player forgetting how to hit during a cold streak. Or as Eno Sarris explains some of it, “I don't believe in hot hands. However, I do believe in adjustments."

Our team looks really good as is. I think it would make more sense to wait until midseason to see what the team's needs are, if any. It doesn't seem worth it to pick up Bautista for what might amount to be little or no improvement, especially if it turns out that we didn't need him.

It's not a false assumption. That's not to say that there aren't very good pitchers that have low K rates. But as a general rule of thumb, if you see a high K rate and low BB rate, you'll see a very good pitcher, and if you see a very good pitcher, you'll see a high K rate and low BB rate. Again, that's not to say that there aren't exceptions. However, K and BB rates are stable predictors of success. As far as cFIP being the better predictor of future performance than the other stats, the tables provided in that link support that. One, or even several, counterexamples do not disprove anything. There are always going to be exceptions to the general rule of thumb.

I've never had the hot hand because the hot hand doesn't exist. However, I have had hot and cold streaks in more sports than one.

The proof is not just the creator saying it's the best. He statistically tested it in several ways. He showed that it does not work quite as well as some other stats in terms of describing what has happened but that it correlates the best to predicting RE24. Notice that cFIP and other DIPS stats have a stronger correlation to RE24 than ERA or ERA- do. The data is out there for anyone to test and/or dispute, and I'm sure that other stat geeks have done so. In the simplest sense, high strikeout rate is a good indicator of a good pitcher.