Are people who make a lot of errors less competent?

You are a baseball scout. The manager has asked you to find a baseball player who is an excellent defender When you go to the baseball stadium where a game is being played, you find one player who makes few errors and another who makes errors frequently. Then, which one should I choose?

Intuitively, you may be tempted to choose the player who makes few errors, but if you think about it, your decision may be wrong The reason for this is that someone with slow reaction time or slow feet who cannot catch up to the ball would not have touched it in the first place, and therefore the play would be judged a hit, not an error.

It can be said that players with slow feet have a narrow defensive range that reaches the stage of either catching the ball or making an error in the first place On the other hand, players with fast reaction/feet can catch up to the ball easily. If the ball is caught up easily, it will be judged as an error if the player makes a mistake and drops the ball.

Suppose that players have the same probability of making an error. Then a player with a wider defensive range will make more errors than a player with a narrower defensive range Of course, some players who make more errors are simply not good at catching the ball. Thus, judging a player based solely on a quick look at his or her performance may lead to a wrong decision.

Perhaps this is true in life as well. A person who fails a lot may not seem capable at first glance, but he or she may be someone who tries so much and takes on so many.

References

• The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail--but Some Don't