Bad Science Or Bad Research

I was going to compare the batting statistics of Red Sox and the Braves. My point was that the Braves have a similar batting average to the Red Sox, a better ERA, but their OBP and OPS was much lower. Therefore they score a lot fewer runs and win fewer games.

This is all true, but it is no where near as pronounced as I thought. (This page's team statistics started my thought pattern. This page's more detailed statistics ended my thought pattern.)

So I wasn't going "publish" anything. The data didn't exactly fit my theory, so I was just going to keep it to myself. And really, in the middle of a season even if my theory was true, it has very little prescriptive value. What are the controllable variables in a Major League baseball player? Terry Pendelton isn't able to get Francoeur to walk more (take more pitches) especially mid-season. I somewhat doubt if you can get many Major League batters to change their approach in the middle of their careers. My theory is like saying "The sky is blue." Who gives a shit?

I am afraid that is much research. The Kevin Murphy interview I linked to in the last post discusses some of these problems as related to health care.