It was nice to meet all of you yesterday! I apologize if the introduction at the start of class was repetitious, but I wanted to make sure we were all "on the same page."
The reading assignment for next week is:
-They Say / I Say 頁19 - middle of 頁28
-Moneyball 頁97- bottom of 頁148, top of 頁152 - middle of 頁157 (The major part I'm deleting is about Scott Hatteberg, whom Lewis features as the type of "the intellectual/scientific baseball player.")
8 (Peter). In Moneyball, Billy Beane finds undervalued players who generate high offensive "on base percentage" and avoids athletic players who are overvalued for their skills at defense. But six years later in the year 2010, he is now buying players who are superior defenders, even if they have lower o.b.p. Explain why (there are two reasons).
9 (Doll). Use the first template on 頁26 of G&B to write a "they say" that compares Billy Beane's theories to the following statement by "Hall of Fame" baseball legend Joe Morgan (who is now a television analyst). The guy that wrote Moneyball can't teach me about the game... If you haven't been on the field, why should I read your book? How can that person teach me about the game? I learn plenty about the game everyday. Every Sunday night I learn something. The game changes almost every day. But I'm still not going to read Moneyball or books written by people who haven't been on the field or really experienced what goes on in the game of baseball... I learned from the best, the legends who played the game. I played alongside so many great players. I'm just not going to read a book in hopes of learning how to play baseball. But this is an everchanging game and I do learn something almost every day. I'm just a former baseball player who is now an analyst. My thoughts are about the game and not technologies and such. Just because somebody writes a book doesn't mean they know the game.
10 (Alice). If I told you that several of the high school players Lewis mentions in Moneyball (e.g. Melvin "B.J." Upton, Scott Kazmir, Zach Greinke) achieved great success in baseball, while many of the college players he mentions (e.g. Jeremy Brown, Luke Hagerty, Ben Fritz, Robert Brownlie, Stephen Obenchain, Bill Murphy, John McCurdy, Steve Stanley, John Baker, Mark Kiger, Brian Stavisky, Shaun Larkin, Brian Colamarino) were great failures , does this invalidate the theory argued by Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta, that drafting college players is more efficient? Why or why not?
11 (Martin). Lewis describes two fields of human enterprise in which quantitative approaches have replaced or are replacing intuitive approaches: financial trading and baseball management. Give an example of another field in which this transition has taken place, is in the process of taking place, or has not taken place (but could). Explain in detail.
12 (Tiara). Let us discuss another labor market somewhat similar to the baseball "draft." Do you think university grades efficiently measure students' intellectual achievement and potential? If you were the hiring manager for a company/organization, would you consider the university grades of your job applicants? How important would they be in making your hiring decision? Start with one of the "implied argument" templates on 頁25 to say what is commonly thought about grades. Then you can agree or disagree with the common thought.
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In discussions of Moneyball, one controversial issue has been whether or not statistics helps to select better players and further to win more games. On the one hand, Billy Beane argues that “numbers”—OBP, SLG, OPS…etc.—show objectively who’s got potential or who’s the preferable choice and that statistics works more efficiently than “subjective judgments.” On the other hand, Joe Morgan, a television analyst, contends that personal experience matters the most. As a baseball player once, Joe firmly believes only one who has been “on the field” knows what’s going on in the game. My own view is that both personal experience and statistics count as much.
ReplyDeleteMost people often has the impression that the higher grades one have, the better job he or she would get. In my opinion, one's grades may be considered to part of his or her achievement, and that is his or her advantage. However, besides grades, one's attitude is more important when I am making the hiring decision. If there are two people, one has ordinary grades in college, but is willing to ask and learn everything, the other one rely on his good grades and is reluctant to learn more; I I will hire the former one. To sum up, grades can't tell everything.
ReplyDeleteI think that your statement is an assumption like you said “I told you…”. It is like a general idea. There is one possible way to judge this assumption is true or not this doing statistics on the players. The scouts pick the players from their previous performances. While Lewis is arguing that the statistics categorizes into two types: meaningful or not. However, it is the scouts considering about the meaning of the statistics. To judge the players’ career future, the scouts use their personal experience and observation instead of the records. Therefore, it does not invalidate the theory argued by Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta,
ReplyDeleteI confuse (on p.99) the connection between there two phenomena “Anti-intellectual resentment is common in all of American life and it has many diverse expressions,” he wrote, advancing one theory. “Refusing to draft college players might have been one of them”
Does it mean that college player is kind of intellectuals?
And the scouts do not pick the college players because they hate intellectuals?
These are good answers. I hope we can get the rest of the students to complete their answers too!
ReplyDelete容聞, you are correct. The reason that Beane and DePodesta choose college players is that they believe they have more meaningful statistics about those players. (Because the field of competition is more even at the college level.) They don't necessarily care too much about the students' academic achievement. However, Lewis theorizes that one reason OTHER personnel managers prefer high school players is that they are anti-intellectuals. Now you may say to yourself, is the average college graduate really an "intellectual"? But there is some merit to Lewis' theory here. He does show how the traditional authorities in baseball have a strong anti-intellectual bias. So all he is trying to say here is that this may connect to a weaker anti-intellectual bias that most Americans have.
You could also compare this to the traditional managers' preference for "potential" over "performance"... in part, this is a desire to mold or shape the player to his own fantasy, which is less possible with college players... they will be 20 or 21 years old instead of 18 years old, and they will have more autonomy or individuality. They might be less compliant?
