Comments for The New New Blog http://thenewnewblog.com The unofficial archive of Michael Lewis writings Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:52:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Comment on Michael Lewis on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart by C http://thenewnewblog.com/?p=281&cpage=1#comment-125 C Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:52:46 +0000 http://thenewnewblog.com/?p=281#comment-125 After having read your book "The Big Short" and then reading "The Ascent of Money" by Ferguson, I saw that your book had not included whatFerguson called a NINJA loan (No Income No Job or Assets loan). If you decide to update your book for paperback, I thought maybe you should include this acronym and the fact that Detroit was the first place that you could recognize that something was wrong with the use of subprimes. After having read your book “The Big Short” and then reading “The Ascent of Money” by Ferguson, I saw that your book had not included whatFerguson called a NINJA loan (No Income No Job or Assets loan). If you decide to update your book for paperback, I thought maybe you should include this acronym and the fact that Detroit was the first place that you could recognize that something was wrong with the use of subprimes.

]]> Comment on The No-Stats All-Star by Rob http://thenewnewblog.com/?p=163&cpage=1#comment-2 Rob Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:36:47 +0000 http://thenewnewblog.wordpress.com/?p=163#comment-2 I read this in the NYT magazine last Sunday and thought it was excellent. I love Moneyball and thought The Blind Side was solid as well. As for the article itself, there's no love lost between Shane Battier and me - frankly, if you go to Duke, I'm not going to cheer for you in the NBA, unless you score 40 a night for the 76ers - but it was an insightful look into the REAL statistics. My personal sports statistic pet peeve is actually fielding percentage in baseball. It measures how well a fielder performs ASSUMING HE MAKES IT TO THE BALL. It doesn't account for a slow, immobile fielder who, if the ball is hit right at him, never air-mails the throw to first. But for fielders with great range, they sometimes are penalized by fielding percentage statistics - if they make an amazing play to get to the ball, they have a slightly higher statistical chance of screwing up the play (the denominator is larger, and the margin for error is smaller on those tough plays). In practice, this is why Troy Glaus - a big, immobile 3B - had the highest fielding percentage of any 3B in the National League last year (.982), even though David Wright (.962) and Ryan Zimmerman (.967) were FAR better 3Bs. In fact, Wright won the Gold Glove. Watch a Mets or a Nationals game - you're practically guaranteed to see Wright or Zimmerman make a diving play at some point... Lies, damn lies and statistics, as they say... I read this in the NYT magazine last Sunday and thought it was excellent. I love Moneyball and thought The Blind Side was solid as well.

As for the article itself, there’s no love lost between Shane Battier and me – frankly, if you go to Duke, I’m not going to cheer for you in the NBA, unless you score 40 a night for the 76ers – but it was an insightful look into the REAL statistics.

My personal sports statistic pet peeve is actually fielding percentage in baseball. It measures how well a fielder performs ASSUMING HE MAKES IT TO THE BALL. It doesn’t account for a slow, immobile fielder who, if the ball is hit right at him, never air-mails the throw to first. But for fielders with great range, they sometimes are penalized by fielding percentage statistics – if they make an amazing play to get to the ball, they have a slightly higher statistical chance of screwing up the play (the denominator is larger, and the margin for error is smaller on those tough plays).

In practice, this is why Troy Glaus – a big, immobile 3B – had the highest fielding percentage of any 3B in the National League last year (.982), even though David Wright (.962) and Ryan Zimmerman (.967) were FAR better 3Bs. In fact, Wright won the Gold Glove. Watch a Mets or a Nationals game – you’re practically guaranteed to see Wright or Zimmerman make a diving play at some point…

Lies, damn lies and statistics, as they say…

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