tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46113379347166914982024-03-12T02:19:44.778-07:00Measuring ShadowsA blog about thoughts, games, and ethics.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-44481146561904834952016-12-26T12:58:00.002-08:002016-12-26T15:21:48.052-08:002016 DonationsIn case anyone is interested, here's where I'm giving in 2016. These reflect a fair bit of thought and communication with people in the EA community, but I haven't put nearly as much thought into it has have people working fulltime thinking about donations. For other perspectives, you can check out the recommendations/grants of the <a href="http://www.openphilanthropy.org/" target="_blank">Open Philanthropy Project</a>, <a href="http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities" target="_blank">GiveWell</a>, <a href="https://animalcharityevaluators.org/donation-advice/top-charities/" target="_blank">Animal Charity Evaluators</a>, and <a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/charities/" target="_blank">Giving What We Can</a>. Disclosure: I'm on the board of some of the charities I'm giving to, and am friends with the people running many of them.<br />
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TL;DR: (M = meta EA organization, D = direct work; A = animals, X = xrisk, P = global poverty, G = general/other.)<br />
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Largest:<br />
The Center for Effective Altruism (M/G)<br />
80,000 Hours (M/G)<br />
Medium:<br />
The Humane League (D/A)<br />
The Future for Humanity Institute (D/X)<br />
Small:<br />
Animal Charity Evaluators (M/A)<br />
Against Malaria Foundation (D/P)<br />
The Good Food Institute (D/A)<br />
The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (D/X)<br />
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Large Donations</h2>
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This year I expect my largest donations to be to CEA and 80K. This reflects my general excitement about the potential of meta Effective Altruism organizations.</div>
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Center for Effective Altruism</h4>
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The <a href="https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/" target="_blank">Center for Effective Altruism</a> (CEA) is an Oxford (and now Bay Area) effective altruist organization that has been instrumental in organizing the EA community. It has filled a number of different roles over the years. Many of the organizations within the EA movement, including <a href="https://80000hours.org/" target="_blank">80,000 Hours</a>, <a href="https://animalcharityevaluators.org/" target="_blank">Animal Charity Evaluators</a>, <a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/" target="_blank">Giving What We Can</a>, and the <a href="http://globalprioritiesproject.org/" target="_blank">Global Priorities Project</a>, are outgrowths of CEA. This alone makes it partially responsible for, respectively, the primary EA career advice organization, the primary source for animal welfare charity recommendations, over $1 billion of lifetime donation pledges, and the primary interface between EA, governments, and policy. CEA also works closely with the <a href="https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Future of Humanity Institute</a>, one of the top sources of research and coordination in the AI safety field. CEA has also handled PR for much of the EA movement, been one of the primary drivers of growth, helped to organize EA conferences, helped to raise a ton of money for the movement, and done crucial behind-the-scenes work to make sure that needs in the EA movement are being filled. CEA was recently accepted to Y-Combinator's nonprofit section. I personally have a ton of respect for CEA's leadership.</div>
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CEA has so far raised about $800K this year and is targetting about $3M. You can donate <a href="https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/donate/united-states/" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>
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80,000 Hours</h4>
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<a href="https://80000hours.org/" target="_blank">80,000 Hours</a> (80K) is an EA career advice service. Their main role in the EA community is to help promising college students figure out which careers they can do the most good in. They have helped thousands of impressive students to find jobs working directly for EA organizations, become promising AI researchers, find influential jobs in politics, find particularly good jobs <a href="https://80000hours.org/career-guide/high-impact-jobs/#approach-1-earning-to-give" target="_blank">earning to give</a>, and pledge to donate significant amounts of money. They have generally helped to grow the EA community through outreach to students and, sometimes, wealthy donors. They personally helped me with my career decision, and have some <a href="https://80000hours.org/2016/12/has-80000-hours-justified-its-costs/" target="_blank">pretty impressive stats</a> about their cost effectiveness. They recently participated in Y-Combinator as a nonprofit.</div>
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80K is targetting a budget of about $1.5M. You can donate <a href="https://80000hours.org/support-us/donate/#success" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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For what it's worth, CEA and 80K are generally targeting a donation ratio of $2 to CEA for each $1 to 80K; I plan to support in roughly that ratio.</div>
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Medium Donations</h2>
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My medium donations for 2016 are The Humane League and the Future of Humanity Instutite. While I don't personally think they will do as much with the marginal dollar donating this year as 80K or CEA, they are both impressive organizations doing a lot of good.</div>
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The Humane League</h4>
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<a href="http://www.thehumaneleague.com/" target="_blank">The Humane League</a> (THL) is a farmed animal welfare organziation. THL has had huge impacts in corporate campaigning, movement growth, and leafleting, and has also helped make the animal welfare movement more data-driven. They're victories in getting large fractions of US hens to live in cage-free environments through corporate campaigning are particularly impressive. Like CEA and 80K, I am impressed by its leadership. They've been a consistent force for sensible, smart, and effective animal welfare approaches.</div>
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You can donate to The Humane League <a href="http://www.thehumaneleague.com/donate/" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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The Future of Humanity Institute</h4>
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The <a href="https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Future of Humanity Institute</a> (FHI) is an oxford-based research institute that's working on issues concerning the long-run future of the world, particularly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_general_intelligence" target="_blank">AI existential risk</a>. FHI has been the base for a number of important projects in the x-risk space, including Nick Bostrom's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence:_Paths,_Dangers,_Strategies" target="_blank">work</a> and a lot of progress coordinating between AI safety researchers, industry, academics, and governments. I would consider making a larger donation to FHI except that I'm not sure they're currently very funding constrained. Like THL for animals, FHI has been a consistent force for reasonable, productive work in the AI x-risk community.</div>
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You can donate to FHI <a href="https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/support-fhi/" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>
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Small Donations</h2>
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I'll be giving small donations this year to MIRI, Animal Charity Evaluators, the Good Food Institute, and the Against Malaria Foundation. I don't think any of them are the best uses of money right now but would like to cast a vote of support for what they do.</div>
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Animal Charity Evaluators</h4>
<a href="https://animalcharityevaluators.org/" target="_blank">ACE</a> researches charities working on improving animal welfare and attempts to find the best. I don't think ACE is particularly funding constrained right now, but it has served and important and neglected role in the EA community, and has a record of choosing very impressive charities that are leading the way for an effective, rational animal welfare movement. You can donate to ACE <a href="https://animalcharityevaluators.org/donation/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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The Against Malaria Foundation</h4>
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<a href="https://www.againstmalaria.com/" target="_blank">AMF</a> is an organization that coordinatins mosquito-repelling bednets in Africa to help prevent malaria. AMF has, for many years, been possibly the most effective global health charity in terms of lives saved per dollar (currently estimated to be somewhere around $4,000 per life, though the estimates are sensitive to what assumptions you make). You can donate to AMF <a href="https://www.againstmalaria.com/Donation.aspx" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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The Good Food Institute</h4>
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GFI is a newer charity which is helping to promote the developement and adoption of plant-based and/or cultured (i.e. grown in a lab) meat replacements. I know relatively little about GFI but am excited about the potential of meat replacements to end factory farming, and am working partially off of ACE's recomendation. You can donate to GFI <a href="https://www.gfi.org/2016challenge" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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The Machine Intelligence Research Institute</h4>
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<a href="https://intelligence.org/" target="_blank">MIRI</a> is an organization doing technical research on AI safety. I think (but am not sure!) that FHI's approach to x-risk is probably the more important one right now, and am uncertain of the usefulness of MIRI's output, but MIRI is one of the few places dedicated to technical AI x-risk work right now and was one of the early forces popularizing the idea. You can donate to MIRI <a href="https://intelligence.org/donate/" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-48404062255893445972015-08-12T18:13:00.000-07:002017-05-03T19:32:05.977-07:00Multiplicative Factors in Games and Cause PrioritizationTL;DR: If the impacts of two causes add together, it might make sense to heavily prioritize the one with the higher expected value per dollar. If they multiply, on the other hand, it makes sense to more evenly distribute effort across the causes. I think that many causes in the effective altruism sphere interact more multiplicatively than additive, implying that it's important to heavily support multiple causes, not just to focus on the most appealing one.<br />
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Part of the <a href="http://www.effectivealtruism.org/" target="_blank">effective altruism</a> movement was founded on the idea that, within public health charities, there is an incredibly wide spread between the <a href="http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities" target="_blank">most effective</a> and <a href="http://qz.com/84943/what-we-can-learn-from-one-of-the-worst-charities-in-the-world/" target="_blank">least effective</a>. Effective altruists have recently been coming around to the idea that at least as important is the difference between the most and least effective cause areas. But while most EAs will agree that global public health interventions are generally more effective, or at least have higher potential, than supporting your local opera house, there's a fair bit of disagreement over what the <i>most</i> effective cause area is. <a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/" target="_blank">Global poverty</a>, <a href="http://www.animalcharityevaluators.org/" target="_blank">animal welfare</a>, <a href="https://intelligence.org/" target="_blank">existential risk</a>, and movement building/meta-<a href="https://centreforeffectivealtruism.org/" target="_blank">EA charities</a> are the most popular, but there are also proponents of first world education, prioritization research, economics, life extension, and a whole host of other issues.<br />
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Recently there's been a lot of talk about whether one cause is so important that all other causes are rounding errors compared to it (though some disagreement over what that cause would be!). The argument, roughly goes: when computing expected impact of causes, mine is 10^30 times higher than any other, so nothing else matters. For instance, there are 10^58 future humans, so increasing the odds that they exist by even .0001% is still worth 10^44 times more important that anything that impacts current humans. Similar arguments have been made where the "very large number" is the number of animals, or the intractability of a cause, or moral discounting of some group (often future humans or animals).<br />
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This line of thinking is implicitly assuming that the impacts of causes add together rather than multiply, and I think that's probably not a very good model. But first, a foray into games.<br />
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<h4>
Krug Versus Gromp</h4>
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Imagine that you're playing some game against a friend. You each have a character--yours is named Krug, and your opponents' is named Gromp. The characters will eventually battle each other, once, to the death. They each do some amount of damage per second D, and have some amount of health H. They'll keep attacking each other continuously until one is dead.<br />
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If they fight, then Krug will take H_g / D_k seconds to kill Gromp, and Gromp will take H_k / D_g seconds to kill Krug, with the winner being the one who lasts longer. Multiply through by D_g*D_k, and you get that the winner is the one who has the higher D*H--what you're trying to maximize is the product of damage per second, and health. It doesn't matter what your opponent is doing--there's no rock, paper, scissors going on. You just want to maximize health * damage.<br />
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Now let's say that before this fight, you each get to buy items to equip to your character. You're buying for Krug. Krug starts out with no health and no damage. There are two items you can buy: swords that each give 5 damage per second, and shields that each give 20 health. They both cost $1 each, and you have $100 to spend. It turns out that the right way to spend your money is to spend $50 buying 50 swords, and $50 buying 50 shields, ending up with 250 damage per second, and 1,000 health. (You can play around with other options if you want, but I promise this is the best.)<br />
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The really cool thing is that your money allocation is <i>totally independent</i> of the cost of swords and shields, and how much damage/health they give. You should spend half your money on swords and half on shields, no matter what. If swords cost $10 and gave 1 attack, and shields cost $1 and gave 100 health, you should still spend $50 on each. One way to think about this is: the nth dollar I spend on swords will increase my damage per second by a factor of n/(n-1), and the nth dollar spent on shields will increase my health by n/(n-1). Since all I care about is damage * health, I can just pull out these multiplicative factors--the actual scale of the numbers don't matter at all.<br />
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This turns out to be a useful way to look at a wide variety of games. In Magic, 4/4's are better than 2/6's and 6/2's; in League of Legends, bruisers win duels; in Starcraft, Zerglings and Zealots are very strong combat units. In most games, the most powerful duelers are the units that have comparable amounts of investment in attack and defense.<br />
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Sometimes there are other stats that matter, too. For instance, there might be health, damage per attack, and attacks per second. In this case your total badassery is the product of all three, and you should spend 1/3 of your money on shields, 1/3 on swords, and 1/3 of caffeine (or whatever makes you attack quickly). In general most combat stats in games are multiplicative, and you're usually best off spending equal amounts of money on all of them, unless you're specifically incentivized not to (e.g. by getting more and more efficient ways to buy swords the more you spend on swords). In general, when factors each increase linearly in money spent and multiply with each other, you're best off spending equal amounts of money on each of the factors. Let's call this the Principle of Distributed Power (PDP).<br />
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<h4>
Multiplicative Causes</h4>
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So, what does this have to do with effective altruism?<br />
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I think that, in practice, the impacts of lots of causes multiply, instead of adding. For instance, I think that a plausible way to view the future is that expected utility is X * G, where X is the probability that we avoid existential risk and make it to the far future, and G is the goodness of the world we create, assuming we succeed in avoiding x-risk. By the Principle of Distributed Power, you'd want to invest equal amounts of resources on X and G. But within X there are actually lots of different forms of existential risk--AI, Global Warming, bioterrorism, etc. And within G, there are lots and lots of factors, each of which might multiply with each other--technological advancement, the care with which we treat animals, ability to effectively govern ourselves, etc. And the PDP implies that our prior should be to invest comparable resources in each of those terms.<br />
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The real world is a lot messier than the battle between Krug and Gromp. One of the big differences is that the impact of work on most of these causes isn't linear. If you invest $1M in global warming x-risk maybe you reduce the odds that it destroys us by .01%, but if you invest $10^30 clearly you don't decrease the odds by 10^28%--the odds can't go below 0. Many of these causes have some best achievable outcome, and so at some point you <i>have</i> to have decreasing marginal utility of resources.<br />
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Another difference is that we're not starting from zero on all causes. The world has <i>already</i> invested billions of dollars in fighting global warming, and so that should be subtracted from the amount that's efficient to further spend on it. (If you start off with $100 already invested in swords, then your next $100 should be invested in shields before you go back to splitting up your investments.)<br />
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In practice, when considering causes that multiply together, the question of how to divide up resources depends on how much has already been invested, where on the probability distribution for that cause you currently think you are, and lots of other practicalities. In other words, it depends on how much you think it costs to increase your probability of a desired outcome by 1%.<br />
