SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
Carson Smith/Risk of TJ Surgery
|
Post by telson13 on Mar 26, 2016 21:53:53 GMT -5
You asked a rhetorical question (I'm presuming you're referencing your "So you admit..." question). You already made up your mind what the answer was. I gave you a detailed explanation of how your presumption was based in a false premise. And I re-explained it here, with brevity. I, and others, have provided multiple examples of why what you're saying is flawed, badly. Maybe you meant something else, hence my distinction between "predict" and "guarantee." If you need to think that that proves whatever point you were trying to make, that's fine, think whatever you like. I'm not coming in with a made up mind. I'm open like anyone else. It's everyone else that have made up their minds about the Tommy John articles based on their findings. Plenty of non hard throwing/non slider throwing pitchers have Tommy John surgery. Their false pretenses are based off of someone's findings and want to believe 100% in those findings. I'm saying don't believe everything you read. Brian Johnson had a scare with his elbow. Tyler Skaggs wasn't a hard throwing pitcher. There are plenty of other examples too. I think the original Tommy John wasn't even a hard thrower. I wouldn't know because I wasn't alive back then. I think you're misunderstanding what people are saying, then. Or they're misunderstanding you. I don't know. What people are trying to say to you is that some pitching styles are associated with increased injury risk (specifically UCL). They're not saying those pitchers are guaranteed to get hurt. I get that you're saying every pitcher is different, it's true. But people have given two examples (BASE jumping and smoking) that show how *risky behavior* (i.e., throwing lots of sliders and CB, especially when young) can affect outcomes, and why the "you never know" know argument is not a useful or informative one. I don't think anyone has argued they were 100% sure Smith would get hurt, nor that they are 100% convinced by a single academic study and some fangraphs data crunching. I certainly am not. But I also don't buy the "it's totally unpredictable" stance, either, because there's evidence to the contrary. Maybe it's just a communication issue, or we're all nitpicking. Whatever, it's not worth us all arguing about at this point.
|
|
|
Post by dirtywater43 on Mar 26, 2016 22:07:33 GMT -5
I'm not coming in with a made up mind. I'm open like anyone else. It's everyone else that have made up their minds about the Tommy John articles based on their findings. Plenty of non hard throwing/non slider throwing pitchers have Tommy John surgery. Their false pretenses are based off of someone's findings and want to believe 100% in those findings. I'm saying don't believe everything you read. Brian Johnson had a scare with his elbow. Tyler Skaggs wasn't a hard throwing pitcher. There are plenty of other examples too. I think the original Tommy John wasn't even a hard thrower. I wouldn't know because I wasn't alive back then. I think you're misunderstanding what people are saying, then. Or they're misunderstanding you. I don't know. What people are trying to say to you is that some pitching styles are associated with increased injury risk (specifically UCL). They're not saying those pitchers are guaranteed to get hurt. I get that you're saying every pitcher is different, it's true. But people have given two examples (BASE jumping and smoking) that show how *risky behavior* (i.e., throwing lots of sliders and CB, especially when young) can affect outcomes, and why the "you never know" know argument is not a useful or informative one. I don't think anyone has argued they were 100% sure Smith would get hurt, nor that they are 100% convinced by a single academic study and some fangraphs data crunching. I certainly am not. But I also don't buy the "it's totally unpredictable" stance, either, because there's evidence to the contrary. Maybe it's just a communication issue, or we're all nitpicking. Whatever, it's not worth us all arguing about at this point. I think Fangraphs (or another website) should put a top ten list of pitchers risked for Tommy John every year if they are so sure with what they believe. It'll be the real answer to seeing if it is that predictable in their minds like you say it is.
|
|
|
Post by dirtywater43 on Mar 26, 2016 22:26:48 GMT -5
If Fangraphs or someone else did a top 10 or 20 pitchers of the highest risk of Tommy John surgery, then that could completely change the value of some pitchers.
Some teams will look at these lists if they are even 10-25% correct. Teams will look at associated risks of these pitchers and might leverage to get less for that pitcher because of that risk alone.
Almost kind of like a prospect list.
Of course if they are only 2-5% correct, this list will be only just another tool maybe.
