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Baseball Reference: Neutralized Stats

An automated email showed up in my inbox yesterday to remind me that my sponsorship fee for the University of the Illinois page of Baseball Reference web site was due. Of course, Baseball Reference is free to use… the sponsorship is a small thing I can do help out a web site that I use pretty much on … Continue reading “Baseball Reference: Neutralized Stats”

An automated email showed up in my inbox yesterday to remind me that my sponsorship fee for the University of the Illinois page of Baseball Reference web site was due. Of course, Baseball Reference is free to use… the sponsorship is a small thing I can do help out a web site that I use pretty much on a daily basis. If you haven’t seen the site recently, I highly recommend you check it out. Sean Forman is adding new features to it all the time.

One thing I hadn’t noticed till recently is the Neutralized Stats. This is a way to compare players’ stats across the board.

We adjust all of a player’s seasons from the park and league context of the seasons they played in into either a “neutral” setting (which is 100 park factor with 162-game season, 90% of runs earned, and 715 runs/team), or into a setting selected by the user with a particular year, league (with its runs/game and earned runs percentage) and home team (with its park factor).

Neutralized Stats is described in detail here. You can access Neutralized Stats from all player pages at Baseball Reference.com.

By the way, if you haven’t heard our interview with Sean Forman, the force behind Baseball Reference.com, take a listen. It’s an interesting show.

Reviewing the Chicago minor leagues

Sports fans in the Chicago area have a new resource to check out. Bryan from Chicago Minor League Review is covering all the minor league teams in the Chicagoland area. Not limited to the baseball spectrum, CMLR plans to cover all sports. From their about page: The Chicago minor league sports scene has been growing … Continue reading “Reviewing the Chicago minor leagues”

Sports fans in the Chicago area have a new resource to check out. Bryan from Chicago Minor League Review is covering all the minor league teams in the Chicagoland area.

Not limited to the baseball spectrum, CMLR plans to cover all sports. From their about page:

The Chicago minor league sports scene has been growing by leaps and bounds since about 1991 when the Kane County Cougars baseball team came to town. Since then they have been joined by the Windy City Thunderbolts, Schaumburg Flyers, Joliet Jackhammers, Rockford Riverhawks, and Gary Southshore Railcats. More than that, the other sports joined in. The city now has the Chicago Wolves, Rockford Icehogs for hockey fans. There are the Kane County Eagles, Chicago Rush and Rock River Raptors for football fans. Finally, there is even the Chicago Throwbacks ABA basketball team for the basketball fans.

The Chicago Minor League Review is the one place where you can follow your teams. It is an online magazine dedicated to covering and promoting the Chicago Minor League scene. It has game wrap ups, informative articles and whatever else comes across their minds that will help improve the coverage of the Chicago minor league teams.

Stop by Chicago Minor League Review and say hi.

Podcast review: Cubs Closeup

There’s a new Cubs podcast in town… Cubs Closeup. I recognized one of the hosts, Phil Zuber from the old Big League Baseball Report which used to be one of my favorites till its co-hosts Joe Aiello went on to do The Pitch and Phil got busy with his new Cubs blog, A Cub Fan’s … Continue reading “Podcast review: Cubs Closeup”

There’s a new Cubs podcast in town… Cubs Closeup.

I recognized one of the hosts, Phil Zuber from the old Big League Baseball Report which used to be one of my favorites till its co-hosts Joe Aiello went on to do The Pitch and Phil got busy with his new Cubs blog, A Cub Fan’s Obsession (Cub fans check it out!!).

Phil’s got the mike in front of him again. With co-host Ryan Mendenhall, he is bringing us Cubs Closeup, a (you guessed it) Cubs oriented podcast. And you can’t have too many of these.

I’ve listened to a couple of episodes and Cubs Closeup definitely falls in the intelligent, thinking talk show. You know, the reason I avoid the mainstream radio talk shows.

Check out their website or subscribe to the show iTunes.

Baseball Zealot Radio interviews Andrew Hartwell of Summer Ball

Northwoods League. Coastal Plain League. Central Illinois Collegiate League.

I’ve written about about these leagues and others like them. They’re all college summer leagues and they serve a very important purpose in developing college baseball players.

In this episode of Baseball Zealot Radio, I interview Andrew Hartwell who, as far as I know, has the only website devoted exclusively to college summer leagues. It’s called Summer Ball and if you’re a fan of college baseball, you should check it out. During our interview, Andrew talks about what purpose college summer leagues serve and how these leagues operate.

Direct Link to the show

Listen via iTunes

Baseball Zealot Radio website

The Physics of Baseball

Alan Nathan is a professor of Physics here at the campus of the University of Illinois. He’s lucky enough to devote a lot of his work on the study of baseball and the physics within. His website on The Physics of Baseball is chock full of white papers such as The Effect of Spin on … Continue reading “The Physics of Baseball”

Nathan speaks on campus occasionally on his ~~hobby~~ work. As a matter of fact, on June 25, he will be talking on his latest work, Wood vs. Aluminum Bats. If you’re interested on his thoughts on the matter, you can read his paper on the subject.