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But as long as there are other factors that multiply with it, a factor's importance transfers to them as well. Which, in some cases, is a fact long ago discovered: the whole reason that x-risk is important is because of how immensely important the future is, which is equally an argument for improving the future and for getting there.<br />
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None of this proves anything. But it's significantly changed my prior, and I now think it's likely that the EA movement should heavily invest in multiple causes, not just one.<br />
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I've spend a lot of time in my life trying to decide what the single most important cause is, and pissing other people off by being an asshole when I think I've found it. I also like playing <a href="http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Marksman_champion" target="_blank">AD carries</a>. But my winrate with them <a href="http://na.op.gg/summoner/champions/userName=sbf" target="_blank">isn't very high</a>. Maybe it's time to build <a href="http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Fighter_champion" target="_blank">bruiser</a>.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com42tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-44885809496069864042012-12-31T06:22:00.000-08:002012-12-31T06:24:10.526-08:00Pitcher Fatigue, Part 2: The Top 10Earlier, I wrote a <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/less-stupid-use-of-pitchers-pitcher.html" target="_blank">post</a> on the declining effectiveness of starting pitchers as they get deeper into games, postulating that it came from two major sources: the first being the fact that it's difficult to throw 100 pitches in a night without your arm getting temporarily tired, and second that the second time a batter sees a pitcher, they already know what type of stuff the pitcher is throwing and so are better able to hit it. Overall I estimated that by rotating pitchers frequently each game so that no pitcher went through the lineup more than once, a team could save about 5.6 wins each season (ignoring other effects, like the fact that if you're in the NL you get to pinch hit more often).<br />
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Also, starting with this post I'm going to make a conscious effort to switch from using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-base_plus_slugging" target="_blank">OPS</a> as my default batting stat to <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/offense/woba/" target="_blank">wOBA</a>. wOBA, which is on the same scale as on-base percentage, is basically a version of OPS that uses more accurate weightings for events.<br />
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On average, in 2012, the first time pitchers saw a batter they allowed a wOBA of about 0.338. The second time they saw those batters, the wOBA jumped to about 0.350, for a difference in wOBA of about 0.011. I'm going to name this statistic--wOBA for second plate appearances minus wOBA for fist--w-diff.<br />
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So the league average w-diff in 2012 was about 0.011. But different pitchers had different w-diffs.<br />
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Look, for instance, at R.A. Dickey. Dickey is a knuckleballer, and so one would expect hitters to be unusually bad the first time they see him--they have no practice hitting a knuckle-ball--but to get much better the second time, meaning one would expect him to have an unusually large w-diff. And, in fact, he does have a large w-diff over his career if you ignore all of the seasons in which he didn't have a large w-diff, which is a thing that makes a lot of sense to do if you have a personal vendetta against the year 2011.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
In fact, there is something slightly surprising about w-diff. I calculated w-diff for all pitchers who met an innings threshold* in both 2011 and 2012. 68 pitchers met this definition, and the correlation between w-diff in 2011 and 2012 for those pitchers was 0.0508. It seems that there is almost no correlation between w-diff for a pitcher between years (though w-diff across the league seems relatively stable: it was 0.0107 in 2011 and 0.0113 in 2012). So while it seems like pitchers in general do better the first time they see a hitter, there don't seem to be many pitchers who consistently over or under perform the league w-diff.<br />
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For those who like graphs, here's a graph of w-diff in 2011 on the x-axis and w-diff in 2012 on the y-axis for those 68 pitchers:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxiUl4tPEUpDqwojNsL_rHneCf1mN3GBqybZLFy05-9tvraHtuxyXwLMmNr71-WkdtqKUoKPnzegks2x3PMBK7ay-gH1LkdwfQ8d0PgS9cbZ2oyWwRonOzkye4KI2JD1LVWygMDi2vxOTW/s1600/graph.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxiUl4tPEUpDqwojNsL_rHneCf1mN3GBqybZLFy05-9tvraHtuxyXwLMmNr71-WkdtqKUoKPnzegks2x3PMBK7ay-gH1LkdwfQ8d0PgS9cbZ2oyWwRonOzkye4KI2JD1LVWygMDi2vxOTW/s400/graph.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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So, without further ado, I present you a list that I just said is meaningless: the pitchers with the top ten w-diff scores from 2012. Do you see any patterns in these pitchers? I don't. (Remember that league-average w-diff is 0.011.)<br />
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10: Yu Darvish</div>
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2012 w-diff: <b>0.083</b>. 2011 w-diff: N/A.</div>
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9: Rich Porcello</div>
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2012 w-diff: <b>0.083</b>. 2011 w-diff: 0.129.</div>
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8: Ivan Nova<br />
2012 w-diff: <b>0.084</b>. 2011 w-diff: 0.088.<br />
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7: Bartolo Colon<br />
2012 w-diff: <b>0.089</b>. 2011 w-diff: -0.052.<br />
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6: C.J. Wilson<br />
2012 w-diff:<b> 0.096</b>. 2011 w-diff: 0.037.<br />
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5: Mat Latos<br />
2012 w-diff: <b>0.101</b>. 2011 w-diff: 0.041.<br />
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4: Vance Worley<br />
2012 w-diff: <b>0.102</b>. 2011 w-diff: -0.093.<br />
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3: Joe Saunders<br />
2012 w-diff: <b>0.103</b>. 2011 w-diff: -0.038.<br />
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2: Jon Lester<br />
2012 w-diff: <b>0.119</b>. 2011 w-diff: -0.043.<br />
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And, highest w-diff from the 2012 season belongs to:<br />
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1: Tommy Hunter<br />
2012 w-diff: <b>0.170</b>. 2011 w-diff: 0.177.<br />
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Tommy Hunter was a not very good starting pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles last season; his ERA was 5.45. But Tommy Hunter was an especially not very good starting pitcher the second time he saw a batter. I ran a <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/baseball-game-simulation-details.html" target="_blank">basim</a> simulation on his 2012 statistics the first and second times he saw batters. Basim predicted that the first time through the lineup, he would have a 3.06 ERA; the second time through his ERA would be 7.65. I guess the moral of the story is: friends don't let Tommy Hunter pitch past the second inning.<br />
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* technically, the (arbitrary) threshold that used was that they had to face at least 150 batters at lest twice in a game during the season, which is roughly equivalent to making at least 17 starts.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-32598348224039486062012-12-30T07:23:00.002-08:002014-02-07T09:52:13.157-08:00Being a Utilitarian, Part 2: Conventional CharitiesThis is the second post in a series on actually being a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism" target="_blank">utilitarian</a> in the world; for the first post, look <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/being-utilitarian-part-1.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Also, for a more theoretical series on utilitarianism, look <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/search/label/utilitarianism" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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So, say that you're a utilitarian, and you're wondering what to do with your life. (Even if you're not a utilitarian but are wondering what to do with your life, most of this will apply.) What should you do? What, in the current society, can an individual do to make the world a better place? And what causes should you care about?<br />
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Is there anything you can do with your life to make the world a better place?<br />
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There are some complicated and hard to evaluate things you could do, like decide to become a politician and influence congress, or try to become famous and use your fame to convince people to do something meaningful with their lives.<br />
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But there are also more conventional things you can do to try to make the world a better place, which are much easier to evaluate: you could go work for a charity, or you could donate money to one. Which of these two things is more efficient largely depends on how much money you could donate; but, for instance, if you think that if you were to work for a charity your work would be worth $50,000 per year for them even if you were to work for free (an estimate of what it would cost them to hire someone to do your work), then donating $50,000 a year to that charity would do as much good as working for the charity. Note that working directly for them is even worse, compared to donating, when you take into account the fact that, even if they hire you, they'll have to pay you--you're only actually adding value to the extent that you're more productive than the marginal hire for them.<br />
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Also, note that many people decide to donate a little bit of money to a bunch of charities. This, to put it bluntly, is stupid, unless your donating an amount of money comparable to the entire operating budget of the charities. Unless you expect significantly decreasing marginal value of donations to an charity--something that should only happen if you're donating something on the same order of magnitude of the entire charity's income--whatever charity you think it best for the first $100 that you donate should also be the charity which you think is best for the next $100 that you donate. (The same logic applies to time you spend working or volunteering for charities.)<br />
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Note, by the way, that if you think you could make significantly more than $50,000 per year--and donate more than that--it can be more efficient to spend your life working in a high-paying profession and donating a lot of your money than working directly for charities, a strategy often called <a href="http://80000hours.org/earning-to-give" target="_blank">earning to give</a>.<br />
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But whether you're donating to a charity, working for a charity, or something else, you can evaluate--at least roughly--how much value you're providing them, in units of dollars.<br />
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Which then brings us to the question: well, what causes are important? Or, put another way, what charities have the highest impact per dollar donated?<br />
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I should probably preface this post by saying that I don't think any cause I mention in this article represents the most pressing concern for this world or the most efficient use of time or money--I'm instead going to talk about conventional charities, the kinds of charities no one would ever look askance at you for supporting. But when evaluating how important a cause is it's important to have some sort of baseline to compare it to: if a friend came up to you and told you he was starting a charity that would help one drug addict to stay clean for the rest of their lives for every $10,000 donated, what would you think of that charity? Is it efficient? Is it a total waste of money? Is it an order of magnitude better than any other charity?<br />
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Or, to take a real example, is it a good idea to donate money to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_G._Komen_for_the_Cure" target="_blank">Komen</a> in order to try to fight breast cancer? How about donating to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Rep" target="_blank">Berkeley Repertory Theater</a> to support a local theater company?<br />
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Just how much impact can a dollar have?<br />
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Well, if you want a one sentence answer, here it is: one two thousandth of a life.<br />
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That's the answer that <a href="http://givewell.com/" target="_blank">GiveWell</a> has reached when evaluating the Against Malaria Foundation, one of their three top rated charities.<br />
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GiveWell is an organization that attempts to determine exactly how much impact charities per dollar donated, and they've <a href="http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/AMF#Costperlifesaved" target="_blank">estimated</a> that the <a href="http://www.againstmalaria.com/" target="_blank">Against Malaria Foundation</a>--a group dedicated to providing anti-mosquito bed nets to developing countries--saves a life for every roughly $2,300 donated. It's of course an imperfect process but I suspect that this number is at least right to an order of magnitude.<br />
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How does this compare to the drug addiction charity, or Komen, or the Berkeley Repertory Theater?<br />
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Well, let's start with that drug addiction charity. They claim that every $10,000 donated keeps a drug addict clean for the rest of their life. That's about four times the cost that it takes to save a life by donating to the Against Malaria Foundation, and it doesn't really save someone's life--just make it better--so it's unlikely to be as efficient a way to donate your money as anti-mosquito bed nets are, but it's in the same ballpark.<br />
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OK, how about Komen? Some legitimate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_G._Komen_for_the_Cure#Controversy_and_criticism" target="_blank">concerns</a> exist about Komen, but let's ignore those for a second. Let's also postulate--much more favorably than could possibly be true--that if Komen's budget were permanently multiplied by ten, they could permanently cure breast cancer but that breast cancer would otherwise go uncured. This is about as favorable as one could possibly be to Komen. How would it stack up as a charity, then? Well, it's budget is around <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_G._Komen_for_the_Cure#Use_of_funds" target="_blank">$400 million per year</a>, so ten times that is $4 billion per year. Worldwide about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_cancer" target="_blank">450,000</a> people die of breast cancer each year, meaning that it cost about $10,000 per life saved. So even under absurdly optimistic assumptions, it seems unlikely that this is the most efficient place to donate your money.<br />
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And how about your local theater company? Should you donate to them? Well, in 2009 (the latest year for which the theater put an <a href="http://www.berkeleyrep.org/support/pdfs/annualreport2009.pdf" target="_blank">annual report</a> online) the Berkeley Repertory Theater sat approximately 160,000 audience members total, while spending about $10,000,000 putting on their plays--a total cost of about $63 per audience member. So, for the cost of saving a life in a developing country, you could subsidize about 30 tickets to a play.<br />
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These calculations, of course, aren't perfect, but they provide a reasonable baseline for how to evaluate how much good you can do.<br />
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In future posts I'll talk about the other things a utilitarian could do with their life, and why I'm not planning on donating any money to the Against Malaria Foundation. But I think it's useful to have a relatively easily quantifiable baseline to compare things to, and a pretty good one is: $2,300 to safe a life by donating money to the Against Malaria Foundation.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-46590021967700509232012-12-23T12:25:00.000-08:002012-12-23T12:25:18.614-08:00Less Stupid Use of Pitchers: Pitcher FatigueA while ago I wrote a <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/traditionball-most-unenlightened-area.html" target="_blank">post</a> about one of the most unenlightened areas of baseball strategy: the use of pitchers. I proposed eliminating the distinction between starting pitchers, middle relievers, and closers in favor of a system that just uses a set of pitchers, each pitching different total numbers of innings, but no single pitcher pitching more than a few innings in a game; in other words, a starter would now throw two innings every few games instead of seven innings every five games.<br />
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The advantages of this, as I see it, are four fold.<br />
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1) If you're an NL team, you can pinch hit for your pitchers whenever they come up.<br />
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2) Pitchers don't have to throw 100 pitches in a game.<br />
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3) Batters never get to see the same pitcher twice in a game, and so can't get used to their pitches.<br />
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4) You can get the pitcher-batter match-ups you want all the time, instead of being stuck with your same pitcher the first three times through the lineup.<br />
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In the first post I estimated the size of effect (1): pinch hitting for you pitcher every time would let you score about 0.2 more runs per game, translating into about 3.2 wins per season (the difference between a .500 team and a .520 team).<br />
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Now I'm going to look at effects (2) and (3).<br />
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In order to evaluate how much you gain by not having your pitchers stay in the game too long--both in terms of fatigue, and in terms of batters not getting use to pitchers--what you really want to know is whether pitchers got less effective each time through the lineup.<br />
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It's not trivial to find a way to do this without inviting statistical bias*. In the end, what I came up with was the following: how do pitchers' statistics change between the first time they face a batter in a game, and the second time? In particular, I'm only looking at cases where the same batter had two at bats against the same pitcher in a game, and neither of the at bats ended in a sacrifice bunt or intentional walk (as those aren't good measures of pitcher skill).<br />
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So, what were the results?<br />
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Well, in 2012 pitchers allowed an OPS of .769 the first time the saw a batter, but .797 the second time; results from 2011 were similar, with a gain of about 30 points of OPS. What that means is that pitchers did get worse the second time the saw a hitter, probably from a combination of fatigue and from the hitter having seen their pitches once before.<br />