I don't know maybe this is a good get rich idea for someone. Your welcome. I just gave you your own espn insider every year. Lol. ;-)
Edit- Agents like Scott Boras would hate and tear down these kind of lists.
|
|
|
Post by a2sox on Mar 26, 2016 22:55:21 GMT -5
Can't wait for the next game so ya'll can discuss something (anything) else (yes, I created an account just to post this message)
|
|
|
Post by ryantoworkman on Mar 26, 2016 23:02:19 GMT -5
If Fangraphs or someone else did a top 10 or 20 pitchers of the highest risk of Tommy John surgery, then that could completely change the value of some pitchers. Some teams will look at these lists if they are even 10-25% correct. Teams will look at associated risks of these pitchers and might leverage to get less for that pitcher because of that risk alone. Almost kind of like a prospect list. Of course if they are only 2-5% correct, this list will be only just another tool maybe. I don't know maybe this is a good get rich idea for someone. Your welcome. I just gave you your own espn insider every year. Lol. ;-) Edit- Agents like Scott Boras would hate and tear down these kind of lists. www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/02/predicting-tommy-john-surgeries.htmlGoogle search brought that up. I could probably find older reports if I looked harder. I know I've looked at these lists in the past. Tom Verducci posts a similar list indicating pitchers likely to suffer injury because of a significant innings jump the year before. I'm pretty sure the First Amendment assures they can publish these lists without fear from the agents. It's long been known certain pitching styles lead to injuries (the inverted W, and those who throw across their bodies as examples of these). This is why teams try to change kids in the early levels of pro ball. They are hoping they can elicit the same results from a safer, less violent motion. Sometimes it works, and often when it doesn't, pitchers revert back to their old form to regain their stuff. It seems teams let pitchers decide their own path at the AA level. Those who choose their own methods, do so with the knowledge they could be shortening their careers.
|
|
|
Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 26, 2016 23:16:10 GMT -5
For the record. I have never called anyone dead wrong here. Usually if you go into a conversation with the pretense of thinking someone else is dead wrong, usually you're the one with the closed mind. But hey if Fangraphs and other places write about it. It must be 100% accurate. FanGraphs didn't "write about it". The Tim Collins time series was taken from Pitch F/x. It's the pitching record from his time in the majors.
|
|
|
Post by dirtywater43 on Mar 26, 2016 23:18:26 GMT -5
If Fangraphs or someone else did a top 10 or 20 pitchers of the highest risk of Tommy John surgery, then that could completely change the value of some pitchers. Some teams will look at these lists if they are even 10-25% correct. Teams will look at associated risks of these pitchers and might leverage to get less for that pitcher because of that risk alone. Almost kind of like a prospect list. Of course if they are only 2-5% correct, this list will be only just another tool maybe. I don't know maybe this is a good get rich idea for someone. Your welcome. I just gave you your own espn insider every year. Lol. ;-) Edit- Agents like Scott Boras would hate and tear down these kind of lists. www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/02/predicting-tommy-john-surgeries.htmlGoogle search brought that up. I could probably find older reports if I looked harder. I know I've looked at these lists in the past. Tom Verducci posts a similar list indicating pitchers likely to suffer injury because of a significant innings jump the year before. I'm pretty sure the First Amendment assures they can publish these lists without fear from the agents. It's long been known certain pitching styles lead to injuries (the inverted W, and those who throw across their bodies as examples of these). This is why teams try to change kids in the early levels of pro ball. They are hoping they can elicit the same results from a safer, less violent motion. Sometimes it works, and often when it doesn't, pitchers revert back to their old form to regain their stuff. It seems teams let pitchers decide their own path at the AA level. Those who choose their own methods, do so with the knowledge they could be shortening their careers. Interesting. According to that list, Carson Smith wasn't even the pitcher with the highest risk in the Wade Miley deal. Roenis Elias was. Yet no one here pointed that out and makes a bigger deal about the way Smith throws. (I realize a lot has to do with the fact that Smith JUST got injured) I also counted where Smith was on that list. He made the top 100 at number 100. Does that mean I had a good point in thinking Carson just got unlucky? Possibly but according to that list I think they had him at a 45% chance of Tommy John. I don't know what's the cutoff point with associated risk when a team starts getting more comfortable that a pitcher won't get injured. This is why I made a point to say that a team can't go into a trade with a thought that a player A has a good chance of getting injured, therefore the trade isn't worth it. The only thing we have to go by is past performance, stuff (the eye test), and age mostly.
