NL Central showdown: Position rankings

All those factors are taken into consideration when a player is named a top 100 prospect.

No one claimed it was a perfect full proof system, but it is the best we have.

I can see that.  Take Rich Hill.  He had all the tools but didn't have the tool box.  Castillo is having the same questions.  Top end arm.  Hits for power.  But what is holding him back is his ability to call a game...ie tool box skill.

I think it is better to have better scouting to be able to see not only what this kids tool set is but what makes that guy tick.  Does he "get it".  Then develop a development process and build a solid track record based on system analysis to prove the process works..or the basics of the process works.

Try to get rid of the unknown factors or lessen them at least. 

Running probilities is fine and all but life just doesn;t work that way.  It is fine for "clean studies" where there are no random factors.  Then add a factor to see a test result.  But that is theory vs applied. 

Nope.

You were busy trying to be the Math teacher and tell me I was wrong and that you add the percentages together.

You are right here, I was talking much to quickly, and I should have slowed down to better understand the misunderstandng.

And now you are trying to change your story after I trying to call me a bad person and bad parent etc when I was really right all along.

I did this once, and I have apologized for it. It in no way condones my actions, but do you not regularly use laguage very similar to mine?

Did you not make at least 9 or 10 blatent attacks on my lifes work prior to my statement?

Hippocrite much?

Just for the record, I am not changing my story. I have from the beginging of our argument tried to express the probabilities in the Actual number of quality players the Cubs can expect to gain this year if they look at 7 or 8 of their best prospects.

What the 1.02 represents is the most likely number of outcomes I could expect from performing any action that has a 17% rate of occurance 6 times. KB continues to talk about it in odds, and I continue to translate the numbers into the number that is most likely to happen.

My original statement

Nope.

That is not what you said.

Here is what you said originally....

Your numbers here would be true if they were looking at 1 guy. So what do you believe the chances are if they look at two guys? Stop hurting yourself, I will give you this one, it is 34%. See the chance doubles when you look at two guys instead of one. Guess what happens when you look at three, that is right, they triple. So with three top 100's we are up to a 51% chance of finding a superior player, but we are still using percentages for all players.

No, that was later KB, here is what I said originally, about 2 pages before I made the comment to which you refer.

It is importasnt to remember that you believe absolutely nothing good is going to happen this year, and I believe at least 1 or 2 of our position prospects will become at least solid major league ballplayers. 

One point quickly. I thought I had stated it in a way that made it seem like a reasonable belief, not an absolute certainty, but KB seems to think saying I believe something will happen is akin to a guarantee, so I should have stated could, which I did throughuot the entire rest of the discussion. I have been clear that there are no statisical certainties in life, save that 100% of all of us will die at some point.

Feel free to check this link. 60% of position players ranked in the top 20 for Baseball America succeed at the major league level. about 30% of those ranked 21-100 succeed, The Cubs will be taking a long look at Rizzo, Vitters, and Jackson this year alone, 30% sounds a lot like one out of three to me. We will also be looking at four or five young pitchers too, one out of four or five still sounds pretty realistic to me. That adds up to 2, so 1 or 2 is not only realistic by the numbers, but a bit on the conservative side

This is my first and original response to KB's assertion that my belief was ridiculous and unfounded. You can see where my original approach was to take the probability for each player group and translate that into a number of players. There is no metion of the probability of 1 or 2 outcomes on 6 tries, ar any stacking of percentages. It is merely a very shorthand version of the sum of the probabilities for each player.

But all three I metioned are top 100. By using your percetages, 22% for position players, which actually is not consistent over the entire sample size (meaning it is around 30% for players 21-49, and goes down to about 15% as you progress to player 100), 22% of 3 is .66, if we look at a 4th player this year it is almost 1. That means for every 3 or 4 guys you look at, about 1 (depending on rankings #) turns out to be a superior major leaguer by your own definition. We will be looking at 3 or 4 fairly highly rated prospects this year, one should reach your numbers.

Here again I do not mention the probabilty of outcome within the number of tries. All I do is seperately add the probabilities of each player to generate a likely number of total players gained. In saying 22% of three is .66, I am saying that the most likely number of players we would gain given the numbers applied is .66. I know that there can not be .66 of a player, but when added to the prbability of the rest of the group, the numbers were 1.86 under my original standard, and 1.43 under KB's increased standard. I would state that as probably 1 or 2 players.

Even using 83% over all, if we look at 8 prospects this year, which is very likely, that means about 1.36 will succed to your high standard, last time I checked, 1.36 was somewhere between 1 and 2, wow there we are back at the number I have said all along, and again since two of the guys we are looking at are in the top 50, the percentages are acually higher than the ones you are using.

This one is pretty clear and stated before what you claim to be my "original" point.

I was, am and will continue to use the percentages to generate a prediction as to how many quality players the Cubs are going to gain this year in looking at thier best 7 or 8 prospects, and as I have stated before I stand by my original methods and calculations in making the determination of the most likely number of quality major league players the Cubs can hope to add next year.

Which I also repeatedly told you that you were doing but you were too busy on your high horse playing teacher and how I should look at the first chapter of my high school Algebra book.

You are right, I became frustrated and angry, which had an effect on my listening. I should have stayed more clear or walked away prior to making the rushed and incorrect statements.

Can follow your own advice now?

Here is what you just said

In ONE trial.  Your example of the most likely number of heads in the flip of ten coins is ONE trial.

The number of prospects that will be successful is still MULTIPLE trials.

How can 10 flips of a coin be a single trial KB???

The Binomial percentages apply exactly the same to both of these situations, we have already had that argument and you won. The prospects percentages of success are exactly identical to the coin flips, my gosh you argued that ferociously for 7 pages of posts now. I was wrong about how the probability percentages applied. However, if they are the same for finding the binomial percentage of success you were looking for, why would my methods of finding the most likely outcome not be the same in both cases? The two are the same, or they are not the same...which is it?  

Yes I was wrong about the percentage, but right in the theory.

What you said originally

Out of 7 or 8 propects that will get significant MLB experience this year you don't think we find at least 1 or 2 contributors? And you call me extreme.

I think there is a 17% chance the Cubs will find 1 solid major league contributor.

I think there is an 83% they won't find any.

Your statement clearly indicates that you believed that with 7 or 8 prospects the Cubs odds of finding at least one were exactly the same as if the only looked at one prospect. So gotta disagree, your original point was that the odds NEVER increase no matter how many propects at which the Cubs look. That is wrong in both theory and percentage.