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And something to note here is that the pitches that a pitcher throws in one game are just 3% of what they throw in a year--this fatigue is not coming from the fact that pitchers are throwing 200 innings in a year, but form the fact that they have to throw 100 pitches in a night. In other words, it's fatigue that could potentially be fixed just be spreading a pitchers' innings out more.<br />
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It's hard to get a good estimate of how well hitters did the third time they saw a pitcher because by then a number of pitchers have left the game, leaving a biased sample behind. But it's interesting to note that overall--not controlling for anything--in 2012, batters <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/split.cgi?t=b&lg=MLB&year=2012" target="_blank">gained</a> 36 points of OPS the second time they saw a pitcher (similar to the 28 points I found), but then gained yet another 29 points of OPS the third time they saw a pitcher.<br />
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So there's reason to believe that, even controlling for other factors, in addition to the 28 points batters gained the second time they saw a pitcher they probably gained another 25 or so the second time.<br />
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How much does his matter? Well, using <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/offense/woba/" target="_blank">wOBA</a> to calculate the runs lost over the course of a season, a team could get about 5.6 more wins if their pitchers only pitched once through the lineup each game**.<br />
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This calculation, of course, isn't perfect. Who knows how it is on a pitchers arm to throw two innings every other game; no pitchers have every really done it, so all we have is speculation. And maybe it's the case that pitchers don't actually have to get worse as the night goes on, but they only have so much gas in them for a season and decide for some reason to throw harder at the beginning of nights than at the end.<br />
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But I think it's a reasonable approximation, and 5.6 wins isn't nothing. Including the 3.2 wins from pinch hitting, so far we've gotten 8.8 extra wins each season from switching pitchers more often--the equivalent of one MVP player.<br />
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*Problems with other methods are the fact that it's non-random on which days pitchers last more than two times through the order and that there could be correlations between whether a pitcher sees a hitter more than once and how good both the pitcher and the hitter are.<br />
**Assuming that the fact that pitchers already see hitters for the first time once counteracts the fact that they also often see them a third time, and that the difference between first and second times is a reasonable average to take.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-76862420047822961362012-12-04T22:17:00.000-08:002012-12-05T17:36:14.888-08:00Being a Utilitarian, Part 1I've written a <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/search/label/utilitarianism" target="_blank">series of posts</a> about the different types of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism" target="_blank">utilitarianism</a> arguing for <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/utilitarianism-part-2-total-average-and.html" target="_blank">aggregate</a>, <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/utilitarianism-part-3-classical-act-one.html" target="_blank">classical, act, one-level</a> utilitarianism. I haven't, however, talked at all about what it would mean to be a utilitarian in the real world.<br />
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In the real world, obviously, you aren't faced with a series of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem" target="_blank">trolley problems</a> or <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-utilitarian-boogeymen.html" target="_blank">utility monsters</a>. If you don't think about it very much, you might conclude that utilitarianism isn't actually useful because you can't calculate the total utility of each possible action.<br />
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However, as it turns out, utilitarianism can be useful even if you don't know the exact state of the universe.<br />
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In future posts I'll examine thornier, more wide-reaching issues, but for now I'll just talk about one issue--the first issue that I actually thought about in utilitarian terms. For people familiar with utilitarianism it probably won't be that interesting or revolutionary, but it's a good way to remind yourself that just because a theory is complicated doesn't mean approximations can't be useful. (It also parallels an argument <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer" target="_blank">Peter Singer</a> has made on the subject.)<br />
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When I was about 12 years old I was first becoming politically aware and starting to think through social issues. Gay marriage was a no-brainer--you don't have to be a hardcore utilitarian to see that making people's lives miserable because they're completely harmlessly a little bit different than you is stupid. But abortion was nagging me a bit.<br />
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I grew up in a liberal, pro-choice household with liberal, pro-choice friends. And I really did see the benefit of abortion: raising a kid you don't want to have is a really shitty experience for everyone involved. But I also saw the pro-life side of the argument: there isn't really any discontinuous difference as a fetus becomes a baby, and you were killing a fetus--was that murder?<br />
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I was pretty conflicted for a while: having unwanted kids was bad, but so was murder--until I thought about the scenario as a utilitarian. A rights-based theorist might ask whether freedom to choose was more important than fetus' rights, but a utilitarian would ask: what are the actual consequences of the two options?<br />
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And after thinking about it for a while it became clear to me that there weren't really any grave moral downsides to abortion. There are lots and lots of good reasons why <i>murder</i> is usually a really bad thing: you cause distress to the friends and family of the murdered, you cause society to lose a potentially valuable member in which it had already invested a lot of food and education and resources, and you take away the life of a person who had already invested a lot into it. But none of those apply to abortion. In fact, if you think about the actual consequences of an abortion, except for distress caused to the parents (which they're in the best position to evaluate), there are few differences from if the fetus had never been conceived in the first place. In other words, to a utilitarian abortion looks a lot like birth control. In the end murder is just a word and what's important isn't whether you try to apply the word to a situation but the facts of the situation that caused you to describe it as murder in the first place. And in the case of abortion few of the things that make murder so bad apply.<br />
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If a mother were to have an unwanted child it would cause all sorts of harms: distress, loss of resources, and loss of time of the mother; likely a shitty childhood for the kid; and possibly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect" target="_blank">an increase in crime rates</a>. Having an abortion would be as if the fetus never existed in the first place.<br />
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And so utilitarianism helped me solve my first societal moral dilemma, and made me comfortable being pro-choice.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-82854141388730107572012-12-04T21:25:00.001-08:002012-12-09T21:59:11.722-08:00Re-starting the blog, and results of the second contestAs you may have noticed, after a hiatus while the school year started, I'm back to blogging.<br />
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First, I never resolved the <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/contest-number-two-two-degrees-of.html" target="_blank">second contest</a>. No one solved the puzzle but Matt Nass made partial progress, so he gets 3 <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-contest-of-week-whats-your.html" target="_blank">Shadow-points</a>. I'm going to leave the puzzle open and if anyone solves it they get one Shadow-point. Here's the puzzle again, with a little bit filled in as a hint:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKxjj8fVMXnLAL65tAlyzcnMZaJcW2wjPVPTaAO-ewwVY62IByMTolRrxWJJoLWlBc1jADVZt0gcq2yd0z7X1Gm3pBU69EBndzQOZZbii_KEXwPLTPMxpXLdArAopFv0sCQuQccfspcMBr/s1600/bicycle.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKxjj8fVMXnLAL65tAlyzcnMZaJcW2wjPVPTaAO-ewwVY62IByMTolRrxWJJoLWlBc1jADVZt0gcq2yd0z7X1Gm3pBU69EBndzQOZZbii_KEXwPLTPMxpXLdArAopFv0sCQuQccfspcMBr/s640/bicycle.png" title="Puzzle" width="640" /></a></div>
Instructions for the puzzle are <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/contest-number-two-two-degrees-of.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Also, I think that weekly was probably too frequent for the contests, so they're going to change to bi-weekly; I'll have another one out soon.<br />
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If there's anything you want me to write about, put it in the comments here.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-47177303258377719092012-11-23T00:30:00.003-08:002012-11-23T00:42:25.179-08:00Newcomb's DecisionThis post is partially a continuation of <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/search/label/utilitarianism" target="_blank">my previous posts</a> on utilitarianism, and partially on philosophy in general; mostly, it's my two cents on one of the odder parts of consequentialist debate: <a href="http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Decision_theory" target="_blank">decision theories</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox" target="_blank">Newcomb's Paradox</a></h3>
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You, a mere mortal, encounter P, some super smart alien. Or maybe it's a supercomputer, or maybe a god; versions of the paradox differ on this. P comes up to you and says: "I have a deal for you. I'm going to give you two boxes--box A, and box B. Box B is transparent, and you can see $1,000 in it. You can't see what's in box A. I'm going to give you two choices. The first is to take box A--you get whatever is in it. The other choice is to take both boxes--you get box A, plus the $1,000 from box B."</div>
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So, you ask, why don't you take both boxes, getting the free $1,000? Well, says P, there's a catch: "I have predicted whether you will take one box or two boxes." (Or maybe I've simulated all of the atoms in the universe, or maybe studied your psychology, or maybe something else--versions of the paradox differ in how P knows how many boxes you're going to take. But however he knows it, you believe him; maybe he has, in the past, predicted everyone who's taken this challenge successfully.) "So I know what you're going to do", says P, "and before you arrived I decided how much money to put in box A. If I predicted that you were going to take only box A, I put $1,000,000 in it. Otherwise--if I predicted that you were going to take both boxes--I left box A empty."<br />
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"So", says P, "How many boxes do you want to take?"</div>
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So, how many boxes should you take? Well, this "paradox", and ones like it, have spawned countless arguments over "<a href="http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Decision_theory" target="_blank">decision theories</a>". I would try to define them but I think it's easier to see the two main decision theories by example of how many boxes they take. The first type of decision theory, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidential_decision_theory" target="_blank">evidential decision theory</a>, says: well, what behavior is consistent with the highest expected value for me? If I take one box (box A), I will get the $1,000,000 from it; if I take two, P won't put any money in box A, and so I'll just get the $1,000 from box B. So, the evidential decision theorist would only take box A.<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_decision_theory" target="_blank">Causal decision theorists</a>, on the other hand, say: what actions will <i>cause</i> the best results? So, a causal decision theorist would say: if I take two boxes, then that'll cause me to get the $1,000 in box B, whereas if I only take one box I won't, and since P has already decided whether to put the money in box A, my decisions can't <i>cause</i> the money to exit or not exit. And so the causal decision theorist would take both boxes.<br />
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So, who's right? Well, the one-box-taking evidential decision theorist will take only box A, and--per the assumptions of the problem--find $1,000,000 in it. The two-box-taking causal decision theorist, on the other hand, will take both box A and box B, confident that their actions can't change what's in box A--and then will find box A to be empty, and end up with $1,000.<br />
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So is evidential decision theory (ED) correct? Did the causal decision theorist (CD) throw away $999,000 because they insisted on taking the $1,000 from box B?<br />
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Well, let's back up a second. Why was there $1,000,000 in box A when the ED opened the box, but not when the CD did? What exactly do we mean when we say that P <i>knows</i> how many boxes you will pick?<br />
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One of two things is true. Either we live in a universe where, prior to you making your choice, P <i>knows</i> how many boxes you'll take, or we don't.<br />
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Say P doesn't <i>know</i> with certainty. He's pretty sure--he's studied you a lot and studied psychology a lot and is pretty damn sure he knows how many boxes you'll take--but theoretically he could be wrong. Well, in this case the two-box-taking CD's mistake was in how he lived his life up until that point. He made lots of decisions that made P think he would take two boxes, and so P didn't put anything in box A for him. If he really wanted that $1,000,000 he should have written lots of blog posts during his life about how he would take only one box so that when the day came he could convince P to put the $1,000,000 in box A--and then taken both boxes, to get the full $1,001,000. But he didn't, and now that he's sitting there with both boxes in front of him he might as well take both of them--P has already decided that there isn't going to be any money in the first box.<br />
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But what if P knows for sure? What if your blog posts can't fool him? What if he's simulated every atom in the universe and knows whether you'll take one box or two? Then shouldn't you choose to be an evidential decision theorist, and choose to take only box A, so that you can get the $1,000,000?<br />
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Well, the trick is in the word <i>choose</i>. If P knows for sure how many boxes you'll take then it's already been decided--and it doesn't mean anything to talk about how many boxes you should <i>choose</i> to take. It's already been decided how many boxes you're taking.<br />
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My point, I guess, is that evidential decision theory only makes sense in a universe where (a) P is <i>sure</i> how many boxes you'll take, but (b) you still have the option to take either one or both. But these are contradictory assumptions--the contradictory assumptions behind Newcomb's paradox.<br />
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In fact, causal decision theory is <i>the same thing</i> as evidential decision theory in non-contradictory universes. There is no distinction between actions that happen if and only if you make some decision with actions caused by that decision except in inconsistent universes where something can be dependent on a decision but somehow not causally related to it.<br />
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So what would happen if P offered this deal to me? Well, I'd talk a lot about how much I only intend to take one box, but P wouldn't buy it; he'd leave box A empty, and I'd take both boxes for a total of $1,000.<br />
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But if my goal is to get more than $1,000 from this process I've been screwed for a while. I've been screwed since first thought through this problem and realized that it made no sense to take only one box. I've been screwed since the minute I was born and P realized I was going to be a two-boxer. There's nothing I can do about it.<br />
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Though writing this blog post certainly won't help.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-61915370156290760982012-11-11T21:26:00.003-08:002012-11-11T22:29:36.840-08:00Elections and the FutureThe Democrats' victory in the 2012 elections--primarily President Obama's reelection but also the Democratic caucus in the senate growing by three senators*--has caused a <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/55244691-90/election-gop-needs-party.html.csp" target="_blank">fair</a> <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/11/future-republican-party-0" target="_blank">amount</a> <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/sunday-shows/republicans-spar-over-future-of-the-party-20121111" target="_blank">of</a> hand wringing among conservative circles about the future of the Republican party--the new fashion in political circles seems to be guessing which of opposition to comprehensive immigration reform, opposition to gay rights, and opposition to tax hikes for the wealthy will have been felled by the 2012 election. I agree in large part with the long term trend of American politics, but I think it's important to keep it in perspective.<br />
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Barack Obama won the presidency last Tuesday with a resounding 332-206 electoral college victory, but it's important to view this number in context. The electoral map this year favored president Obama; the robust electoral victory came along with just a 51-48 popular vote result, not dissimilar to the 2004 presidential election. Furthermore this gap was due partly to the <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/victory_lab/2012/11/obama_s_victory_how_the_democrats_burned_by_karl_rove_became_the_party_of.html" target="_blank">superior Democratic campaign machinery</a> and partly to the weak Republican field. It was also a result largely in line with what would be predicted by the state of the economy.<br />
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It is true that the Republican party will modernize because it has to modernize; my point is that it's not because of the results of what was a largely gridlocked 2012 election cycle. The reason that the GOP will have to modernize is because it's on the wrong side of history on just about every issue that's likely to be judged unambiguously by our ancestors. Their discrimination against gays, denial of climate change, defense of a robust church-state connection, and mindlessly nationalistic attitude towards immigrants will not go over so well in fifty (or even twenty) years and for that reason the GOP will drift away from its positions on those issues. But this has been true for a while. The Democrats have won the youth vote--a leading indicator of the direction of the country--in every presidential election since 1992. Public sentiment for gay rights has been shifting steadily in the Democrats' direction for about fifty years. Religiosity in America, though higher than in just about every comparable country, has been dropping. Latinos have been a quickly growing voting block in America for a while. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_santorum" target="_blank">Rick Santorum</a> is not going to end up being the future of the Republican party but that's been clear for a while.<br />