|
|
|
Post by dirtywater43 on Mar 26, 2016 23:20:43 GMT -5
For the record. I have never called anyone dead wrong here. Usually if you go into a conversation with the pretense of thinking someone else is dead wrong, usually you're the one with the closed mind. But hey if Fangraphs and other places write about it. It must be 100% accurate. FanGraphs didn't "write about it". The Tim Collins time series was taken from Pitch F/x. It's the pitching record from his time in the majors. That wasn't the article I referring to. I was referring to the article that Jmie had in reference to Tommy John in general and risk injuries (not pointing you out to dry either, don't take it personally).
|
|
|
Post by mgoetze on Mar 26, 2016 23:31:40 GMT -5
Can't wait for the next game so ya'll can discuss something (anything) else (yes, I created an account just to post this message) The great thing about having an account is that you can have an ignore list. Unfortunately, people around here just can't resist feeding the trolls so you end up having to see the drivel anyway because it gets quoted, but oh well.
|
|
|
Post by mgoetze on Mar 26, 2016 23:45:48 GMT -5
Troll? Like honestly. I've brought something to this discussion. Well, I didn't name any names. I guess it's pretty telling that you felt addressed, eh?
|
|
|
Post by dirtywater43 on Mar 26, 2016 23:47:53 GMT -5
Troll? Like honestly. I've brought something to this discussion. Well, I didn't name any names. I guess it's pretty telling that you felt addressed, eh? Ohh you weren't referring to me. My apologies. Good day sir. People have been calling me that here lately. It's not fair. That's all. I'll delete that post.
|
|
|
Post by thursty on Mar 27, 2016 0:27:25 GMT -5
I suspect the most important acquisition risk wrt Carson Smith was little to do with his pitch mix or release point, but rather his significant decline in velocity in the last 2 months of 2015, which is not so much a measure of risk of future injury, but rather evidence of an *extant* one
|
|
|
Post by dirtywater43 on Mar 27, 2016 1:11:59 GMT -5
I suspect the most important acquisition risk wrt Carson Smith was little to do with his pitch mix or release point, but rather his significant decline in velocity in the last 2 months of 2015, which is not so much a measure of risk of future injury, but rather evidence of an *extant* one It was Carson Smith's first full year as major leaguer and put more innings and appearances on his arm than ever in 2015. Everything doesn't have to be injury related. He could of just been tiring at the end of the longest year of his career to that date.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,915
|
Post by ericmvan on Mar 27, 2016 2:18:43 GMT -5
Wow. First why don't you answer my questions and back up your crazy claims?? Second yea everyone think ceiling of #3 if he improves control not if he has pinpoint control. Look at his minor league numbers hitters have a very hard time hitting his stuff when he can control it. The point is that is stuff is just fine, its his control that's the issue. You claimed his fastball wasn't good enough!!!! You know nothing dirtybird. This isn't the thread for it. I went over this once in another thread. Either way it's very unlikely that Owens gets pinpoint control at any point in his career. Maybe but very unlikely chance. Do you even bother reading this board, other than to see how people respond to your opinions? In fact, do you even bother reading the posts you respond to? It's pointed out to you that no one is asking Owens to develop "pinpoint control." In fact, almost no pitcher has pinpoint control, and if you do, you can be a #2 starter even with mediocre stuff and no history of having been a top prospect at all (Mark Buehrlre, for instance). Your response is simply to repeat the assertion about Owens and pinpoint control. Which is true, but is meaningless -- and therefore not actually the topic of discussion in anyone's mind but yours. What everyone else is discussing, because it actually is relevant, is Owens' chance of developing significantly better control. As in, MLB average. I did a comprehensive study of that (in his thread), by looking at the change in control of every MLB pitcher for the last so-many years, and the conclusion was that he has a roughly 50% chance of improving his control to MLB average. Now, he was a borderline 4th/5th starter last year with bad control, because his changeup is absolutely elite. This was actually a new fact that effectively replaced a previous set of opinions. Some people had argued that the changeup would be ineffective against MLB hitters because he couldn't command his fastball, others had argued that the two would be unrelated. The latter people have been proven correct; in fact, if you can command a filthy changeup, you will dominate with it no matter shaky how your FB command is. Hence, Owens' floor is now established as a back-of-rotation starter. That's pretty obvious. Thanks for the effort. Why does everything have to be a conversation where you have to "learn something new" on this forum and not forming your own opinions? The world is filled with objective opinions and deserve to be heard. Opinions, strongly stated, are the lifeblood of any message board. You know what are even more important to good discussions? Facts.
