Historically Bad Investment? Topic

We're approaching the end of Small Sample Size-ville here.

My $8.63 million '35 Jimmie Foxx - he of the .346/.461/.636 - is hitting a whopping ... drum roll please ...

.198/.274.307 through 113 PAs.

Yama hama. Playing at Fulton County Stadium. 
5/29/2014 3:34 PM
113 PAs is still a small sample size.  The league is only through 26 games.  Stay the course and he should come around. 
5/29/2014 4:43 PM
Yep, still too small.  My '35 Foxx so far is doing .400/.463/.583 thru 14 games....
6/2/2014 1:53 PM
The last Foxx's I have used slumped badly
6/2/2014 9:27 PM
Looking at the OP's team...his Foxx over the last 10 games: .385/.455/.718 with 3 HR, 7 RBI.

If any newbies are reading this thread, the sample size link that el birdo shared above is VERY useful.  113PAs is still a very very very small sample size when looking at things like average, on base percentage, slugging percentage.

6/3/2014 5:56 AM
Posted by wibr on 5/29/2014 3:34:00 PM (view original):
We're approaching the end of Small Sample Size-ville here.

My $8.63 million '35 Jimmie Foxx - he of the .346/.461/.636 - is hitting a whopping ... drum roll please ...

.198/.274.307 through 113 PAs.

Yama hama. Playing at Fulton County Stadium. 
Yes, it is a small sample size and it's human nature to just look at 'your guy', but you need to take into consideration league tendencies. He's facing an inordinate amount of righthanded pitchers (approaching five to one !) Against the small amount of lefties he's faced he is doing quite well. Of the last 4 times that he didn't get a hit he faced 08 Joss 3 times and a very good Cy Morgan. League tendencies, having a balanced lineup (winning owners will scout your team) and what's actually happening in your particular league are far more important than simply waiting for a large sample size to present itself. Because they are small sample sizes too, all leagues don't have an ideal construct. It's your call but I'm sure you can find a switch or lefthanded hitter, if waiving is available at 7.8 mill. that will actually benefit from the abundance of righthanded pitching in an inverse or reciprocal way. GL.
6/4/2014 12:34 PM
I have 1920 Joe Jackson in a 100M theme that just ended its regular season.  At $8.2M Shoeless Joe was my most expensive batter, so I wasn't thrilled with his splits at the all-star break:

.264/.311/.402

For those of you who believe in "poisoned" or "jinxed" players, no, there was no WW in this theme, so I was stuck with him.  He did okay in the 2nd half...

.358/.407/.484

..and finished off with a respectable (considering the quality of pitching in this theme) .311/.359/.443.
6/9/2014 1:36 AM
Hell, one season is a small sample size.
6/17/2014 7:38 PM
120m League, 455 PAs, .229/.336/.335 out of 93 Bonds. It is Dodger Stadium but still... 
6/23/2014 12:42 AM
Small sample size refers to the proportion to the total population studied. 

So one entire season IS the entire population, it is not technically a sample at all or if so, only in the sense that the US census or election results are - everyone who voted voted and you add those up and you don't worry about sample size since that is the whole population of voters. All the PA of a batter in a season are all the PA.
6/23/2014 6:55 AM
Here's another way to think about it: let's say you have two children, that you are the parent of two children and you do a good job raising them. 

Well, 2 is a damn small sample size isn't it? How could we possibly know whether you are a good parent having raised only 2 children. A good sample should be nearer 1,000 to get a very small standard deviation no? 

Except we are not trying to figure out if you would be a good parent on the scale of all 1 billion children in the world - that would make no sense. You have raised 2 children. That is the whole population of the study. So by definition it is an accurate "sample" since it coincides completely with the total population studied.

If we want to know how Joe Jackson did in year X and we find that in all his PA he ended up averaging .311 that IS how well he did. We are not comparing it as a proportion to ALL the PA in all of history by all batters. That is what the average itself does, as well as "normalization" - but that is an accurate sample of Jackson since it is the whole population of his PA, which are the unit of analysis. 

If we were comparing it to other seasons by Joe Jackson, in any case how many would there be in any batter's career? 20 or so max? But the unit of analysis is now not PA but seasons, and so yes, here one season is a small sample, but certainly 3-5 would get us close to a significant result.
6/23/2014 7:03 AM
The point you're missing here, italyprof, is that the SIM is not real life. We're not talking about the 20 seasons of a career, we're talking about the (possibly) 1000 times an owner selects a player. With this potential, 1 season does become a small sample size -- and one bad run of a player makes it difficult to refuse to take him again as a "bad investment". A few seasons might but only because an individual owner only has a few opportunities to take the same type of player, unless they play the same types of leagues a lot that lead to this.
6/23/2014 11:20 AM
I have to disagree with the end of your post italyprof, "here one season is a small sample, but certainly 3-5 would get us close to a significant result." In the sim you have so many variables at play (ball park for your team and opponents, quality of pitching in the league, lineup surrounding the hitter, etc.)

Given how many variables at play you need more seasons. I could guess a number but that would be arbitrary. The total population isn't the times a certain owner has used that player, but every time that particular season of that particular player has been used in the entire sim. This is where small sample problems occur. I could have 5 bad Foxx seasons, but unless I adjust for pitching quality, ballpark....., what does that result really mean?
6/23/2014 8:25 PM
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