If you live in the area, he will be speaking at 12:15pm on June 25 at room 144 Loomis Laboratory on the University of Illinois campus.

Followup: I stopped by Alan Nathan’s talk today. Walking into Loomis Lab reminded of my college days when I had to take Physics 100 course to fulfill my science equivalent. Nathan’s class was like the old days only with baseball.

There was a switch in topic in Nathan’s talk. He talked on the flight of the baseball both in midst of a pitch and after being hit. Admittedly, my physics is not up to par so some of it went over my head but it was very informational.

Nathan did mention that MLB gathers all kinds of data on all pitches and makes it available for download. Afterwards, he forwarded this link to Friar Watch which serves as a “how-to” on how download and make sense of the data,

Statheads, definitely check it out.

First-Year Player Draft is coming up. Are you ready?

Tomorrow is the first day of the First-Year Player Draft. Ok, David Price is going with the #1 pick. That we pretty much know. But what else do you need to know to keep up with the draft? Well, let’s get these handy links out: MLB Draft Central MLB Draft Tracker The Draft Tracker was … Continue reading “First-Year Player Draft is coming up. Are you ready?”

Tomorrow is the first day of the First-Year Player Draft. Ok, David Price is going with the #1 pick. That we pretty much know. But what else do you need to know to keep up with the draft?

Well, let’s get these handy links out:

MLB Draft Central

MLB Draft Tracker

The Draft Tracker was pretty cool last year with its search features etc. From a cursory look without it being it action, it looks even better this year. I plan to have this going wherever I am.

No doubt, MLB Baseball Channel will be covering this during the afternoon hours giving it the “CNN treatment”.

By the way, if you want listen to some good pre-analysis of the draft, check out Baseball Prospectus’ interviews with Kevin Goldstein. They’re so in depth that they separated them into a hitters episode and pitchers episode.

For that matter, The Baseball Analysts have pretty much been doing the Draft all this month. Check them out.

Bat-Girl Sasses No More

After three years, Twins blogger Batgirl is calling it quits. I’m not a Twins fan but I always made it over to Bat-girl.com every so often to read her stuff. She had a unique way of looking at the game of baseball. Apparently a lot of people liked it too. She had quite a following … Continue reading “Bat-Girl Sasses No More”

After three years, Twins blogger Batgirl is calling it quits.

I’m not a Twins fan but I always made it over to Bat-girl.com every so often to read her stuff. She had a unique way of looking at the game of baseball. Apparently a lot of people liked it too. She had quite a following among Twins fans and others. Her farewell posting has 472 comments at this time. That says a lot.

Her motto was “Less stats, More Sass” and she followed through. I wish her good luck in the future.

What is the SB worth? The MLB vs NCAA

The Baseball Analysts have an interesting article entitled The Value of the Stolen Base: A Comparison of MLB and NCAA Division I Baseball. As someone who follows both venues, I found it pretty spot on. Oh, an interesting note: authors Michael Current and Dr. Chad McEvoy are from Illinois State University. Current is the assistant … Continue reading “What is the SB worth? The MLB vs NCAA”

The Baseball Analysts have an interesting article entitled The Value of the Stolen Base: A Comparison of MLB and NCAA Division I Baseball.

As someone who follows both venues, I found it pretty spot on.

Oh, an interesting note: authors Michael Current and Dr. Chad McEvoy are from Illinois State University. Current is the assistant coach of the Redbird baseball team.

Congrats to Baseball Musings

Kudos go out to David Pinto. His website, Baseball Musings has been listed #1 in the Top Ten Baseball Blogs about Major League Baseball compiled by Associated Content. It’s nice to see an intelligent sports blog get some recognition for once as opposed to the tabloid driven ones. I’m not about to analyze the Top … Continue reading “Congrats to Baseball Musings”

I’m not about to analyze the Top Ten list but I will say this: I was disappointed that it included team specific blogs. Once you include them, there are soooo many good many out there that it’s hard to narrow it down to ten.

Anyway, nice going, David!

Baseball Zealot Radio interviews Mark Pankin from Retrosheet

I think all our shows are good but this one is pretty awesome.

Mark Pankin from Retrosheet.org is our guest and he gives us an inside look at what the website is all about. By the way, if you’re a baseball fan and you haven’t been to Retrosheet, you really should check it out.

It was a very fun interview. Mark talked about the process of compiling boxscores and play-by-play accounts of baseball games. We also hit on some of the strange and unusual (and quite honestly funny) tidbits on the site.

But what I came away from this interview was the philosophy behind the organization and thought that went into it. It was clear that they had the baseball fan in mind when they came up with it.

Thanks to Mark for giving up some time to be on the show and thanks to everyone at Retrosheet for all the work they do.

Thanks also to co-host Chuck for suggesting that we bring someone from Retrosheet onto the show. Great idea!

You can download the show at the Baseball Zealot Radio website or listen via iTunes.

Enjoy!!