Our love with Wagner

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Posted By: jay behrens

You can't compare Ruth to Cobb directly, but you can compare the players against those they competed against and see how much better they were than everyone else they played against. This what normalized stats does.

One of the arguments against normalized numbers is that talent is not consistant. In Cobb's day, the bell curve for talent was somewhat flat, with the talent difference between Cobb and Bergen quite dramatic. That same bell curve today is quite pronounced with the difference between A-Rod and the worst player not being as dramatic. Essentially, the left end of the bell curve (the worst players) gets pushed closer to the great players, thus forcing the peak to rise.

How many people actually understood what I just wrote?

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.