Best lefty off all time? My vote is Koufax!

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Snowman

The answers to most of your questions are explained above. The fact that you don't understand how a hierarchical mixed-effect model works (or even my high-level explanation of it) does not mean that it in fact does not work. I was responding to AndrewJerome, who asked, "The value of a replacement level player could be very different in a time period where quality of play overall is very high as compared to a time period where quality of play was lower. But how in the world can we figure out relative quality of play? If you want the coeffecients (or "weights") from such a model, you'd have to build one. But it's a LOT of work, and I don't see anyone here volunteering to pay me for my efforts. I'm simply explaining, at a very high level, how one could solve for it. I have better things to do with my time than to prove to you guys that Lefty Grove benefitted greatly from pitching in an era where his competition was lacking or that Babe Ruth was effectively swinging at home run derby "pitches" a significant percentage of the time. That much should be obvious to anyone operating on the right side of the bell curve.

No one's paying you to claim Ruth played in a home run derby (there were less home runs when he played than now) or that Spahn was mediocre or that Grove sucked because of his birth year. Yet here you are, incessantly making unsupported claims. Your time doesn't seem to be all that valuable either.