Anecdotal Evidence
One of the five or six people that reads this site hates it when I write about baseball because he's not much of a baseball fan. He is, however, a fan of
logic and should appreciate the concepts involved in this article, if not the context.
Anecdotal evidence is when an example of something is used as evidence to generalize about the topic. A very crude example would be if someone
observed a man from Arkansas kissing his sister and then used that as evidence that incest is common in Arkansas. This conclusion may be correct, but
the evidence is anecdotal and does not prove the point. In fact, many times the conclusion drawn from anecdotal evidence is incorrect, which brings me
to the baseball portion of today's program.
Baseball is a game of statistics. Individual performance can be measured fairly accurately in a number of ways and there is a whole industry dedicated to
the study of baseball statistics (called Sabrmetrics). It has been shown that, in general, a player improves his performance until he is about 27, then
maintains his peak until he is about 32, and then begins a slow decline in performance. There are, of course, outliers to this general theme, but they are
often marked with unusual or extra-ordinary circumstances (such as steroid usage). Now, this is all background for the discussion of Gary Matthews, Jr.
Gary was a career backup until this past season, and would have continued to be a backup if it weren't for injuries to other outfielders playing on his
team. Gary made the most of his playing time and achieved career-best's in many offensive categories. But, Gary Matthews, Jr. was 31 years old last
season. His career batting average is .263, and that includes last season's mark of .313. He had never, over a full season, batted better than .275 in his
career. His other numbers are similar. You would have to be crazy to think that Gary Matthews, Jr. has turned the corner at age 31 and will continue to
play as well as he did in 2006. If a player consistently bats .260 from the time he is 24 years old to the time he is 30 years old and then hits .313 when
he is 31 years old, and you were forced to gamble on how he would bat for the next five years, would you bet that he'd hit closer to .260 or .313?
Yeah, me too.
The above is certainly part of the Anecdotal evidence discussion - (in statistics anecdotal evidence is akin to "small sample size," which is really the heart
of the above discussion). But the real reason I brought up Gary Matthews, Jr. in this discussion is in regards to his defense. Defense is much more
difficult to quantify than offense - there have been many statistics designed to do so, but none of them are perfect. By any method ever designed,
though, Gary has never been a great defensive player. Scouting reports and statistics alike have concluded that he doesn't have the range to be a center
fielder, or the arm strength to be a right fielder. Gary was seen as an average defensive outfielder, whose offensive and defensive limitations made him
useful as a backup outfielder and nothing more. Last season, though, Gary made one of the most amazing catches seen in recent history. He ran back
to the wall and jumped and reached his glove over the wall and miraculously caught what should have been a home run. The play was repeatedly shown
on the highlight reels the rest of the season, and it should have been because it was truly incredible. However, that one amazing play earned Gary the
reputation of being an outstanding defensive outfielder, which is very clearly not true. Believe it or not, an average outfielder can make an occasional
spectacular play. Such was the case with Gary Matthews, Jr. But the Anaheim Angels rejected all evidence played in front of them and decided that
Gary was an exceptional outfielder, worthy of being paid $10M a year for the next 5 years to play center field for them every day. It's bad enough that
Gary will be paid $10M in the first year of his contract when he'll be 32, but at least he should still have his pre-2006 value as a quality fourth outfielder.
What's worse is that he'll be paid $10M in his fifth year, when he'll be 37 and probably completely useless for any baseball purpose. Such is the danger
of relying on anecdotal evidence.
And For No Apparent Reason
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