Intuition vs. Quants
by Derek CartyApril 16, 2010
Before the season started I announced that I'd be playing in the inaugural season of the CardRunners Expert League. Thus far the league has been loads of fun with some great theoretical discussions happening over on the league's blog. I'd highly recommend picking up its RSS feed. If the first week has been any indication, this will be a great sounding board for fantasy baseball ideas, and I'll be posting over there frequently.
The big debate thus far has involved Rotowire's Chris Liss and poker pros Eric Kesselman and Bill Phipps. The debate has unofficially been titled "Intuition vs. Quants," with Liss advocating "intuition" and the poker guys on the "quants" side. It's essentially a debate over the merits of quantifying everything and using projections to run your team as opposed to taking a more subjective (though no less rigorous) approach and researching players without needing a precise projection for each one.
I love these kinds of discussions, and I'm very pleased to see it being discussed so intelligently and openly here. A lot has been written so far, but it's well worth catching up on. I decided to jump in today, and you can find my views on the subject here.
To trace the history of the discussion (if you have some free time, it makes for a terrific read), follow these links (in this order):
- Liss and Jeff Erickson
- Kesselman
- Phipps
- Liss
- Kesselman
- Phipps
- Phipps
- Liss
- Robert Dixon (Wall Street options trader)
- Liss
- Carty
If you have your own thoughts on the matter, feel free to comment here or over at the CardRunners league blog.
Derek Carty, 23, has also been published by NBC's Rotoworld, Sports Illustrated, FOX Sports, and USA Today. This season, he'll be contributing to FanDuel and will be linking to all of his work at DerekCarty.com. In his three years competing in expert leagues, he has won 2 titles with 4 top three finishes, including a LABR NL title in 2009, making him the youngest person to ever win a major expert league title. Derek is a proud graduate of the MLB Scouting Bureau's Scout Development Program and is a firm believer in the importance of combining stats and scouting. He welcomes questions via e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter.
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