Massaged Data; Shelved Studies
There’s power in your pine tar.
The newest bombshell in social science is actually the oldest story in any book: dude made up his results. It turns out we don’t know any more about the relationship of power to infidelity, or the link between chaos and prejudice, than we did last year. It turns out that Diederik Stapel made up all his results.
A more serious corollary to the baseball world might take note from the social scientists on the matter — we might start talking about the danger of massaging data in general. We could talk about the pressure to find salacious results, and how that changes the way we look at our numbers. We could talk about all the biases that get ignored, and so on.
But that’s no fun.
Let’s instead open up that drawer in my desk where I hastily stuffed all my research as soon as this scandal broke. As you can see, Mr. Stapel has scared me straight.
More Pine Tar Means More Power: A study of the relationship of pine tar levels on batting helmets to isolated slugging percentage.
Green Means Go: Do team colors impact team statistics?
Strippers For Losers: A look at the impact of the availability of professional women of the night on the local team’s winning percentage.
High Socks Rock: Do sock heights alter four-component speed scores?
Mustaches a Must-Have for Closers: A correlation between facial hair and saves totals in major league baseball.
Ritalin or Greenies: A subjective study of baseball uppers new and old and their effect on hand-eye coordination.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Do I have to go somewhere special to get a data massage? Or is that fairly commonplace?
You can do it all at your computer.
/happy ending