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Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather have a president who endorsed gay marriage instead of one who didn't really seem to give a shit about it; one who couldn't pass climate change legislation instead of one who <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20127273-503544/mitt-romneys-shifting-views-on-climate-change/" target="_blank">no longer believed it was man made</a>; one who has had some doubts about the bible instead of one who believes that a 1830s convicted fraudster spoke the word of god. I'm glad that president Obama won.<br />
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But the need for the modernization of the Republican party has been apparent for a while, and would be true no matter who won last Tuesday's election--an election that, in a slightly different universe, could have been a victory for the GOP.<br />
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*The Democrats gaining three seats is contingent on Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, caucusing with them, as he is expected to do.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-32383055579727006922012-11-06T14:11:00.001-08:002012-11-11T21:33:30.569-08:00Election 2012 liveblogWelcome to the Measuring Shadows 2012 election liveblog! We'll be live chatting on the widget to the right, and writing longer comments on this page.<br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="650px" scrolling="no" src="http://www.coveritlive.com/index2.php/option=com_altcaster/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=77dec0e87d/height=650/width=470" width="470px"><a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=77dec0e87d" >Election Night 2012</a></iframe><br />
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<b>11:30pm</b>: Obama has been called the winner of the 2012 presidential election. The Democrats still looking unexpectedly strong in MT and ND senate. And no news so far from Rep. Pete Stark's re-election campaign from California's 15th congressional district.<br />
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<b>11:10pm</b>: The story of the night, so far, has been (1) the polls were right, (2) slight Republican overachievement in the House, and (3) slight Democratic overachievement in the Senate. So far Democrats have held all the seats they were favorites to and have good shots at ND and MT.<br />
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<b>10:10pm</b>: If anyone wants to take Romney's side of a 97:3 bet right now, I'll take Obama's.<br />
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<b>8:30pm</b>: I fed some exit polls into Lame38 pretending that they were actual results for purposes of estimating national popular vote (but not for purposes of assigning the electoral votes), and it gives Obama a 98.7% chance of winning the election--exit polls are really misleading but <b>if</b> they're not consistently biased, Obama's going to win.<br />
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<b>8:00pm</b>: Livechat is back up. Also, FWIW, if Obama actually wins Florida by 3 points then it's over; Lame38 has Romney winning in 0 of 10,000 of those simulations.<br />
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<b>7:55pm</b>: We're working on getting the chat on the right side of the page up; it should be up soon.<br />
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<b>6:45pm</b>: Currently Obama is running at -22% in Indiana and Joe Donnelly running at -4%--that looks good for Donnelly; Obama should lose Indiana by at most about 13%.<br />
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<b>6:30pm</b>: Fun facts about Indiana, according to Lame38: Obama's projected to lose it by about 8.7 points and currently has a 95.1% favorite for the election; if he loses it by 12 points he'll be a 93% favorite, if he loses by 4 points he'll be a 99.9% favorite. Shift down about 4% to get closer to 528 projections.<br />
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<b>5:55pm</b>: Another race that I'll be looking at is the race for California's 15th congressional district, between incumbent Pete Stark and challenger Eric Swalwell. Both candidates are democrats. If you don't know much about stark I highly recommend you read <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Stark#Controversies">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Stark#Controversies</a>: I promise it'll be worth your time. Polls close in California 11pm Eastern time.<br />
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<b>5:30pm</b>: If there are any Lame38 simulations you want to see, comment in the post and I'll do them. Also, follow me on twitter @MeasuringShadow; I'll be live-tweeting as well. Also, for your edification, here are when polls close (all times Eastern):<br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.20979078696109354" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">7:00 pm: GA, IN, KY, SC, VT, VA</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">7:30 pm: NC, OH, WV</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">8:00 pm: AL, CT, DE, DC, FL, IL, ME, MD, MA, MS, MO, NH, NJ, OK, PA, RI, TN</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">8:30 pm: AR</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9:00 pm: AZ, CO, KS, LA, MI, MN, NE, NM, NY, ND, SD, TX, WI, WY</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">10:00 pm: IA, MT, NV, UT</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">11:00 pm: CA, HI, ID, OR, WA</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1:00 am: AK</span></b><br />
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<b>5:15pm</b>: I wrote <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/lame38-and-liveblogging-election.html" target="_blank">Lame38</a>, a shitty implementation of 538, the other night. Here are some calculations done using it:<br />
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Probability that Obama wins if:<br />
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He wins Ohio by 3 percent: <b>99.5%</b><br />
He wins Ohio by 0.1%: <b>97.2%</b><br />
He loses Ohio by 0.1%: <b>75.2%</b><br />
He loses Ohio by 3.0%: <b>50.4%</b><br />
He loses Pennsylvania by 1.0%: <b>39.0%</b><br />
He loses Massachusetts by 1.0%: <b>0.1%</b><br />
He loses California by 1.0% but wins Texas by 1.0%: <b>93.1%</b><br />
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<b>5:10pm</b>: For those who don't know, Obama has about a 90% chance of winning reelection, the democrats are poised to roughly hold their 53 senate seats, and the house should remain comfortably in republican hands thanks to redistricting--in short, not a whole lot should change.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-40114387905143520042012-11-05T22:29:00.000-08:002012-11-05T22:29:23.827-08:00Lame38, and liveblogging the electionI will be liveblogging the election tomorrow night on this blog, starting with some posts early in the day but picking up around 7pm. But why should you follow this blog?<br />
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Because there is a crisis waiting to unfold tomorrow night: what if polls close have just closed in Virginia but Nate Silver hasn't updated <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/" target="_blank">fivethirtyeight</a> yet? How will you know if Obama's chances of winning the election have jumped to 92.5% or plummeted to 91.5%?<br />
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It is in the hopes that this catastrophe may be averted that I unveil Lame38: a shitty version of 538 that I promise to update frequently. What is Lame38? Well, I took all of the projections from fivethirtyeight, created a simplified model, and will run it with updated results--giving a real time projection of what Obama's chances of winning are, incorperating both states that have been called and the actual votes from noncompetitive states.<br />
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Q: Why is this better that 538?<br />
A: Well maybe 538 will take like 15 minutes to update but Lame38 will only take 5 minutes. That'd be pretty cool, right?<br />
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Q: So it's just a shittier version of 538?<br />
A: That's kind of a rude question.<br />
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Q: What information does your model incorporate as the night goes on?<br />
A: I incorporate not just what states have been called, but also popular vote results from each state to try to estimate biases in the projections.<br />
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Q: So how does Lame38 work?<br />
A: I took the projected vote differences and errors for each state from fivethirtyeight, as well as the standard deviation of the national popular vote. For each simulation I will sample a national popular vote, bias each state by its difference from the projected national popular vote (to estimate national bias), and then sample each state's vote. I then run about 1,000,000 simulations.<br />
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Q: So, what are the odds Obama wins the election?<br />
A: Well, 538 says 92.2*%, and Lame38 says 93.5%, so I'd say the answer is about 92.2%.<br />
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Q: What else will you be blogging about?<br />
A: Senate races, <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California's_15th_congressional_district_elections,_2012" target="_blank">the race for California's 15th congressional district</a>, and whatever else is on my mind.<br />
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Q: Will this be a great liveblogging, or the greatest liveblogging?<br />
A: I'm shooting for "worth reading".<br />
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I hope to see you there!<br />
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*When I ran the simulations; 538 has since updated to 92.0%.<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-74957195796949710512012-08-16T01:34:00.000-07:002012-09-19T14:22:46.184-07:00Checking in on Tim LincecumA month ago I wrote an <a href="http://v/" target="_blank">article</a> looking at changes in San Francisco Giants' starting pitcher <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/linceti01.shtml" target="_blank">Tim Lincecum</a>'s pitch command and velocity this season. In particular, I found that the velocity on his fastball and slider had decreased by about a mile per hour, and that the average distance of his pitches from the edge of the strikezone had increased--assuming that, generally, pitches near the edge of the strikezone are better than those in the middle or nowhere near it.<br />
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Since the all-star break, though, Lincecum's ERA, at least, has been a respectable 3.66. Have his command and speed improved as well?<br />
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It turns out that his speed is the same as earlier this year, with a fastball averaging around 90.4 mph, and about a mile per hour slower than last year. So, no improvement on that front.<br />
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His average distance from the edge of the strikezone, on the other hand, has gotten a bit better--it's been at .940*, as compared to .923 last year and .961 for the first half of 2012**.<br />
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So, long story short, there are some signs that his pitching might be picking up but nothing conclusive.<br />
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By the way, I'll be announcing results from the <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/contest-number-two-two-degrees-of.html" target="_blank">second contest</a> and introducing the third one in the next day or two.<br />
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The value for the second half of this year is only statistically significantly different from the value from last year, and from the value for the first half of this year, at the p= .30 level--so the jury's out on this one.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-2600391702306017432012-08-13T18:19:00.000-07:002012-09-19T14:23:30.963-07:00Checking in on the Giants' lineup<a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/more-giants-lineup-comments.html" target="_blank">Earlier</a> a wrote a few posts on what the SF Giants' optimal starting lineup should be using <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/baseball-game-simulation-details.html" target="_blank">Basim</a>, a baseball simulator I wrote. A lot has changed since then, though--Posey has become much better, Blanco and Pagan have cooled off, and Hunter Pence and Marco Scutaro have joined the club. So, what should the Giants' lineup look like now? What lineup do I hope they start tonight?<br />
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First off, here was my guess at their best lineup (once again assumin Zito is the pitcher):<br />
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1. Buster Posey<br />
2. Brandon Belt<br />
3. Melky Cabrera<br />
4. Pablo Sandoval<br />
5. Hunter Pence<br />
6. Marco Scutaro<br />
7. Angel Pagan<br />
8. Brandon Crawford<br />
9. Barry Zito<br />
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Running this lineup through the simulator*, it scored an average of 4.03 runs per game.<br />
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I then found that a random lineup (i.e. random ordering of the nine players) scored about 3.89 runs per game. The lineups that the simulator liked the best generally had Posey, Belt, Cabrera, or Pence batting leadoff, which is unsurprising--each has either a high OBP or a high ground into double play rate that would be very painful in the heart of the order. The single lineup that the simulator liked best** was the following:<br />
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1. Buster Posey<br />
2. Angel Pagan<br />
3. Hunter Pence<br />
4. Brandon Belt<br />
5. Melky Cabrera<br />
6. Marco Scutaro<br />
7. Pablo Sandoval<br />
8. Brandon Crawford<br />
9. Barry Zito<br />
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It scored an average of about 4.035 runs per game***.<br />
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I then looked at two lineups that were close to what I predict the Giants will run; they differ only in whether the Giants play Theriot or Crawford; the lineup Pagan, Scutaro, Cabrera, Posey Sandoval, Pence, Belt Theriot, Zito scored an average of 3.96 runs per game, while the same lineup but with Crawford batting for Theriot scored 4.00 runs per game on average. So, it seems like about half the difference between my lineup and the one with Theriot just comes fromt the fact that Craword is better than Theriot.<br />
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Anyway, here's to hoping the Giants will do something smart.<br />
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*: For Pence and Scutaro I used their pre-Giants numbers.<br />
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**: This should be taken with a grain of salt--to actually find <b>the best</b> would take days of simulation; treat this as a lineup that is pretty close to the best.<br />
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***: FWIW, the ten best starting lineups, according to the simulatr (with the same caveat as **), in the form (lineup, average runs scored by lineup per game): [(['Buster Posey', 'Melky Cabrera', 'Brandon Belt', 'Marco Scutaro', 'Hunter Pence', 'Pablo Sandoval', 'Angel Pagan', 'Brandon Crawford', 'Barry Zito'], 4.0152400000000004), (['Brandon Belt', 'Buster Posey', 'Pablo Sandoval', 'Melky Cabrera', 'Hunter Pence', 'Angel Pagan', 'Brandon Crawford', 'Barry Zito', 'Marco Scutaro'], 4.0168675), (['Melky Cabrera', 'Buster Posey', 'Brandon Belt', 'Marco Scutaro', 'Pablo Sandoval', 'Brandon Crawford', 'Angel Pagan', 'Hunter Pence', 'Barry Zito'], 4.0179150000000003), (['Brandon Belt', 'Buster Posey', 'Pablo Sandoval', 'Melky Cabrera', 'Hunter Pence', 'Brandon Crawford', 'Angel Pagan', 'Marco Scutaro', 'Barry Zito'], 4.0218325000000004), (['Melky Cabrera', 'Brandon Belt', 'Marco Scutaro', 'Pablo Sandoval', 'Angel Pagan', 'Hunter Pence', 'Buster Posey', 'Brandon Crawford', 'Barry Zito'], 4.0219899999999997), (['Hunter Pence', 'Marco Scutaro', 'Buster Posey', 'Pablo Sandoval', 'Brandon Belt', 'Melky Cabrera', 'Angel Pagan', 'Brandon Crawford', 'Barry Zito'], 4.0253224999999997), (['Brandon Belt', 'Hunter Pence', 'Pablo Sandoval', 'Angel Pagan', 'Melky Cabrera', 'Brandon Crawford', 'Marco Scutaro', 'Buster Posey', 'Barry Zito'], 4.0315525000000001), (['Hunter Pence', 'Angel Pagan', 'Brandon Belt', 'Melky Cabrera', 'Buster Posey', 'Pablo Sandoval', 'Marco Scutaro', 'Brandon Crawford', 'Barry Zito'], 4.0322525000000002), (['Marco Scutaro', 'Pablo Sandoval', 'Brandon Belt', 'Melky Cabrera', 'Buster Posey', 'Hunter Pence', 'Brandon Crawford', 'Angel Pagan', 'Barry Zito'], 4.0353874999999997), (['Buster Posey', 'Angel Pagan', 'Hunter Pence', 'Brandon Belt', 'Melky Cabrera', 'Marco Scutaro', 'Pablo Sandoval', 'Brandon Crawford', 'Barry Zito'], 4.0365225000000002)]Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-41508833050521706052012-08-13T05:50:00.002-07:002012-09-19T14:23:41.429-07:00Second contest ends tonight (Monday night)Last week I announced the <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/contest-number-two-two-degrees-of.html" target="_blank">second contest</a>, to solve this intimidating puzzle:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCKPFLfHAO0xnrVbYzIZ4SBFnFhCbDppjKcuRpLcZJ065-NGSuwWuzRTxRnDfqEzJdiDbXSZCUJORzClxM3cwewqANpMDSkQeUJIY1Titc7sqOHXr1oJic78OPwL1nM2UvZ4aE8UEp31-7/s1600/Contest+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCKPFLfHAO0xnrVbYzIZ4SBFnFhCbDppjKcuRpLcZJ065-NGSuwWuzRTxRnDfqEzJdiDbXSZCUJORzClxM3cwewqANpMDSkQeUJIY1Titc7sqOHXr1oJic78OPwL1nM2UvZ4aE8UEp31-7/s640/Contest+2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Details are at the first link. So far no one has fully solved it, so send in your partial solutions--they'll probably make it to the top three.</div>
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The contest ends tonight (Monday night) at 11:59 pm. I'll announce the third contest sometime Tuesday.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-89731556120615918772012-08-10T00:00:00.000-07:002012-09-19T14:24:15.401-07:00Swing Vote!<br />
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Hey everyone. Sam made a <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-much-is-vote-worth-how-about-dollar.html">post</a> a couple weeks ago analyzing votes (and money) for congressional elections. This is a post about analyzing votes for US Presidential elections. This is the result of a 2am conversation-calculation with Sam and a mutual friend Gary Wang. Also, we base a lot of intermediate steps in the result comes from the website <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/">FiveThirtyEight</a>.</div>
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The question we're going to try to answer is the following. You are Joe Smith from Iowa (or, insert your favorite state here), who decides to stay home on November 6, election day. What's the probability you wake up the next morning, open up Google News, and feel really stupid? Or more succinctly, what's the probability that a single vote in Iowa will make the difference in November?</div>
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Because of the complicated rules of the electoral college, this is a little difficult to estimate, but we do a rough approximation here. What we'll do is think about is <b>1)</b> the probability that without Iowa, neither Obama or Romney would have enough electoral votes to win the White House, and <b>2)</b> the probability that Iowa's vote splits exactly evenly, given that 1) is true (so we do a conditional probability). Then we multiply 1) and 2).</div>