Not everyone has them all. A good discussion is in large part an exchange of facts. And as an excellent rule of thumb, you should change your opinion to fit the facts. Elsewhere you noted that you had changed your mind about Joe Kelly based on what you had observed this ST. That's commendable. However, it's nothing at all like changing your mind about an opinion, because someone has given you facts that contradict it.Instead, when someone gives you facts that contradict your opinions, you never budge an inch. You do one of a number of increasingly tiresome things: you question whether the facts are actually facts, you create strawman arguments to evade them ... and mostly you just repeat your original opinion as if the facts didn't exist. This genuinely baffles me. I want to know the facts. I can't imagine why anyone would not want to know them. Imagine this scenario. I start to get the feeling that player X is actually more valuable than player Y, even though everyone thinks it's the other way around. I have formed an opinion. What I next want to find out is whether this opinion is true. If it is true, there will be facts to support it. If it is not true, there will be facts that support the opposite opinion. It's very exciting to learn that such an opinion is actually true. I will come here and state the facts that support it. Often, other posters will state facts that support the other position. We can all discuss which facts are relevant, how they might be misleading or not, and, ultimately, which set of facts is more persuasive. Often, we will have to choose to disagree over whether the facts that support one opinion are stronger than the ones that support the other. But at least we have agreed on what the facts are, and both opinions are informed by those facts. What I don't understand is coming here, stating your opinion, and then ignoring every fact that contradicts it. Do you actually have no interest in learning true things about the game of baseball? Why are you even a fan, then? I assume it matters to you that it's true that the Royals beat the Mets in last year's WS, and false that the Mets beat the Royals. Why then, does it not seem to matter to you at all that ST stats have no predictive value, or that certain types of pitchers are more at risk for elbow problems that others? Because you have either acted like those facts don't exist, or have made really clueless arguments against them. (The answer, of course, is that these facts seem not to matter to you because they contradict an opinion you already feel strongly about. But that's a terrible way to operate a brain. Think of the guy who has a strong opinion that his girlfriend would never cheat on him, or the one who is convinced she already is. Is it a good idea for them to deny or ignore new facts that contradict their opinion? Hey, you want to have a whole lot of fun? Form a strong opinion that it's not against the law to deal drugs, and then do so openly on the street, even after your friends tell you, no, it actually is illegal!) You're entitled to your opinions. Of course you are. You're not entitled to your own facts. There is no intelligent discussion when you choose which facts to believe in and which to deny or ignore. Why does everything have to be a conversation where you have to "learn something new" on this forum News flash: there has to be a conversation where you learn something new whenever your "something old" is revealed to be untrue by being contradicted by those nasty facts. And that's true in life, not just here.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Mar 27, 2016 7:35:59 GMT -5
For the record. I have never called anyone dead wrong here. Usually if you go into a conversation with the pretense of thinking someone else is dead wrong, usually you're the one with the closed mind. But hey if Fangraphs and other places write about it. It must be 100% accurate. Maybe you should start your own website and write all the articles. You'll be just as accurate as Fangraphs, since they are not infallible.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Mar 27, 2016 9:01:27 GMT -5
It is somewhat amusing (disconcerting?) to read all the pedantic critiques of the folly of predicting pitcher injuries (which is not to suggest that the arguments of the other side presented here are not scorn-worthy). There is certainly no publicly available model that does so with any effective reliability (and if you could provide one, you could become a very rich man; and/or if an extant FO has developed one, they're not telling). Surely those who have at least a modicum of academic background in statistics are aware that null-hypothesis rejections are fraught (it is trivial in that way to "prove" that somnambulism causes cancer; or is that cancer causes somnabulism?). Any gathering of Bayesians (2 is enough) would be incomplete without more than a tablespoon of scorn for the classicists and their t-tests and p-values and null-hypothesis rejections (clinical studies are especially (justifiably) favorite targets for mockery and derision). The central point is that we can't as of yet say much more about pitcher injuries than: if X is a pitcher ==> X will suffer injury Jeff Zimmerman at Fangraphs came up with a system to project starting pitcher DL stints in 2010, and it has turned out to be fairly accurate. Here's this year's iteration. PS: accusing others of pendantry and then immediately diving into Bayesian critiques of hypo testing is pretty amusing to me. At any rate, any good Bayesian would recognize the utility of injury-prediction models like Zimmerman's, even if they are not close to 100% accurate.
