Projecting the Landscape

Raise your hand if, after only a month or two of data, you have lauded or written off a player. Come on, we’ve all done it, and many of us will likely continue to fall victim to this statistical fallacy. It’s human nature as fans of this sport to generalize an entire season based on a small sample because many fans, even educated ones, tend not to understand what constitutes the true talent level of a given player. Or even, for that matter, why these projections are more than just people throwing darts in the blind at certain numbers. For starters, the reason small sample sizes fail to produce tangible results is that more numbers added will have a larger effect. Think of two guys posting a .333 batting average, where one is 3-9 and the other is 300-900. Add four hitless at-bats to each sample and suddenly player one plummets... [read full story]