The True Big Hurt

[nyy26wc]

Originally Posted by Crash Course

Digging out some old stuff here - - if we were to use PA instead of OUTS - - - would RCAA/PA and OWP be essentially the same things, just expressed a little differently?

No.

I just ran the numbers through Excel. While RCAA/OUTS and OWP has a .95 correlation figure, RCAA/PA and OWP has just a .45.

I ran some numbers for team totals, all-time, since 1900 and for the 40 teams, the order of RCAA/OUTS and RCAA/PA seemed to be just about the same.

I just ran those numbers through Excel and the correlation between RCAA/OUTS and RCAA/PA is .999849. So, basically, that is a perfect correlation.

However, I think teams is the wrong way to look at it. I also took a look at just the 16 teams that spanned the whole 20th century and looking at them, we still have a correlation rate of .9998.

I think teams is the wrong way to look at this. For teams, the variance in RCAA for one team vs. the other is far greater than the variance between OUTS and PA. In other words, RCAA is by far the dominant part of the equation, with variances in the numerator meaning far more than the small variances in the denominators. Or, put another way, the reason why RCAA/OUTS and RCAA/PA look the same is because the only thing that really matters in determining the order of the lists is the team's RCAA and that factor dominates the order of teams to such an extent that it's deceptive to think that the order is being determined by a ratio.

[Crash Course]

Thanks Lee - what if you were looking at career stats for a player - would not the higher number of PA have the same effect as the team PA totals?

PS - you have to put 2004 in your signature soon!

[nyy26wc]

Originally Posted by Crash Course

Thanks Lee - what if you were looking at career stats for a player - would not the higher number of PA have the same effect as the team PA totals?

No.

Look at the top 20 career RCAA list--

RCAA                           RCAA      PA      OUTS    
1    Babe Ruth                  1795    10616     5759   
2    Barry Bonds                1496    11584     6743   
3    Ted Williams               1475     9789     5291   
4    Ty Cobb                    1369    13073     7753   
5    Lou Gehrig                 1247     9660     5489   
6    Stan Musial                1204    12712     7704   
7    Mickey Mantle              1099     9909     5899   
8    Rogers Hornsby             1084     9475     5526   
9    Tris Speaker               1053    11989     7120   
10   Hank Aaron                 1032    13940     9136   
11   Honus Wagner               1011    11738     7259   
12   Willie Mays                1008    12492     8056   
13   Mel Ott                     989    11337     6773   
14   Jimmie Foxx                 985     9670     5700   
15   Dan Brouthers               967     7676     4435   
16   Frank Robinson              852    11743     7528   
17   Ed Delahanty                835     8394     4962   
18   Roger Connor                807     8843     5336   
19   Billy Hamilton              802     7591     4157   
20   Frank Thomas                796     8478     5054  

You'll see that PA and OUTS are all over the board. But, if you look at the 16 original teams, you'll see that teams PA's don't vary anywhere near the same level as the players, same thing with the OUTS.

PS - you have to put 2004 in your signature soon!

DOH!!!!!!!!!! I'll go fix that now.

[nyy26wc]

I also just reran the numbers, looking at all players with 5000+ career PA.

The correlation between RCAA/PA and RCAA/OUTS is .996664.

I stand by my comment in the previous post as to why the consideration involving teams is not present when looking at individuals.

However, my original theory, regarding the defect that I thought was present when looking at teams has been disproven, since the bottom line shows that the correlation between RCAA/PA and RCAA/OUTS is as perfect a correlation as we're ever going to get, regardless of whether we're looking at players or teams.

[Crash Course]

Thanks Lee. This was a big help to me.
Much appreciated.