data.3news-bydate.train.rec.sport.baseball.104721 Maven / Gradle / Ivy
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Jack Morris
Lines: 44
Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute
Distribution: na
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Roger Maynard) writes:
> In [email protected] (David Robert Walker) writes:
>
Some comments deleted for bandwidth (God knows, we need it... :))
>
>>Baseball is a team game, but it is made of individual talents. It is
>>absurd to judge the success or failure of an individual by the success
>>or failure of his teammates, whom he did not choose (at least in most
>>cases.) Morris won last year because he played on a team with Joe
>>Carter, Robby Alomar, Tom Henke, Juan Guzman, John Olerud, et al.
>>Clemens lost because he was surrounded by such lesser performers as
>>Herm Winninham, Luis Rivera, and Jeff Reardon. To define the quality
>>of the team as a sum of its components (as I do, albeit imperfectly)
>>is a lesser error than defining the quality of an individual as the
>>mean quality of the team (as my reading of your arguments suggests you
>>do)
>
> No, I am not trying to define the quality of an individual, at least not
> for the purpose of ranking them. Toronto won with Olerud. They might
> have won with Fielder. They might not have won with Thomas. Detroit
> might have won with Thomas. Chicago might have won with Fielder. You
> can't rank these individuals. You can only look at who might contribute
> more to the team effort, which is winning the WS. Thomas could not
> have contributed to that goal any more than Olerud so I cannot say that
> Olerud is less of a player.
>
Ok, Roger, here's a question for you. Say you are running an expansion
team. You don't HAVE a team at the moment, but the draft is coming up. Who
are you going to pick, guys who have won the most WS rings, or guys who
COULD contribute the most to your team. Say the Reds were dumb enough to
not protect Larkin, and the Jays didn't protect Alfredo. Who would you
pick?
(I can't believe I'm getting involved in this... :)
John
> --
>
> cordially, as always, [email protected]
> "So many morons...
> rm ...and so little time."