Errors

I've randomly picked for analysis this blog post among the countless millions on the Internet. It exemplifies the shoddy writing and fallacious reasoning that pervades blogging.

In it, the author argues that baseball's error stat should be abolished. His argument may appeal at a superficial level, but it's loaded with fallacies—so much so that the author should concern himself more with eliminating his errors, not the ones decided at the MLB scoring table.

Consider the piece's third paragraph—where the meat of the argument begins:

There are two facets to the E: defensive and offensive. Defensively, it's widely believed that the E is a poor stat to compare fielders with, as the Wikipedia article points out. To compare fielders meaningfully, we must either use a new stat—like UZR—or resort to gut instinct—as most of us do anyway.

Those three sentences contain no fewer than five distinct, logic errors.

• Appeal to popularity—“it's widely believed” and “as most of us do”.
• Appeal to authority—“as the Wikipedia article points out”.
• Begging the question—”meaningfully”.
• False choice—“must either use a new stat … or resort to gut instinct”.
• Inconsistency—“use a new stat—like UZR”. Ultimate Zone Rating is based, in part, on the error stat. You can't eliminate errors without also eliminating UZR.

The last one—suggesting that the UZR can replace the error—demonstrates that the author hasn't done his homework, and thus, far from furthering the author's point, it warns readers not to continue reading. However, those who do continue reading will be greeted by two more problems a few paragraphs later.

Offensively, the E affects batting average. It's a shame that a batter is penalized for what a fielder does just because the fielder does something irregular. The whole game is irregular.

• Appeal to emotion—“It's a shame”.
• Hasty generalization—“The whole game is irregular.”

And as though the author is purposely presenting a bad case, he concludes his argument with one final logic mistake.

Replace ERA with RA and make pitchers accountable for everything going on on the field. This is already accepted practice with the W–L stat.

• Two wrongs make a right—“already accepted practice”

Unfortunately, this stuff passes for standard fare on the Internet. We ought to take care not to be swayed by such faulty reasoning.