The primary insight in Moneyball was to judge hitters on on-base percentage. In 2000, OBP was the metric to exploit because it had four qualities at once: a mechanism (plate discipline), it persisted season to season, it mapped to runs, and the market still had it mispriced.
The question for a slice is the same shape — not was it good once, but what about this shop is likely to be true again. Across 57,498 One Bite reviews (2018–2026), shop ratings persist year to year at a corrected slope near 0.63 — a real signal, not a lottery ball.
So the current rating is a strong starting guess. A shop rated 10.0 off three reviews probably isn't a 10, so the guess is regressed toward the mean by sample size. Then a handful of durable review signals tilt it up or down.
Grease is a low walk rate — structural, sticky, and forever excused as "real New York grease." The skip list is mostly the inflated-and-greasy list.