Quote:
Originally Posted by dammage79
I've never been a fan of advanced stats. But I tend to think of them like Treliving does. They paint a small part of the picture. If they didn't, teams wouldn't use them.
So yes, they do have a function in the league but relying on them to tell your story is too binary of a logic process.
The game is far too fluid to rely on the picture they paint alone.
using them as a predictor is fool hardy as well. If player X was successful with his mates but when he gets paid as a UFA to perform like he did with those linemates and falters greatly on the new team with new players, then the stats were wrong, due to human dynamics that skew the results.
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I note in the article that the ideal combination for player and team eval is a mix between real-world experience, math, and empiricism (being able to design/conduct useful experiments). Chris agreed with that.
As for your particular scenario, there are efforts to correct for the influence of linemates in various stats and models being created now, but it's definitely a big challenge. Essentially the value of the process can be evaluated when we see if a stat or model is improving our success/predictive rate.
That said, the are factors outside of models that may not be captured but may have to be considered. For example, injuries, personal factors, etc.