|
|
|
Post by thursty on Mar 27, 2016 9:44:11 GMT -5
"Fairly accurate", huh? Just doing a spot check (which you might have done before making snide, ignorant remarks) of the 10 most likely to go on DL for 2015 - 5 had a DL stint of the 10 least likely - 3 went on the DL When 42% of all starting pitchers had a DL stint in 2015 - not much better than random. Not to mention that in his own words, it's age and previous injury history that are by far the most accurate predictors (not slider % and arm slot, which was the "contention" I was responding to)
There isn't a statistician alive (Bayesian or frequentist) who would describe such results as "fairly accurate".
Oops
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Mar 27, 2016 10:38:32 GMT -5
"Fairly accurate", huh? Just doing a spot check (which you might have done before making snide, ignorant remarks) of the 10 most likely to go on DL for 2015 - 5 had a DL stint of the 10 least likely - 3 went on the DL When 42% of all starting pitchers had a DL stint in 2015 - not much better than random. Not to mention that in his own words, it's age and previous injury history that are by far the most accurate predictors (not slider % and arm slot, which was the "contention" I was responding to) There isn't a statistician alive (Bayesian or frequentist) who would describe such results as "fairly accurate". Oops The most likely pitchers to go on the DL do not have a predicted 100% chance of going on the DL (they top out at around ~60%), and the least likely pitchers to go on the DL do not have a predicted 0% chance of going on the DL (it bottoms out at around ~30%). We're talking about shades of gray here, remember? He's done retrospectives on it in the past, which have shown encouraging results (for instance, in his review of his 2013 projections, he predicted 6.2 DL players out his 20 least likely (actual: 5) and he predicted 9.9 of his 20 most likely (actual: 9)). He usually does so every year with similar results; you can dig through the archives yourself if you're not convinced.
|
|
|
Post by deepjohn on Mar 27, 2016 11:14:45 GMT -5
The only hard data that has a high correlation to injury is an MRI, or perhaps an ultrasound.
For now, Carson Smith has a clean MRI, we're told. I think that's part of the reason the Red Sox traded for him. I think it's likely that other teams valued soft data (pitching motion, velocity, etc.) while the Red Sox valued the hard data of the MRI.
Who's right? Who knows. That said, obviously, any MRI can change and show something different in the future, and it won't prove that anyone was right or wrong about Carson Smith.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Mar 27, 2016 12:34:37 GMT -5
No one is right or wrong about Smith, given that he doesn't need TJS as of yet and he also hasn't completed the next few seasons without needing it.
|
|
|
Post by dirtywater43 on Mar 27, 2016 13:41:56 GMT -5
Just responding to Eric's long post, there are no real facts to predict injuries. All I've seen people post is percentages. Almost like playing the lottery. Which is why I said what I said about the powerball. Sometimes the best argument can be made in a rhetorical answer to Tommy John is the straw man. No one truly knows.
There are a ton of factors to it. -High stress pitches -A pitcher with a lot of miles on his arm -a young kid being overused at a early age -Bad Mechanics
Way too much to analyze given all those factors.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Mar 27, 2016 14:03:35 GMT -5
Just responding to Eric's long post, there are no real facts to predict injuries. All I've seen people post is percentages. Almost like playing the lottery. Which is why I said what I said about the powerball. Sometimes the best argument can be made in a rhetorical answer to Tommy John is the straw man. No one truly knows. There are a ton of factors to it. -High stress pitches -A pitcher with a lot of miles on his arm -a young kid being overused at a early age -Bad Mechanics Way too much to analyze given all those factors. It might be too much for you to analyze, but not for others. Why are you arguing with others because they analyzed it and you didn't? Are you actually arguing that making wild guesses is better than making educated guesses? This is like the 5th argument you've gotten into exactly like this where you ignore everything that everyone says to you about a dozen times. When trying to predict the future, you will never guess perfectly. That doesn't mean that trying to analyze it to make better predictions is worthless. And when the prediction doesn't turn out to be true, it doesn't make any analysis whatsoever useless. Just stop.
|
|
|
Post by dirtywater43 on Mar 27, 2016 14:17:05 GMT -5
I didn't ignore anything.
Just because a bunch of people analyzed one "aspect" of it doesn't preclude to the fact that the reason Carson Smith throws 40% sliders lead to this injury.