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<b>1)</b> 538 has run simulations based on lots of polls that estimate the probability distribution of electoral votes Obama will receive. For reference, we estimate this to be a Gaussian centered at 302 with standard deviation 54,</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTC3snFWpCacJ4jbfyRzkbTpwrMFzzJttEeKlZeomvCORy_fvKHNhrS1jIG4o-gHgBbVTC6COOGMlZRKiWUy9i9p8M_RQN9UJA1nR0cbCggw03wOJOjMvhDV6pAmU5OGVsEU1UUmYO0rzD/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-08-10+at+2.44.32+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTC3snFWpCacJ4jbfyRzkbTpwrMFzzJttEeKlZeomvCORy_fvKHNhrS1jIG4o-gHgBbVTC6COOGMlZRKiWUy9i9p8M_RQN9UJA1nR0cbCggw03wOJOjMvhDV6pAmU5OGVsEU1UUmYO0rzD/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-08-10+at+2.44.32+AM.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">(</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px;">σ</span> = 54, <i>x</i><sub>0 </sub>= 302) The probability that, without a state with <i>EV</i> electoral votes and a priori probability of Obama winning <i>pO</i>, neither candidate has enough to win is: </div>
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The first term is from erasing Iowa when it was critical for an Obama victory, and the second term from erasing Iowa when it was critical for a Romney victory. Note that this number basically scales with the number of electoral votes a state is worth. We haven't yet taken account how likely it is the state is to split evenly; just the likelihood it is a state without which one side wouldn't have enough for victory.</div>
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<b>2)</b> Now we need to estimate the odds that a state will split its vote evenly, assuming it is critical for the election. 538 has a probability distribution for every state, but we need to modify it slightly -- the one from 538 is a probability distribution for the number of votes Obama will get; we want the probability distribution <b>assuming</b> 1) is true.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Here we make an assumption: Given that the electoral college is so close that one state is decisive, we can assume that the election was very close and the national popular vote was very close to 50/50. We also assume the difference between a state's vote and the national vote is roughly constant (see <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/state-and-national-polls-tell-different-tales-about-state-of-campaign/">538</a> for more on this). We'll then shift the mean of our Gaussian so as to make the popular vote 50/50. For example, according to 538, currently Obama is expected to win 50.9% of the popular vote nationally, and 51.5% of the vote in Iowa. We'll subtract 0.9% from the Iowa expected vote, and treat the probability distribution instead as a Gaussian centered at 50.6%. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Now we're interested in the probability of one vote changing the election. So here we should be a bit careful. We approximated our proportion of vote as a continuous variable, but of course it's actually discrete. Really our probability distribution is the sum of a bunch of tiny delta functions with some discrete spacing 1/N where N is the voting population of the state. We guessed the voting population by taking the voting population in 2008 and multiplying by the state's growth over the four years.</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Thus, the probability of Joe affecting the election in Iowa is obtained by integrating P(p) around p = 0.50 with a width of 1/N, which we can approximate very well by P(0.50)/N. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Awesome! Now multiply by 1) and you win!</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
We did this out using data as of Aug. 8 for a bunch of swing states (and California, for fun) and got the following probabilities: </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Colorado<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div align="center" class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">6 × 10<sup>-7</sup><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Nevada<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div align="center" class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">6 × 10<sup>-7</sup><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">New Hampshire<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div align="center" class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">5 × 10<sup>-7</sup><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Virginia<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div align="center" class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">5 × 10<sup>-7</sup><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Iowa<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div align="center" class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">4 × 10<sup>-7</sup><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Ohio<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div align="center" class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">4 × 10<sup>-7</sup><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Pennsylvania<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div align="center" class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">3 × 10<sup>-7</sup><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">New Mexico<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div align="center" class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">2 × 10<sup>-7</sup><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Florida<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div align="center" class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">1 × 10<sup>-7</sup><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div class="p1">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">California<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 221.4pt;" valign="top" width="221"><div align="center" class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">7 × 10<sup>-10</sup><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Thus this means that, if you are from a swing state, you've got about a one in 10 million chance of affecting the election. So you need to vote in 10 million elections to affect one of them. If each person spends about an hour voting and values his time at about $25 an hour, then about $250 million of time is needed to flip an election<span style="vertical-align: super;">1</span>. In Sam's previous post, there was roughly a 10% inefficiency between advertising and voting, so we claim that order of $2 billion would buy a Presidential election. Sam earlier said it was about $2.6 million to buy a cheap House seat (challenger, close election), so to buy control of the House probably costs maybe $100 million or so. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
So according to our numbers, it seems of comparable efficiency to donate money to House campaigns and Presidential campaigns (depending on your value of control of the House and White House and whatnot). </div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<sup>1: Not actually true. Spending $25 has a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of flipping an election is what we actually mean. Thus flipping an election with a probability p is of the order of $250 million in time.<o:p></o:p></sup></div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Continuing the chart from the <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-much-is-vote-worth-how-about-dollar.html">previous post</a>:</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-table-layout-alt: fixed; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 78.6pt;" valign="top" width="79"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Action<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 52.8pt;" valign="top" width="53"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cost (hours)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 72.65pt;" valign="top" width="73"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cost (dollars)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 71.9pt;" valign="top" width="72"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Effective Cost (dollars)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 78.55pt;" valign="top" width="79"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Effect<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.3pt;" valign="top" width="88"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Notes (?=sketchy)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 78.6pt;" valign="top" width="79"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Voting for congressman<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 52.8pt;" valign="top" width="53"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">12,500<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 72.65pt;" valign="top" width="73"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 71.9pt;" valign="top" width="72"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">$312,500<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 78.55pt;" valign="top" width="79"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Swings congressional election<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.3pt;" valign="top" width="88"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Relies on Silver's 2010 <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/the-ultimate-hour-by-hour-district-by-district-election-guide/"><span style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">projections</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 78.6pt;" valign="top" width="79"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Donating to non-incumbent congressional
campaign<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 52.8pt;" valign="top" width="53"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 72.65pt;" valign="top" width="73"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">$2,600,000<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 71.9pt;" valign="top" width="72"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">$2,600,000<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 78.55pt;" valign="top" width="79"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Swings congressional election<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.3pt;" valign="top" width="88"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">? (Relies on <a href="http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUsingRepeatChallengers1994.pdf"><span style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Levitt</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 78.6pt;" valign="top" width="79"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Voting for President in Swing State<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 52.8pt;" valign="top" width="53"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">5,000,000<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 72.65pt;" valign="top" width="73"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 71.9pt;" valign="top" width="72"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">$125,000,000<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 78.55pt;" valign="top" width="79"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Swings Presidential election<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.3pt;" valign="top" width="88"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Relies on analysis done in <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/swing-vote.html" target="_blank">this post</a></span></div>
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<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 78.6pt;" valign="top" width="79"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Donating to Presidential campaign<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 52.8pt;" valign="top" width="53"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">0<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 72.65pt;" valign="top" width="73"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">$1,000,000,000<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 71.9pt;" valign="top" width="72"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">$1,000,000,000<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 78.55pt;" valign="top" width="79"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Swings Presidential election<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.3pt;" valign="top" width="88"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Relies on analysis done here and </span><a href="http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUsingRepeatChallengers1994.pdf" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px;"><span style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">Levitt</span></a></div>
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</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-36227909152479988562012-08-09T22:38:00.002-07:002012-09-19T14:24:51.757-07:00Traditionball: the most unenlightened area of baseball strategyAbout ten years ago, baseball started to undergo a statistical revolution: youth became valued, OPS was born, and walks finally became valued. Fast forward a decade and OPS is now a mainstream stat, <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml" target="_blank">multiple</a> <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/war/" target="_blank">sites</a> <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-ewar-empirical-offensive.html" target="_blank">are</a> constructing competing ways to summarize the total value of a player, and even in baseball clubhouses sabermetrics are the new cool kid on the block.<br />
<br />
But there are still a few areas of baseball strategy stuck in the dark ages of gut instincts and wild speculation, and chief among them is use of pitchers.<br />
<br />
Right now it baseball there are three types of pitchers: starters, relievers, and closers. Starters come in to pitch the start of the game, stay in for at least five innings, and are eventually taken out. They pitch every five days. Closers come in in the ninth inning with a lead of between one and three runs. They never pitch more than an inning, and never come in otherwise. Middle relievers pitch in between starters and closers.<br />
<br />
These roles bear an uncanny resemblance to two of the stupidest pitching statistics, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Win%E2%80%93loss_record_(pitching)" target="_blank">wins</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_(baseball)" target="_blank">saves</a>.<br />
<br />
This system is, of course, not close to optimal. Frequent pitching changes at the beginning of the game would allow a manager to get better matchups, keep pitchers fresher from stopping them from having to throw too many pitches in one day, and allow pitchers to throw however many pitches is best for them--not a bimodal distribution with centers at fifteen and one hundred.<br />
<br />
It would also give an NL team another advantage--they could always pinch hit for their pitchers (or at least as long as it wasn't a two out, none on situation).<br />
<br />
I'll look at the first effects in a later post, but for now, how much would always pinch hitting help?<br />
<br />
Well, first I found the number of runs scored by an average NL lineup from 2011 using <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/baseball-game-simulation-details.html" target="_blank">Basim</a>; it was 3.799.<br />
<br />
Then, I substituted the <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/split.cgi?t=b&lg=NL&year=2011" target="_blank">average substitute player</a> for the league in for the ninth spot in the lineup; Basim then simulated it and found an average of 4.006 runs per game.<br />
<br />
That's roughly a 3.2 win difference right there--the difference between a .500 team and a .520 team.<br />
<br />
<br />
It's true, of course, that implementing such a system could incite a revolt from pitchers--but it seems like there is too much to be gained for it to be worth ignoring as a manager.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-18968113986811335802012-08-07T20:38:00.001-07:002014-02-07T09:47:15.287-08:00Utilitarianism, part 6: To do, or not to do<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the sixth post in a series about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism" target="_blank">utilitarianism</a>. For an introduction, see the <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/utilitarianism.html" target="_blank">first</a> post. <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;">For a look at total vs. average utilitarianism, see </span><a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/utilitarianism-part-2-total-average-and.html" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; line-height: 21px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;">. For a discussion of act vs. rule, hedonistic vs two level, and classical vs. negative utilitarianism, see </span><a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/utilitarianism-part-3-classical-act-one.html" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; line-height: 21px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;">. For a response to the utility monster and repugnant conclusion, see </span><a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-utilitarian-boogeymen.html" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; line-height: 21px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;">. And for a look at whether to count lives not yet in being, see <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/utilitarianism-part-5-who-counts.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Also, note that I'm now putting page breaks in the middle of my posts so that you can see more than one on the front page...</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm going to start off by making a note about something slightly different from the content of this post. <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/utilitarianism-part-2-total-average-and.html" target="_blank">Earlier</a>, I defined a philosophy as a preference ordering on all possible universes; the ordering had to be transitive, reflexive, etc. Basically, a philosophy is something that compares any two possible universes; in other words, it tells you which options are the best (if you have complete information, that is). Perhaps for you a philosophy is something different. Maybe it's something that compares some situations but doesn't say anything about other comparisons. Maybe it's a binary function that calls all actions either morally permissable or impermissable. Maybe it is a framwork to look at actions that doesn't necssarily tell you which are best, but instead some other difficult to define properties of them. Probabily it's a mechanism to justify your current way of life. Anyway, if you don't think a philosophy should be a preference ordering on possible universes, there's probably very little I can do to convince you, just as if you think faith is more important than evidence or that gut instincts are more important that statistics in baseball there's probably little I can do to convince you. But from now on I am using that definition, and will look critically upon philosophies that fail to create a preference ordering.</span></span><br />
