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MukilteoMike
Joined: 08/09/2014
Posts: 3294

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It is a non-factor, and its been proven. Anyone can cherry pick data (from 2005) to make statistics say what they want.



That is simply not true.

Cherry picking? How about using the entirety of the fabulous modern creation of MLB with hundreds of thousands of games? It shows there is clearly a home field advantage. As Baseball Reference says...

"While in all games, the average winning percentage of any team is .500, its winning percentage goes up to .550 at home, and down to .450 on the road. That advantage has been fairly consistent throughout all eras of baseball, although some teams, especially those who play in a particularly atypical home ballpark, may have a bigger edge that endures over the years."

And then there's this argument,

"If this were true they aren't impacted by the crowd,
we wouldn't have baseball players crying about things they heard from the crowd after games. Pretty obvious you are wrong. They hear and are effected by the crowd."

Rock, YOU just said that. How in the world can you argue that and then say HFA doesn't exist? That is hysterical.

And, finally, as many other baseball minded people have stated, a key benefit of home field is having the privilege of batting last. That provides a strategic advantage that is undeniable.


Updated Friday, November 22 2019 @ 1:54:20 pm PST
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9570

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
I do believe in home field advantage. Just using it to illustrate out how ridiculous the claim that players always play at 100% capacity every game and aren't phased by motivation or psychological factors is. Home field advantage is real in the exact same way that the revenge boost is real. Its simple psychology.

Also, just trying to trick Mike into arguing my point for me ;)
Cactusguy21
Joined: 07/25/2017
Posts: 815

Presque Isle Vikings
III.4

Broken Bat Baseball
I'm totally lost now as to what your point even is.


The article was talking about home-field advantage in terms of the number of home games, not about whether or not there was a home field advantage.

There is a massive difference between looking at who wins a series and who had more home games in than looking at how home field impacts a single game. And yet you presented that study as argument against home field effect in general, which Mike called you out on.
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9570

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
LOL. Go back and read the thread. I presented the study, and Mike disagreed. Not the other way around. That is why your story is so confusing, because you have your history all messed up.

The point is that psychological impacts are real. To discount that is deny an entire field of study - psychology (and more specifically Sports Psychology). You claimed Psychology was wrong because stats proved it. Then you said there were no stats. So now are you just saying that you think Psychology is vodoo mubbo jumbo or something? I'm really not going to be able to have a discussion with you until your culture reaches at least the iron age... :(

Updated Friday, November 22 2019 @ 2:59:38 pm PST
MukilteoMike
Joined: 08/09/2014
Posts: 3294

Inactive

Broken Bat Baseball
I doubt anyone is fooled by your cover, Rock. Nice try.

I'll divert back to your original suggestion of revenge boost. Of course psychology plays a part of life, even sports. However, there's no data to suggest a player performs better against ex teams. As others have pointed out, it could just as likely work against a player.

It could have a similar effect of, well, let's just imagine an individual discussing something in a forum, for instance. Debating an issue with certain people might trigger a high-alert signal for someone causing tham to direct more attention to that discussion. That won't necessarily make them perform better. In fact, it could cause them to react in a negative way, possibly even leading them to attack the opposition personally instead of focusing on the topic. Hypothetically speaking.

So, no, I'm still not a believer of a positive revenge boost.

For fun, I'll even go with you for a moment and say there is such a phenomenon. The extreme case for a batter would be, what, a .025 BA improvement? That would be huge. Let's say the norm would be a third of that.

Now let's consider how often revenge boost would even come into play. The answer? Almost never. I haven't attempted to get the data, but I would guess the average number of at bats per player sitewide would be less than 10 per season. Throw that all together and you end up with an average revenge boost of less than a tenth of a hit per season per batter. In other words, a complete waste of time even assuming revenge boost existed.
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9570

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
Cover?

Na, I see a lot of familiar faces in my leagues. At least 2 or 3 players per team that were on other teams. It would be much more frequent that that.

Yes, it would be a very small increase. Just like home field advantage.

I honestly don't even care about this idea, but I thought it was stupid for people to claim psychology doesn't exist in sports. The revenge boost is definitely a real thing. There are lots of real things that aren't in the game. Steve doesn't have to include them if he doesn't want. Doesn't make it any less real.

Statistics may be a useful tool, but delving them for proof of life only makes one a fool.
Deuce
Joined: 06/07/2016
Posts: 279

New London Rippers
V.3

Broken Bat Baseball
Felt compelled to reply to this statement that it doesn't exist or at least there's no proof in stats. BTW I'm against this idea because I don't believe there's a good way to implement it.

I don't want to try to dig into this too much but instead give you my personal experience. For me personally "revenge boost", or more accurately boost for any reason is not only real but has very large impact on stats. The problem comes when you try to equate what motivates a person. Some are motivated by playing a team that traded them or beat them but more often I believe motivations comes from outside the sport. For me it was women(lol), or people showing up that had never seen me play. Other things that got me going were anger against my coach(i'll show him), seeing a teammate mistreated, and being challenged to do something they say i can't do. In my experience my stats were extraordinarily high in these circumstance.
Is revenge boost a thing? For some yes, for others no, and not always. It's way too hard to quantify to implement imo. But to suggest that it doesn't exist because you can't track it is to not understand athletes, or at least winning athletes.
MukilteoMike
Joined: 08/09/2014
Posts: 3294

Inactive

Broken Bat Baseball
I agree with some of your statements, Deuce. I'll clarify what I mean when I say "revenge boost doesn't exist." For me, that means "it is no where near the norm for players to perform noticeably better against ex teams to the extent that it warrants an artificial boost in performance here." As you said, some players are motivated by that, some are not. As others have said as well, that could backfire. I think current personal situations likely drive current performance infinitely more than things like "I played a season for that team 8 years ago, so I'm going to put the hurt on them this series."
Rock777
Joined: 09/21/2014
Posts: 9570

Haverhill Halflings
III.1

Broken Bat Baseball
"artificial boost in performance here" = "I don't believe it exists". I never said they would perform better, only that their ratings would get some small boost to represent being more locked in, they could still go 0/4 with three strike outs.

While I agree that everyone is motivated by different things, I believe wanting to perform well against the team that just cut you is a widely shared sentiment. It was simply an idea to bring in one of the more standard motivators (like home field advantage) to add a bit more reality to the game.
hurstdm
Joined: 01/18/2017
Posts: 576

Inactive

Broken Bat Baseball
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