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BGonline.org Forums
Insightful comment about luck versus skill
Posted By: Joe Russell In Response To: Insightful comment about luck versus skill (Rich Munitz)
Date: Sunday, 15 August 2010, at 4:54 a.m.
Excellent points Rich!
In baseball there are many stats that sabermetricians use to determine which players have been 'lucky' and 'unlucky'. One such stat is BABIP: Batting Average on Balls In Play. Generally speaking, the majority of players should have about the same batting average on balls hit in fair territory. Players that have much lower or much higher averages than would be expected by their BABIP have probably been lucky or unlucky and their future results will more likely mirror their BABIP performance expectations than their current performance.
In golf, the round ball, sloping and uneven surfaces, lakes, trees, and sand traps can produce many odd variations. A ball that stops one inch from rolling into a lake is an example of being lucky. A ball that hit s tree and bounces into the fairway rather than out-of-bounds is another example.
Steve Sax and I have an ongoing hole-in-one bet. Steve has three hole-in-ones. I have zero. My handicap is 10 strokes lower than Steve's. His first one took place on the last hole of a three par course, just as darkness had set it. He hit his shot and I laughed as I heard it clanging through the trees to the left of the fairway. I did not laugh quite so much when, after looking for his ball for 10 minutes, we found it resting in the hole. I did not even get to see it, but I had to pay off, happy for him to have bagged one.
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