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<h3>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Act and Omission</span></span></h3>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Anyway, there is a large debate in philosophy about whether taking an action should be treated asymetrically from failing to take an action--the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism#Acts_and_Omissions.2C_and_the_.27Act_and_Omissions_Doctrine.27" target="_blank">act/omission distinction</a>. There are many phrasings of the problem, but here is one of the more famous ones: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem" target="_blank">trolley problem</a>. The trolley problem is a thought experiment in which you, the actor, are near some trolley tracks. The tracks split, and past the split there are currently five people tied to one of the tracks, and three tied to the other. You're standing next to the lever which controls which path the trolley takes; in the first version of the problem the lever is currently such that three people will do, and in the second version of the problem the lever is currently such that the trolley will run over and kill the five people. A trolley is coming. You have time to pull the lever, if you want, but not to untie any of the people. In the first version it's pretty clear you don't pull the lever--not only are you causing the death of five people, but you're only saving three by doing it. But how about the seond version? Do you pull the lever and switch the trolley, kiling three other people, or not do anything and let the first five people die? That is, do you act, or not? And should morality treat the omission of action, which results in two extra deaths, the same way it would the action of killing two people? In other words, are these two scenarios the same? Does it matter which way the lever is currently pointing?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"></span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">No, it doesn't matter which way the lever is currently pointing. If you let five people die they will die whether or not it involved pulling a lever and society won't lose any less from their absence than it would if you had pulled a lever to kill them. To put it bluntly, their corpses won't be terribly consoled by your lack of action in their death. Death is death.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Now, of course, in everyday life there are lots of reasons that omission of a good action is sometimes not as bad as making a (different) bad one. If instead of a lever it were some complicated chemical plant explosion with five people in one room and three in another, you might not know enough to know exactly how to save the five people, and might risk accidentally killing all eight if you try to save the five. And if the cost to you of acting were big, instead of being pulling a lever, that would have to be factored in, and would rationally discourage action.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">But it's important not to double count intuitions: these practical considerations are already built in to utilitarianism, and it would only advocate action when, taking in to account all costs of doing the action, it were worth it. But fundamentally the five people live and die and their lives are no less worthy if they require a lever to be pulled.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">It's worth noting, by the way, that the distinction between act and omission is totally undefinable. In this case there's a general </span></span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">consensus</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"> about which is which, but in the end all you have are a list of options--the choices you can make with your life. Some will involve more physical movement than others, some will involve changing your life more than others, but in the end all you have are your choices.</span></span></span><br />
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</span></span> <br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;">Creation and Destruction</span></span></h3>
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</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;">Another distinction often made is the one between bringing things (or people) into being, and removing them from being--the creation/destruction distinction. For instance, is murdering someone the same thing as declining to have a kid?</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;">Well, that's obviously a bad example. Murdering someone kills someone who already had friends, and family, and who society had invested lots of money into educating and training for a job; declining to have a kid is described by none of those things.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;">Ok, then how about this: is buying someone a new car fair repayment for destroying their old one?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">Well, yeah, it pretty clearly is, other than the </span></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 21px;">practical</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"> difference that breaking a car doesn't reap the payoff to invert the cost to the actor associated with buying or breaking the new one. There are also of course feelings involved--people might feel less safe from knowing someone breaks cars--but I think most people would see this as a fair action on the behalf of the actor.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">Ok, well, how about this, then. Say there are two planets, A and B. Right now A is barren and B is a thriving </span></span><span style="line-height: 21px;">metropolis. They will never communicate. You can push a button and destroy planet B in order to instantaneously make planet A an even more advanced and happy civilization, trading creation for destruction. Do you do it?</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">Well, as you've probably caught on, this is really just a trolley problem in disguise--and that often the creation and destruction issue is really just an act omission one.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">There are lots and lots of variants on this--not just act/omission and creation/destruction but also bringing into life versus murdering, giving versus taking, etc. But in the end they all really boil down to the same thing: if you are walking by a pond and see someone drowning, and know that you could probably save them if you tried, and that no one else will, is failing to act the same thing as murdering someone? Is failing to do something nice for someone--for instance giving them a good they value, if you want to also make it a creation/destruction issue--the same thing as doing something bad to them or destroying something of theirs? (This is all assuming they are comparable activities and that there isn't significant social stigma associated with destruction not associated with creation.)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">A lot of people feel like there is a difference. They feel like as long as you're not a dick to people, you don't really <i>have</i> to go out of your way to them--though almost everyone would join in celebrating someone who did (as long as that person didn't make them feel too insecure). But here you see the issue--everyone agrees that going out of your way to do good things <i>is</i> the right thing to do, they just don't feel like they have to do it.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">And that's what the act omission distinction is really about. Really, for many people it boils down to the question, to paraphrase Parfit: what do we owe to each other? Do we owe to each other our attempts to save others' lives, or just our promises not to actively kill each other?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">But I would argue that that's now how we <i>should</i> think about it--certainly not how a utilitarian should. Because what matters, in the end, is not what we owe each other. The drowning man in the pond is going to drown, if you don't act, whether or not you <i>owe</i> him anything. You can think all you want about how much karma you've accumulated, but in the end the drowning man will live if you choose to act and fail if you fail to do so--and no definitions of debt or karma or obligation will change that.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">And either way you've made a decision. If you don't save a drowning man you've chosen not to; you've chosen to value the dryness of your clothes over their life. You can use as passive language as you want to describe it but in the end you are the choices you make and pretending you didn't really choose to act as you did does nothing to change that.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-86125180831546329352012-08-07T06:03:00.001-07:002012-09-19T14:25:25.708-07:00Contest Number Two: Two Degrees of Separation<a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-contest-of-week-whats-your.html" target="_blank">Last week</a> I introduced the contest of the week: each week I will propose a contest, and award Shadow-points to the winners; every two months the person with the most Shadow-points (in the period) will geet their name posted on the side of the blog, a $2 reward, and the chance to write any article they want for the blog. The results of the first week's contest are <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/results-from-first-contest.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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I'm going to try to alternate types of contests, so this week's will be a little bit different from last week's. This week, the contest is a word puzzle of sorts. The first person to solve it will get first place, second person second place, etc.<br />
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Without further ado, here's the puzzle:<br />
<br />
<h2>
Two Degress of Separation*</h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCKPFLfHAO0xnrVbYzIZ4SBFnFhCbDppjKcuRpLcZJ065-NGSuwWuzRTxRnDfqEzJdiDbXSZCUJORzClxM3cwewqANpMDSkQeUJIY1Titc7sqOHXr1oJic78OPwL1nM2UvZ4aE8UEp31-7/s1600/Contest+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCKPFLfHAO0xnrVbYzIZ4SBFnFhCbDppjKcuRpLcZJ065-NGSuwWuzRTxRnDfqEzJdiDbXSZCUJORzClxM3cwewqANpMDSkQeUJIY1Titc7sqOHXr1oJic78OPwL1nM2UvZ4aE8UEp31-7/s640/Contest+2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The puzzle works as follows. Every two sets of words that point to a common box have something that is one degree removed from each. For instance, if you saw </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoxakiBjp0ha30VuY9Mtkj2XbSeL-95Q0X9CaOTUu-CNFk7IgncFlhHIOpscvlTMXkFDbbIhUEQX_G-n5rbcFtiCER2ly5QpSPSdAw1GvBMgOM1ODQRK5KuuMjTtSl0ELgAfLF7M6o2wEg/s1600/SoapBird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoxakiBjp0ha30VuY9Mtkj2XbSeL-95Q0X9CaOTUu-CNFk7IgncFlhHIOpscvlTMXkFDbbIhUEQX_G-n5rbcFtiCER2ly5QpSPSdAw1GvBMgOM1ODQRK5KuuMjTtSl0ELgAfLF7M6o2wEg/s400/SoapBird.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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then you should fill the word DOVE in the box, because it is one degree removed from both soap and bird. Thus, all connected boxes are two degrees of separation apart. Repeat this process until you get to the center of the puzzle; the answer is the word in the circle.</div>
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Rules:<br />
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0) If you can't solve it, don't worry--the puzzle is hard! You can still send in any partial progress you made (see rule (3)).</div>
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1) The winner will be the first person to find the answer to the puzzle (the word that goes in the circle). They will get 3 Shadow-points. Second place will be the second person will get 2 Shadow-poins, and the first person will get 1 Shadow-point.</div>
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2) In addition, every person (including the top three) who solve the puzzle by the deadline will get one Shadow-point (so first place will get a total of four).</div>
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3) In the even that no one sovles the puzzle, the first place will be the person who gets the inner-most word; so, for instance, if someone gets one of the words connecting the the circle and no one else does, they would win. Speed of getting there will break ties. (In that case no one would get the extra Shadow-point.)</div>
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4) If you think that there's an ambiguous clue (i.e. that you've found a word that fits well in a box but isn't what I anticipated), send me your guess for a box; if I think it's as good a fit as the intended word, I'll give you the intended one.</div>
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5) If you want you can talk about partial progress, etc., in the comments of the puzzle, but only do this if you don't think you can solve it on your own, and want to collaborate with people. Don't just post the answer there.</div>
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6) To submit an answer, send it to be via email at sambf at mit dot edu.</div>
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Good luck!</div>
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*If you can't read the words, they are, from top to bottom and then left to right: Christian, Bowie, President, Orange, Traveling, Vis, Panda, Straight Talk, Sherlocks, Winchesters, Apple, Put Away, Man, Piece, Problem, Jogging.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-44149463205027970922012-08-07T01:04:00.000-07:002012-09-19T14:27:51.236-07:00Results from the First ContestA week ago I proposed a contest for readers to construct the best possible lineup from the 2002 Giants roster; the rules are <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-contest-of-week-whats-your.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/examining-ewaa-fifteen-best-players-of.html" target="_blank">here</a>. The winner of the contest gets 3 Shadow-points; second place gets 2; and third place gets 1. In addition everyone whose entry beats my own entry gets an additional Shadow-point. Every two months the person with the most Shadow points gets their name on in the Shadow Hall of Fame, $2, and the ability to write any one article for the blog.<br />
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<br />
Today, I'm announcing the winnners of the contest. The average submission scored somewhere around 4.9 runs per game, and the best scored above 5. I have more comments to make, but without further ado, the three winners:<br />
<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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<br />
In third place, submitting a lineup that scored an average of 5.044* runs per game, is Neil Lender. His lineup is:<br />
<br />
1: Yorvit Torrealba (C)<br />
2: Kenny Lofton (CF)<br />
3: Barry Bonds (LF)<br />
4: Jeff Kent (2B)<br />
5: Reggie Sanders (RF)<br />
6: Damon Minor (1B)<br />
7: David Bell (3B)<br />
8: Jason Schmidt (P)<br />
9: Ramon Martinez (SS)<br />
<br />
<br />
In second place, submitting a lineup that scored an average of 5.080 runs per game, is <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/06336466769778354287" target="_blank">Colin</a>. His lineup is:<br />
<br />
<br />
1: Kenny Lofton (CF)<br />
2: David Bell (3B)<br />
3: Barry Bonds (LF)<br />
4: Jeff Kent (2B)<br />
5: Damon Minor (1B)<br />
6: Reggie Sanders (RF)<br />
7: Ramon Martinez (SS)<br />
8: Benito Santiago (C)<br />
9: Jason Schmidt (P)<br />
<br />
<br />
The first place finisher,The Ralph M. Parsons professor of law at Stanford Law School, was Alan J. Bankman, who sumitted a lineup scoring an average of 5.179 runs; however, he was later disqualified when tests confirmed he shared a last name with myself.<br />
<br />
And so instead, finishing in first place with a lineup that scored an average of 5.126 runs is Matthew Nass. His lineup is:<br />
<br />
<br />
1: Damon Minor (1B)<br />
2: David Bell (3B)<br />
3: Barry Bonds (LF)<br />
4: Jeff Kent (2B)<br />
5: Reggie Sanders (RF)<br />
6: Kenny Lofton (CF)<br />
7: Ramon Martinez (SS)<br />
8: Benito Santiago (C)<br />
9: Jason Schmidt (P)<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
And how did the submittted lineups compare to mine? Well, I submitted the following lineup:<br />
<br />
1: Kenny Lofton (CF)<br />
2: Ramon Martinez (SS)<br />
3: Barry Bonds (LF)<br />
4: Jeff Kent (2B)<br />
5: Reggie Sanders (RF)<br />
6: Damon Minor (1B)
<br />
7: David Bell (3B)<br />
8: Jason Schmidt (P)<br />
9: Yorvit Torrealba (C)
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<br />
It scored an average of 5.114 runs per game--beating all submissions except for Matt's.<br />
<br />
So, the Shadow-point payout is:<br />
<br />
Matthew Nass--4<br />
Colin--2<br />
Neil Lender--1<br />
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The results should be reflected in a widget to the right of the blog.<br />
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<br />
So, what are my reacitons to the submissions?<br />
<br />
First, it looks like basically everyone tried to do the same thing: make a Barry Bonds machine, batting high on base percentage guys before him and power hitters after him to knock him in if he walks.<br />
<br />
Second, one thing that almost everyone forgot to look at is double plays. Yorvit Torrealba has a great on base percentage but is really slow and basically only hits ground balls--meaning that he grounds into a double play 24% of the time he's able to, so if there's one out and someone on first his OBP is really more like .2002 instead of .355. (Note that in my lineup I batted him after the pitcher to try to minimize the chances of this happening.) There were some submissions which I think would have done very well but were significantly hurt by their double play rates. Kenny Lofton and Ramon Martinez were good choices for second hitters who don't hit into very many double plays.<br />
<br />
Third, playing good players helps. The top submissions basically all agreed on which players to use (except for catcher, where Torrealba and Santiago are roughly equally good). Other lineups tried using J.T. Snow, Rich Aurilia, and Marvin Benard, and it hurt them.<br />
<br />
Fourth, no one tried batting Bonds anywhere but third or fourth. For fun, I tried rotating my lineup so that Bonds batted first (i.e. cyclicly rotating it by 7 slots); it turned out to do much worse--scoring 5.048 runs per game. This, I think is partially due to Minor grounding into a lot of double plays when batting fourth--the lineup averaged .833 double plays per game, instead of the .766 that my actual submission did.<br />
<br />
<br />
The lineups, generally, ranged from grounding into a double play .7 times per game to .9 times per game. For fun, I tried taking the average lineup accross all teams from the year and playing with the double play rates.<br />
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Trial 1: unchanged. Double Plays per Game: .823; Runs per Game: 4.266<br />
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Trial 2: multiply double play rate of all players by 1.15. Double Plays Per Game: .924; Runs Per Game: 4.216<br />
<br />
Trial 3: divide base double play rate of all players by 1.15. Double Plays per Game: .722; Runs Per Game: 4.318<br />
<br />
So, it looks like the variation in double play rates from rearanging a lineup cna have an impact of roughly +- .05 runs per game, or roughly 0.8 wins/year--not that much, but it explains <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/more-giants-lineup-comments.html" target="_blank">about half</a> of the variation within how to order a lineup; not bad for a largely overlooked stat.<br />
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For those who were wondering, Joe Bankman's lineup that scored 5.179 runs per game:<br />
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1: Kenny Lofton (CF)<br />
2: Ramon Martinez (3B)<br />
3: Barry Bonds (LF)<br />
4: Jeff Kent (2B)<br />
5: Reggie Sanders (RF)<br />
6: David Bell (3B)
<br />
7: Benito Santiago<br />
8: Damon Minor (1B)<br />
9: Jason Schmidt (P)<br />
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<br />
<br />
Stay tuned later today for this week's contest.<br />
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*: The error on these numbers inherent to the fact that the lineups were only simulated 1,000,000 times is roughly +- 0.003 runs per game<br />
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Note: a few typos on the positions people play were fixed.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-59598137569608923762012-08-06T16:40:00.003-07:002012-09-19T14:26:12.568-07:00Last Chance for ContestA week ago, I introduced a contest to design the best lineup from the 2002 Giants roster; details are <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-contest-of-week-whats-your.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/examining-ewaa-fifteen-best-players-of.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Submissions for the contest are due tonight, so if you want to participate but haven't given me a lineup, either post it as a comment here or email it to me by 11:59 tonight.<br />
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<br />
I'll announce the results of the contests sometime tomorrow.<br />
<br />
