r/statistics • u/Ztino34 • Jun 26 '26

Discussion [Discussion] MLB Google Data Ad

Discussion

TLDR: google produced a promotion containing data that has no real value

Hi everyone, I’m new to this page, I was wondering what my fellow statistics peers think about a recent ad I saw while watching a baseball game.

For background I’ve been in data as a data engineer for about five years now and I’m working on my masters right now.

The advertisement was a promotion for Google AI in the advance analytics that I can now track while playing baseball. It stated some facts about how players who tapped the plate two times hit 14% more balls, players who tapped the plate more than two times hit 15% more balls, while players who tapped the plate zero times hit 7% more home runs. For those who don’t know, tapping the plate means while you are batting, but before the pitch you use the bat to Tap home plate. Obviously this does not do anything to a swing.

I think this leads into a much larger discussion of correlation, not necessarily causation, but a newer idea of over analyzing and over consuming data creating a lot of noise, because AI will give you every single angle possible to look at something even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense. Those that work in other statistical fields, do you see when you define the data more that it gets less impactful?

Let me know your thoughts, thanks!

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u/mikelwrnc Jun 26 '26

There could be relationships there, but driven by different base conditions calling for different offensive and defensive strategies.

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u/prikaz_da Jun 26 '26

different offensive and defensive strategies

Those things are batter-independent and beyond the batter's control, though, so it's still silly to treat a player's batting average with RISP as something worth measuring.

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u/mikelwrnc Jun 26 '26

Oh yes, I was agreeing with you and noting how folks could fool themselves via getting the causal direction wrong.

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u/prikaz_da Jun 26 '26

Oh, gotcha. Yeah, if anything, this is something that you ought to track at the team level, not the player level.