You can make predictions. It doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that people come out with this looming cloud against Smith when two and two didn't go together when all he had was a muscle mass injury.
People had this guy ticketed for James Andrews a week ago. That's really uneasy for a fan like me.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Mar 27, 2016 14:23:31 GMT -5
That has absolutely nothing to do with your assertion that there is no possible way to predict who is more likely to need TJS because of a few examples you came up with.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,915
|
Post by ericmvan on Mar 27, 2016 14:30:25 GMT -5
Just responding to Eric's long post, there are no real facts to predict injuries. All I've seen people post is percentages. Almost like playing the lottery. Which is why I said what I said about the powerball. Sometimes the best argument can be made in a rhetorical answer to Tommy John is the straw man. No one truly knows. There are a ton of factors to it. -High stress pitches -A pitcher with a lot of miles on his arm -a young kid being overused at a early age -Bad Mechanics Way too much to analyze given all those factors. Of course there are real facts that can be used to predict the likelihood of a pitcher getting injured. In fact, you just listed four types of them, in addition to the one we're talking about! No one is arguing that we know that Smith's slider usage is the cause of his current arm injury. What we are arguing is something completely different: that when we traded for Smith, we knew for a fact that he was likelier to be injured than an ordinary pitcher. That fact is so incontovertible and so uncontroversial that it's astonishing that we've filled three pages with people trying to explain it to you. Most things that happen in life cannot have their precise cause determined. Most things in life, in fact, do not have a single identifiable cause. Trying to anticipate the future is entirely about "percentages."
Imagine if the insurance industry thought the way you do. You'd pay the same premium for theft of your 2009 Town and Country mini-van, which you park in a garage in a safe neighborhood, as the drug dealer who parks his brand new Escalade in the inner city. When you complained, they'd say, " no one truly knows which of your cars will get stolen, if either is going to." And that's absolutely true! Are you satisfied? Is that a fair system? And when you say, "Hey, his car is way more valuable than mine, and he lives in a high-crime neighborhood, and his lifestyle makes him more likely to be held up at gunpoint .." they say, '''whoah, way too many factors to analyze!" (Note: if you have data, there's no such thing as too much of it to analyze. There is in fact a branch of mathematics devoted to it.) Here's another, more contemporary example. Right now we know as a fact that climate change has increased the frequency of extreme weather events and patterns. The science of that is ironclad, and it furthermore conforms with everyone's experience. And yet you cannot point at any one thing that happens with the weather, even after the fact, and say it was caused by climate change. A February 2015 in Boston that almost broke winter snowfall totals by itself and was also the second coldest on record, followed by a 2016 winter where it almost never snowed and there were days you could go out in shirtsleeves at 10 PM? And all we can say is that climate change made that sequence much more likely, but we cannot actually say it was the cause. When we list all of the extreme events over the last ten years, we can say with absolute certainty that climate change is the reason the list is three times as long as it used to be, but we cannot identify which third of the events would have happened anyway and which two-thirds of the events were the bonus from global warming. Imagine, in fact, a life where you personally never tried to estimate the percentage of anything in the future happening, because you could not be certain. In 9th grade, you ask out the really cute girl who seems to like you, but you also ask out the stuck-up beauty who seems to hate you (and whose clique of friends are likely to torment you as a result), because you can't be certain about the beauty turning you down. You apply to every sort of college from Harvard and Princeton to the local community college because you can't be certain that you won't get into the Ivies. Every time you leave the house, you revise your will because you can't be certain that you won't be killed in an auto accident. And so on. It's all anyone ever does about the future. Estimate the percentages. And we do it all the time, continually; in fact (gee, I'm saying that a lot), all of human psychology is about our efforts to predict the likelihood of various events in the future. Fear and anxiety, hope and desire -- they're about predicting what might happen and preparing for it, and that's all they're about. All probability, all the time. No one will ever be able to say that Smith's injury this spring was caused by throwing more sliders. Even if it was, it would probably be impossible to determine that it was so, but in all likelihood there was no one cause of the injury. But what we do know, for a fact, is that he was a guy with a greater injury risk than average. We know that when we traded for him, and in fact it was the only reason we were able to get him for relatively little. That the injury did happen, after being merely more likely to happen, changes nothing about the trade, and is actually sort of not worth talking about.
|
|
|