Also, I've run some more simulations with <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/baseball-game-simulation-details.html" target="_blank">Basim</a> on the 2000-2011 season; it looks like the correlation between RAA* and runs scored by a team is .963; without very many simulations (20,000 per player) the correlation between <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-ewar-empirical-offensive.html" target="_blank">eWAA</a> and runs scored is .952, but that number should go up with more simulations as the noise goes down (due to limited computing power it's taking a while to get a fuller result).<br />
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Also, if anyone has a suggestion for what I should write on (baseball, philosophy, or anything else), let me know.<br />
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<br />
RAA, runs above average, is the baseline offensive stat used to construct <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml" target="_blank">WAR</a>; I'm using a modified version that removes ballpark advantage, etc. to do an apples-to-apples comparison.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-3790029550197975632012-08-03T13:57:00.003-07:002012-09-19T14:26:46.328-07:00Examining eWAA: The Fifteen Best Players of the DecadeA while ago I wrote a python program, <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/baseball-game-simulation-details.html" target="_blank">Basim</a>, that simulates baseball games, and used to construct a statistic for the offensive output of a player: <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-ewar-empirical-offensive.html" target="_blank">eWAA</a>. Also, check the bottom of the post for a few notes on the <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-contest-of-week-whats-your.html" target="_blank">contest of the week</a>.<br />
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I've run a Basim simulation on all player-years from 2000-2011, inclusive, and used it to calculate the eWAA (empirical wins above average) for all player-seasons; think of this as the number of extra wins a team would be expected to get in the season if they replaced an average player with the given player. Below, I've listed something close to the best 15 player-seasons in the 2000-2011 period. I say "something close to" because, due to lack of available computer power, I haven't run enough simulations to get a stable result; so, the numbers below should be taken with a standard deviation due to limited simulations of something like 0.33 eWAA. (Once I've run enough simulations I'll do a more in-depth look at eWAA, including its predictive power.) For fun, I also put the spot in the batting order that Basim thought they should hit that year*.</div>
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Name<o:p></o:p></div>
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eWAA<o:p></o:p></div>
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Season<o:p></o:p></div>
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Best Spot<o:p></o:p></div>
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Barry Bonds<o:p></o:p></div>
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12.22<o:p></o:p></div>
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2001<o:p></o:p></div>
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2<o:p></o:p></div>
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Barry Bonds<o:p></o:p></div>
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12.03<o:p></o:p></div>
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2004<o:p></o:p></div>
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2<o:p></o:p></div>
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Barry Bonds<o:p></o:p></div>
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11.35<o:p></o:p></div>
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2002<o:p></o:p></div>
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2<o:p></o:p></div>
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Todd Helton<o:p></o:p></div>
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9.11<o:p></o:p></div>
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2000<o:p></o:p></div>
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2<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sammy Sosa<o:p></o:p></div>
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9.03<o:p></o:p></div>
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2001<o:p></o:p></div>
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2<o:p></o:p></div>
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Barry Bonds<o:p></o:p></div>
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8.91<o:p></o:p></div>
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2003<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
1<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Luis Gonzalez<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
8.44<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
2001<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
4<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Alex Rodriguez<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
8.35<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
2007<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
4<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Albert Pujols<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
8.16<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
2003<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
1<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Todd Helton<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
8.13<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
2004<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
1<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Albert Pujols<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
8.04<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
2009<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
2<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Todd Helton<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
8.02<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
2004<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
3<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Jose Bautista<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
7.59<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
2011<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
2<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Albert Pujols<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
7.51<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
2004<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
1<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Jason Giambi<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
7.41<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
2001<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in; width: 49.5pt;" valign="top" width="83"><div class="MsoNormal">
4<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I then computed the best total eWAA throughout the period (summed over the years 2000-2011); if you want, the best offensive players (again, with roughly a 2.5% error) of the decade:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Name<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
eWAA<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Albert Pujols<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
69.2<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Barry Bonds<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
60.5<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Alex Rodriguez<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
60.3<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Todd Helton<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
54.0<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Lance Berkman<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
46.3<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Manny Ramirez<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
46.2<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Chipper Jones<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
44.5<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Bobby Abreu<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
39.8<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Vladimir Guerrero<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
39.7<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Jim Thome<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
39.2<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Jason Giambi<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
36.0<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Carlos Beltran<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
34.4<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Miguel Cabrera<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
33.3<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Brian Giles<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
32.9<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.45in;" valign="top" width="174"><div class="MsoNormal">
Gary Sheffield<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: .75in;" valign="top" width="90"><div class="MsoNormal">
32.5<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My initial reactions:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1) Bonds was, in fact, really good. Not only did he have the best seasons by far, but he has the second highest total eWAA despite retiring halfway through the period.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
2) Pujols, unsurprisingly, is the man of the decade; he's been an mvp-level player for most of the years.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
3) Coors field is really friendly. (Also, Helton is really good.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
4) Berkman, Abreu, Thome, Beltran, and Giles are really underrated.</div>
<div>
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A few notes on the contest of the week (a contest to create the best lineup you can from the 2002 Giants roster; see <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-contest-of-week-whats-your.html" target="_blank">here</a> for details).</div>
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1) For fun, I'm going to create a lineup submission of my own; it won't be in the contest, but in addition to the normal Shadow-point payout, I'm giving one extra Shadow-point to everyone who submits a lineup that does better than mine.</div>
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2) To clarity, the numbers I'll be drawing the stats from are the ones listed <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SFG/2002-batting.shtml" target="_blank">here</a>; they are the players stats from their time on the Giants in 2002.</div>
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3) So far there are 12 entries, all of which are unique.</div>
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4) I'm not going to show my lineup until I run the results, but as a teaser I'll say that there's one thing I think a lot of people are forgetting to think about.</div>
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Anyway, good luck in the contest; submissions are open until this coming Monday, August 6th at 11:59 pm.<br />
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*: I suspect that right now Basim is biasing too much toward having good hitters hit first and bad hitters hit last when calculating eWAA; I'll change that soon.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-3910461455559943042012-08-02T02:40:00.000-07:002014-02-19T19:58:38.057-08:00The Fetishization of the OldIn about eighty years I will be dead, and in another eighty everyone who ever really knew me will be too. I will be at risk of being forgotten; everyone alive now will be, but most importantly for me, I will be. I would like to think that I will be remembered. We all would.<br />
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-Beatrice (F) and Benedick (M) and fiances; so are Hero (F) and Claudio (M). The men are best friends, as are the women. Claudio believes Hero is cheating on him and breaks of their engagement. Beatrice tells Benedick, in retaliation for casting shame upon Hero, to kill Claudio. Benedick eventually relents, and agrees to murder his best friend.<br />
-Stradivarious string instruments are instruments made by Antonio Stradivari.<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">-"<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">The objects referenced above share three similarities. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">The first is that they're really old. The <a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html" target="_blank">first</a>, a summary of a key plot point in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, was written sometime in the late sixteenth century. The <a href="http://www.stradivarius.org/" target="_blank">second</a>, the most </span></span><span style="line-height: 19px;">famous</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> string instruments ever made, were constructed sometime around 1700. And the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" target="_blank">third</a>, the second </span></span><span style="line-height: 19px;">amendment</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> to the constitution of the United States of America, was adopted on December 15th, 1791.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">The second commonality is that they are </span></span><span style="line-height: 19px;">revered</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">. Shakespeare is widely considered to be the best author ever to have lived. His works are required reading at almost every level of school, the subject of quite a lot of academic research, and the focal point of many theater festivals around the world. </span></span><span style="line-height: 19px;">Stradivarius</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> violins </span></span><a href="http://www.stradivarius.org/price" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">sell for a few million dollars each</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">, and cellos an order of magnitude above that--both an order of magnitude above the cost of other professional-level instruments. The constitution has become the focal point for almost every public policy debate in Washington, by far the most ubiquitously cited source, and it was the interpretation of the constitution that rested at the heart of the recent supreme court case on Obamacare. The second </span></span><span style="line-height: 19px;">amendment</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> itself has determined the balance of gun control laws in America, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller" target="_blank">has been used to limit local attempts to ban certain guns</a> and to <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CONAN-2008/pdf/GPO-CONAN-2008.pdf" target="_blank">determine which attempts</a> to limit access to guns are allowed.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">The third thing that these three old, revered works share in common is that they are ridiculous. The plot twist in Much Ado--typical of Shakespeare--relies on simultaneously one-dimensional and unrealistic characters, illogical plots, and obvious endings. I mean, come on--kill someone because he thinks, with good reason, that his fiance is cheating on him? Beatrice is absurdly out of line in an unrealistic way; Benedick is absurd for listening to her, and this is all supposed to be taken in stride. Professional violinists </span></span><a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/01/02/144482863/double-blind-violin-test-can-you-pick-the-strad" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">don't show preferences for Stradivarius violins in double blind tests</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> versus newer instruments. And we as a country should be able to decide what the best gun control laws are and enact them democratically, instead of listening to vaguely worded commands about gun laws from people who lived two hundred years ago when we were in open </span></span><span style="line-height: 19px;">rebellion</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> against a foreign occupier and didn't yet have a reliable police force or army. Instead of making decisions about what laws make sense in a country with internal security, a police force, and an army, we have to constantly make sure that </span></span>"<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Whatever the fuck that means. </span><span style="line-height: 19px;">All of Shakespeare's plays are like that, too, and the problem with the constitution is more general than the second amendment.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">I could go on and on about the failings of Shakespeare and the constitution and Stradivarius violins, and at the bottom of this post I do*, but really I shouldn't need to: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_prior" target="_blank">Bayesian priors</a> are pretty damning. </span><a href="http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx" style="line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">About half</a><span style="line-height: 19px;"> of the people born since 1600 have been born in the past 100 years, but it gets much worse than that. When Shakespeare wrote almost all of Europeans were busy farming, and very few people attended university; </span><a href="http://www.philiplaberge.com/FamilyHistory/LaBergeInfo/Literacy.pdf" style="line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">few people</a><span style="line-height: 19px;"> were even literate--probably as low as about ten million people. By contrast there are now upwards of a billion literate people in the Western sphere. What are the odds that the greatest writer would have been born in 1564? The Bayesian priors aren't very favorable.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">And take a look at string instrument creation. Not only does current society have much more expendable income and energy to devote to things like creating instruments, but we now have machines capable of cutting wood with <a href="http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/551108487/lazer_machine_for_cutting_wood_with.html?s=p" target="_blank">micrometer level precision</a> available to consumers; what are the odds, really, that the best violins have been made by a human hand in 1700?</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">The problem is much more systemic than plays and violins and laws. Citizen Kane was finally unseated as the best film of all time and</span><a href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/50-greatest-films-all-time" style="line-height: 19px;" target="_blank"> bumped to number two</a><span style="line-height: 19px;">--still quite an achievement for an almost unwatchably empty film. Old wines sell for ridiculous prices despite the lack of correlation between price and taste. (See </span><a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/should-we-buy-expensive-wine/" style="line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="line-height: 19px;"> for recently disgraced Jonah Leherer's attempts to salvage expensive win.) The framers of the constitution are easily the most revered people in America and--importantly--those most often looked to for advice on public policy--despite being, you know, people with slaves who wouldn't understand a thing about the modern economy or technology or society. I spent a fair chunk of my childhood trying to decide who the best ten baseball players ever were--how does Gehrig compare to Bonds?--even though any of the players from 1920 would flunk if forced to play against modern teams. Again and again in our culture, the same theme pops up: we fetishize the old.</span><br />
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We like old plays and old movies and old wines and old instruments and old laws and old people and old records and old music. We like them because they're old and come with stories but we convince ourselves that there's more: we convince ourselves that they really were <i>better</i>. We don't just read stories about the framing of the constitution at bedtime, we use it as our guide for public policy. We don't just like to listen to the Beatles but we convince ourselves that they are <i>the best</i> and that anyone who doesn't like them doesn't have good taste in music. We don't just respect the old; we think that the old is <i>right</i> and that those who prefer the new to the old are <i>wrong</i>.<br />
