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May 12, 2005

Crooked Numbers

Are 'Roids the Reason

by James Click

Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate.
- William of Ockham

Occam's Razor translates to "Plurality should not be posited without necessity," a phrase that's usually taken to say that the simplest answer is the best one. That's not technically correct; Occam (or Ockham) was addressing the issue that additional information added to a working theory that provides no additional accuracy should be cut out. Hence, Occam's Razor and not Occam's Boring Theory About Theories. Mainstream media treatment of the steroids issue falls into the former interpretation and while we haven't heard anyone hide behind the razor, the idea that it's simply easier to say that steroids are to blame is easier for everyone to swallow. The simplest explanation is the best. Besides, who has time to read an entire book discussing everything you ever wanted to know about steroids and baseball?

The next logical stage in the steroid coverage is the introduction of statistical evidence to confirm that baseball's new, tough testing policy is having an effect. Both Joe Sheehan and Nate Silver covered this to some extent yesterday, but there are still some possible reasons for the offensive decline that haven't been covered. Several managers and players have suggested other possible reasons for the decline, among them the weather and the absence of Barry Bonds. There are certainly other possible explanations--the natural ebb and flow of offensive levels in baseball or the retirement of power hitters--that might have something to do with the outage. Nearly all of these deserves or could us a full article-length discussion (much like Nate's discussion of the graying of the game), but we'll try to cram them all in here with a follow-up next week to discuss some areas in more depth.

Improper use of statistics

Before we get into any discussion of why home runs are down this year, we should make sure that they are in fact down. Simply saying fewer home runs were hit in April in 2005 than 2004 doesn't take into account the number of games or even plate appearances in the denominator. Fortunately, the AP article is looking at home runs per game. So the chances that their stats are misleading are unlikely.