Here is another clarification. Some of Beane's critics accused him of racism for favoring white American players over black American players, or players from Latin American or Asian countries. But this is a false criticism; as you can see, the main reason Beane prefers the college players is about statistical significance. Obviously foreign players don't go to U.S. colleges and therefore their statistics may be difficult to compare. And as for black American players or other racial minorities who are U.S. citizens, they tend to attend college at a lower proportion, or tend to play sports other than baseball. So most college baseball players are white. ("White," "black," etc. are oversimplified ideological or sociological categories that have no proper basis in biology, but that is a more complicated discussion that we talk about in my American Literature class for 4th years students! Here I am only using the terms colloquially.)
Is it caused by a simply reason--they cannot afford it? I guess that signing a aompetitive player who has good on base percentage and good defensive ability in the same time cost a lot of money, so the Okland A's front office tried to find the "fragments" for winning games, which means they signed some functional players to compensate the laking part of the team.
ReplyDeleteJenny says that one's grades could present one's ability to do things. If he knows how to manage his school grades, he must know how to deal with everything.
ReplyDeleteI, Aaron thinks that, grades are not so important. For me, it is important that one man should learn how to get along and communacate with other people. I don't want to hire a person who is good at studying but doesn't know how to get along with people.
ReplyDeleteAaron says that communication is more important than grades. But I think that what he said is nonsense. If one guy who doesn't have something in his brain, how can he communicate with others?
ReplyDeletePeter says something in the "brain" is prior to the communication skills,yet that is nonesense too, coz we are born to "talk." Also, "a paper of grades" can't prove we are capable of anything; that paper actually destroys the potential talents.
ReplyDeleteI, Elsa, agree with her idea about talking.But I think what is learned from college can be transformed into the communication. If you have not enough knowledge, you can only talk superficial things. Just like if you don't know how to walk, how can you run?
ReplyDeleteI, Tiara, agree that knowledge is important. However, I don't think college education do teach students the art of talking. Our company want to hire some people who can sell our products, not people who talks Shakespeare with customers.
ReplyDeleteI agree Tiara's saying about college doesn't teach students the art of talking, talking all about Shakespeare don't do any good to a company. However, a student's grades not only represent how much he or she has learned, but also represent one's sense of responsibility to his works, and that's a important point to consider when hiring people.
ReplyDeleteI, Alice, agree with Cathy's opinion that grading indicates a student's sense of duty. However, I think that grading cannot tell a student's responsibilty. I think that one of the consideration is working experience. I consider that if the school education focus on grading, the students may spend time on getting good grades instead of obtaining more working experience.
ReplyDeleteI, Catherine, disapprove Alice's definition about the working experience. Most of students graduates from colleges without any working experience, so the only standard for the employer to judge the employee is the grades which represents his/her past performances. If you deny the function of those statistics from school, what kind of experience can you rely on to judge a person you never know? and if you deny the objective grades from school, do you also regard studying in college is useless for the future when finding a job?
ReplyDeleteI, Ting Ju, admit that many students may not have a real "work experience"; we indeed need some other system to judge those students. However, I don't believe that school valuing system is that "objective" as Catherine said. Coming from different schools, teachers(judges) and classmates(competitors), how can you say that school grades are objective? I think the new system should put club participation, part-time job, volunteer experience and social ability into consideration. We need someone who can manage various things well, rather than just focusing on getting good grades.
ReplyDeleteTing says that the valuation system should not only focus on academic performances; I, Esther, admit that. However, with the same theory Ting points out－ different teacher will have different standard to valuate students－ so does people's mind! They do the same thing with totally different thought. If we take club participation, part-time job, volunteer experience and social ability into consideration, don't you think that students will spend too much their effort on them rather than on study, which are easier to have a well-done than academic performances? That's nothing more than put the incidental before
ReplyDeletethe fundamental. Furthermore, since people will do anything to seek personal gain, if we introduce extracurricular performances into the valuation system, speculators will swarm to participate in volunteer jobs without real enthusiasm, which will cheat job interviewers as well as stain the original beautiful meaning of volunteer works.
In the debate over whether the recruiters should hire new employees based on their college grades, many will readily agree that grades can tell us how intelligent and responsible the candidate is. But what cannot convince me is the nature of the exam itself. As Ting Ju points out, the valuing system can be pretty subjective and thus not a sound ground to assess the candidates coming from different institutes. Also, exams can only test a student's knowledge input, but what those knowledge can be put into use is what a recruiter should concern.
ReplyDeleteIt's great how the debating points are becoming more precise here towards the end.
ReplyDelete---------
"speculators will swarm to participate in volunteer jobs without real enthusiasm"
I am certain that this occurs in the United States with high school students, because it factors into university admission.
In discussions of whether if school grades are or are not an important factor to determine the efficiency of a prospect, one controversial issue has been the “papers of grades” which reflect the overall work and effort a student has put into his studies during his study years.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, some argue that, even though grades may reflect responsibility and duty, this is not an objective method to measure one’s abilities to communicate and much less to recognize the percentage of the overall knowledge which can be actually put into action.
On the other hand, other people argue that it is necessary to rely on the grading system because it is a way to correctly rely on something objective: the professors are judges and students are competitors that wish to obtain higher grades, provided that in an honest competition, the grades reflect the quantity and quality of knowledge obtained.
My own view is that while certain skills can only be obtained from books, some other different skills in life can only be learned in life itself. Indeed booksmarts and streetsmarts are two different kinds of people who possess different qualities.
However, I also believe that college gives us a chance to obtain both kinds of knowledge since most universities (word which derived from Latin means “community of teachers and scholars”) not only offer classes on several courses, but also offer several extra-curricular activities such as all kinds of sports, concerts, and clubs which grant the interaction of students, resulting in a whole development of the being. It follows then that, it cannot be said that the “papers of grades” are only papers with numbers of no meaning whatsoever. After all, people have been paying to get degrees, because companies prefer more those who are specialized than that those who don’t.