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So why is it that we have become so enamored of things made in 1700?<br />
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There are many reasons. One is that there is a whole lot of inertia in the system. If Shakespeare is the most respected thing in 1900 then teachers will teach it in 1900 and academics will write about it in 1900 and if you're young in 1900 and want to be "in the know" and want to become an insider in academic literature, then, well, you'd better study Shakespeare; and so it's passed on from generation to generation. Furthermore, once something acquires a label, it's very hard to dislodge the label--even if the label is as the best author ever and there are more and more authors every day giving the old one a run for its money (and then some). I think there's one more reason, though, that we fetishize the old. I was reminded of it about a month ago while in a taxicab heading toward the Atlanta airport, and I saw a billboard advertisement for a Church that said, superimposed on the pastor's face: "In these troubled times, some things never change."<br />
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In about eighty years I will be dead, and in another eighty everyone who ever really knew me will be too. I will be at risk of being forgotten; everyone alive now will be, but most importantly for me, I will be. I would like to think that I will be remembered. We all would. And if we as a society spend so much time looking backward, so much time romanticizing those who died two hundred years ago, so much time replicating traditions born hundreds of years ago, then the future doesn't look quite so divorced from the present. And the thought that your society and your town and your way of life and maybe even you might be remembered in two hundred years doesn't seem quite so hopeless.<br />
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It's easy to get caught up in romanticization of the past and forget that it's the reason that <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx" target="_blank">46% of Americans don't believe in evolution</a>.<br />
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<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">This is not, of course, to say that Shakespeare should be banned. Everyone should be entitled to read what they want. But our laws should not be based on two hundred year old unchangeable documents, and schools shouldn't base their curriculum around analyzing Shakespeare; and next time you want to go see Citizen Kane playing in your local artsy movie theater, I think I'll pass.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19px;">_________________________________________________________________________________</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">*: The recent ruling on Obamacare rested on the personalities of two judges--John Roberts and Tony Kennedy. The reason that such an important case rested on personality instead of law or fact is because the vagueness of the constitution gives the justices free reign to rule as they wish. Obamacare was originally believed to be extremely unlikely to be overturned, and then </span><a href="https://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/;jsessionid=9C203F1D39DF957F172CC1053BA1ABF3?contractId=745353&hmAutoCloseTime=0&hmMessageType=WARNING&hmCanClose=true&hmMessage=Your+passport+expired.+Please+%3Ca+class%3D%27bluelink%27+href%3D%27%23%27+id%3D%27headerMessage-loginLink%27%3Elog+in+again%3C%2Fa%3E+and+continue.&hmHash=7f523e1697ee8d97d9061c688a158649&hmExpiryTime=1343808896693" style="line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">underwent a series of transitions</a><span style="line-height: 19px;"> in terms of likelihood of being overturned, peaking at almost 80% on Intrade, before being upheld. And during this time, the constitution did not change; only one of the bumps even came from legal arguments in front of the court. Instead a year of speculation over the personal opinions of John Roberts and Tony Kennedy occurred. The constitution not only sets arbitrary and vaguely worded rules from a time when the nation was very different that are now almost impossible to change, but also allows people to judge the legality as they wish on almost any issue--even if they're a judge tasked with deciding whether a law will be upheld. But, you say, wouldn't we become a police state devoid of free speech if we lost constitutional protections? Look at the UK, whose </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom" style="line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">constitution</a><span style="line-height: 19px;">'s main role is to establish a now-figurehead monarchy. Look at almost any comparable country--it's not going to rely as much on their constitution as we do on ours. If we want free speech--which we absolutely do--then let's have a law saying so.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">Similarly, Shakespeare's non-comedies fix few of the flaws found in Much Ado About Nothing. Romeo and Juliet are incredibly flimsy characters, and the plot is absurd. (For those interested, the number of lines between when Romeo is first made aware of Juliet's existence and when he recites his first love sonnet about her is 32, and none of those involve any action on Juliet's part, let alone interaction between them.) Sure, you could say that the play is attempting to highlight the immaturity of youth, but at that point you're attempting to cite the one-dimensionalness of the main characters of a work as a strength.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19px;">And Shakespeare isn't alone in being a shitty writer from hundreds of years ago. The most ambitions woman in Pride and Prejudice has a life goal of marrying a rich, handsome man who is also intelligent--the thought that a woman could have a career or even hobby independent from her husband is outside the scope of the book. And don't get me started on The Canterbury Tales.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-52295806715743378822012-07-31T07:47:00.003-07:002012-09-19T14:27:38.098-07:00Introducing the Contest of the Week: What's Your Lineup?What's the best lineup, order included, that can be made from the <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SFG/2002-batting.shtml" target="_blank">2002 San Francisco Giants</a>? Think you can come up with a better one than other readers?<br />
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Today I'm introducing a new feature of the blog: the contest of the week. Each week, I'll announce a contest to readers. Each week, the winner of the contest gets three Shadow-points, second place gets two Shadow-points, and third place gets one Shadow-point. Every two months, the person with the most Shadow-points in the period gets their name put on a Hall of Fame widget to the right of the blog (I'll create it once it's needed), a wallet-busting $2 prize, and the opportunity, if they want, to write a guest article for the blog.<br />
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So, on to the first contest:<br />
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<h2>
What's Your Lineup?</h2>
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I wrote <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/baseball-game-simulation-details.html" target="_blank">Basim</a>, a python script that simulates baseball games based on the stats of the people in the lineups. The details of how it works are in the link above; you can also see Basim <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/basim-live-like-baseball-but-without.html" target="_blank">simulating games live</a> on the right of the blog. I've recently been looking into <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-ewar-empirical-offensive.html" target="_blank">evaluating players with it</a>, but this contest has to do with the original use of Basim: <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/more-giants-lineup-comments.html" target="_blank">evaluating batting orders</a>.</div>
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So, the first contest is to construct the best batting order from the 2002 San Francisco Giants roster. To enter the contest, submit a lineup from their players; I'll run Basim on all submissions, and the three highest average runs per game are the winners.</div>
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Rules:</div>
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1) The players you can draw from are listed <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SFG/2002.shtml" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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2) You can only use players who had at least 100 plate appearances with the Giants that year.</div>
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3) Your lineup must be defensively valid. That is to say you must have a first baseman, second baseman, etc. Shortstops and second basemen are considered interchangeable, and all outfielders and first basemen are also interchangeable. Third basemen and catchers can play first base, but not vice versa. The position that a person can play, up to interchangeability, is the one listed <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SFG/2002-batting.shtml" target="_blank">here</a>. (Technical note: Dunston can play 2B, SS, OF, and 1B, in case you want to play him for some reason).</div>
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4) Your pitcher (in your lineup) must be Jason Schmidt.</div>
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5) I will run 1,000,000 simulations on each submitted lineup to find its average runs scored per game. The highest value will win and get three Shadow-points; second will get two, and third will get one.</div>
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So, for example, a submission might look like:</div>
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1. Benito Santiago (C)</div>
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2. J. T. Snow (LF)</div>
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3. Jeff Kent (SS)</div>
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4. Kenny Lofton (1B)</div>
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5. Barry Bonds (CF)</div>
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6. Jason Schmidt (P)</div>
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7. David Bell (3B)</div>
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8. Ramon Martinez (2B)</div>
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9. Marvin Bernard (RF)</div>
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Some (quite obvious) things to think about: where do you put Bonds? What do you think of stolen bases? What do you want in a leadoff hitter? Where do you put the pitcher?<br />
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Submissions are due by <b>Monday, August 6th</b>; I'll announce winners the next day. To submit a lineup, either email it to me (sambf at mit dot edu), or post it as a comment on this post. (Make sure to include your name.)</div>
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Good luck!</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-10033401539889669142012-07-29T14:27:00.001-07:002012-09-19T14:28:08.881-07:00Basim Live: Like baseball, but without the commercial breaksEarlier I posted about <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/baseball-game-simulation-details.html" target="_blank">Basim</a>, a baseball simulator I designed that simulates baseball games based on the stats of people in the lineups. My long term project has been to design a stat <a href="http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/introducing-ewar-empirical-offensive.html" target="_blank">eWAR</a>, empirical wins above replacement, that attempts to determine how good offensively a baseball player is by seeing how many runs lineups including them produce.<br />
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Recently, I put up a widget on the top right of the site that runs Basim simulations live every time you load the page. It randomly chooses two 2011 mlb teams from the same league and plays a game between them, the same way I simulate games to calculate eWAR.<br />
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I'll continue to work on it--eventually I'd like to set up a simulated baseball season, shown live on the blog--but for now I'm interested in feedback on how to improve it.<br />
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Known things that could be improved:<br />
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1) Groundouts and flyouts could be treated differently, with batters replacing runners on first on groundouts that don't turn into double plays.<br />
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2) The batting orders, roughly speaking, are the most frequently used lineups from the team from 2011, but this can have some weird consequences, like not using someone who is generally in the lineup because they switch spots frequently enough that no single lineup involving them has been used very much. So, some of the orders that I'm using aren't very good. To that extent, if you see a lineup that is not very representative of a team, tell me and I can change it. (There are also potential oddities where the lineup lists I'm reading from only use last names, so, for example, for a while the Pirates were using Donald McCutchen in their lineup instead of Andrew McCutchen.)<br />
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3) Right now people are always thrown out trying to take an extra base on 3% of balls put in play; if someone could find better player-by-player data for this, that'd be awesome.<br />
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Anyway, feel free to shoot me any comments you have. And in the mean time, I hope you spend as much time staring at text-based baseball games as I have.<br />
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Addendum: if you know a good way to synthesize pitcher stats with hitter stats to predict an at bat, I'm all ears; right now the approximation I'm thinking of using is to add up the deviations from average of the two statistics, though of course in the end what I really want to do is do a regression....Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-11304022000694557212012-07-27T15:32:00.001-07:002012-09-19T14:28:38.121-07:00The Playoffs and the Trade DeadlineLong story short: you should make aging all star for prospect trades at the start of the season, instead of at the trade deadline, if you're at least 70% sure, before the season starts, that the team getting the aging all star will be in playoff contention and that the other team will not.<br />
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In Major League Baseball, teams are not allowed (or, in some cases, just significantly hindered) in making trades after the July 31st <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLB_trade_deadline#Trade_deadline" target="_blank">trade deadline</a>. This left me wondering: in what cases does it make sense to wait until the trade deadline to make trades, and when does it make sense to do it at the start of the year?<br />
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Put another way, it's been about ten years since the Seattle Mariners were in playoff contention, and about twenty years since the Yankees weren't--the fact that this is also true this year shouldn't surprise anyone. So why didn't the <a href="http://blog.seattlepi.com/baseball/2012/07/23/mariners-trade-ichiro-suzuki-to-new-york-yankees-for-two-prospects/" target="_blank">Mariners trade Ichiro to the Yankees</a> at the beginning of the year?<br />
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Most trade deadline trades, like the one involving Ichiro Suzuki, involve a team in playoff contention trading some future prospects and/or money to a team not in contention in return for an (often aging) borderline all-star level player. The advantage of making this trade at the beginning of the year, instead of waiting until halfway through for the trade deadline, is that the team in contention gets the good player for longer and thus the player has more utility for them; the disadvantage is that you might accidentally trade away a good player and then find yourself in playoff contention, or vice versa.<br />
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The first thing I investigated was the following: how much does gaining an Ichiro-like player help in the regular season, and how much does it help in the post season? Here were the assumptions I made.<br />
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1) All that matters is maximizing chances of winning the world series.<br />
2) The player will add roughly 3 wins to the team (i.e. have a <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml" target="_blank">WAR</a> of 3 more than the person they're replacing).<br />
3) The team will be facing teams of equal strength not including the player traded for in the playoffs, and will win with a probability over .500 corresponding to the difference in their inherent winning percentage and their opponents'.<br />
4) The team suspects that they will end up doing something between winning the division by 7 games, and losing by 10 games (roughly the average difference between division leader and second in division in 2011).<br />
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The probability of a team winning the world series p_WS = p_PL + p_PLW, the probability of making the playoffs + probability of winning the playoffs.<br />
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p_PL will be increased by ~3/20 by making the trade at the beginning of the season, meaning that p_PL will go from 50% to 65%, a proportional increase of .65/.5 = 1.3<br />
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To calculate the change in p_PLW, note that they have gained 3/162 ~ .0185 in winning percentage, meaning that they have a 51.85% chance of winning a playoff game (by assumption 3). So, whereas before p_PLW = 12.5%, now p_PLW = 15.6%, a proportional increase of about 1.25.<br />
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I had not been expecting this result; I had assumed that the playoffs would be random enough that player quality wouldn't matter as much as it would in the regular season (Because there are more games). But it seams that, in fact, a good player added to a good team might make about as much of an impact in the playoffs as in the regular season. (Note, however, that if you give yourself some partial victory credit for making the playoffs even if you don't win, that that would argue in the other direction.)<br />
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So, what's the upshot of this, as far as the trade deadline is concerned? Without trading you have a 50%*12.5% = 6.25% chance of winning the world series. If you trade at the beginning of the year, you have a .65*.156 = 10.14% chance of winning the world series. And if you make a trade at the trade deadline you get about 1.5 extra regular season wins from the player, so (by the same logic) you have roughly a .575*.156 = 8.98% chance of winning the world series.<br />
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So, making a before-season trade increases your probability of winning the world series by about 3.89%, whereas making it right before the trade deadline increases it by about 2.74%.<br />
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This means that the advantage of making the trade pre-season is that it's about 3.89/2.74 = 1.42 times as effective. Assuming that you'll be pretty sure by mid season whether you're in a playoff race, the question then becomes: before the season, are you at least 1/1.42 ~ 70% sure that your team will be in a competitive playoff race, and the other team won't be? In another post, I'll look at this question.<br />
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