Category: Statistics

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. 

 

The 60’s Save rule: a new one on me

I was talking to Mike, the commish of our APBA league this weekend and he was telling me about his current APBA replay. The 1961 season. Mike is a sucker for the 60’s decade when it comes to APBA replays. Mike uses the actual lineups and starting rotations when he does his replays. He uses … Continue reading “The 60’s Save rule: a new one on me”

I was talking to Mike, the commish of our APBA league this weekend and he was telling me about his current APBA replay. The 1961 season. Mike is a sucker for the 60’s decade when it comes to APBA replays.

Mike uses the actual lineups and starting rotations when he does his replays. He uses retrosheet.org to facilitate this. He came across something unusual in the boxscores regarding saves. There were instances of pitchers who were attributed saves even though they didn’t finish the game. Of course, nowadays finishing the game is one of the requirements of recording a save.

But looking through Retrosheet, I found a couple references of pitchers who recorded a save though they didn’t finish the game. After some research, I found this (emphasis mine):

The rule for a Save did not exist in the 1965 version of the baseball rules. A save was not introduced to baseball scoring until 1967. The rule in 1967 was:

“Credit a save to a relief pitcher who enters a game with his team in the lead if he holds the lead the remainder of the game, provided he is not credited with the victory. A relief pitcher cannot be credited with a save if he does not finish the game unless he is removed for a pinch hitter or pinch runner. When more then one relief pitcher qualifies for a save under the provisions of this rule, credit the save to the relief pitcher judged by the scorer to have been the most effective. Only one
save can be credited in any game.”

News to me. I wonder if Mike will be using this rule in his replay.

Gameday chat by All-Star break?

MLB.com says they might have a new re-engineered chat in Gameday available by All-Star break. From MLB.com’s Gameday blog: We’ve completely retired the old chat engine for a number of reasons: it was unreliable, could only support a very limited number of concurrent users, was very limited in features and was not integrated with other … Continue reading “Gameday chat by All-Star break?”

MLB.com says they might have a new re-engineered chat in Gameday available by All-Star break.

From MLB.com’s Gameday blog:

We’ve completely retired the old chat engine for a number of reasons: it was unreliable, could only support a very limited number of concurrent users, was very limited in features and was not integrated with other products.

In its place, we will be rolling out a completely revamped chat service by the All-Star break. However, it will not be a Gameday-only chat; instead, it will be better integrated with MLB.TV, the Fantasy Open and other products, with the goal of creating a more complete and immersive user experience.

 

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”

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 the Flight of a Baseball, The
Physics of the Trampoline Effect in Baseball and Softball Bats and other such esoteric matters of baseball science.

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.

 

Catcher’s ERA

A news release I received via email from cubs.com announcing the Barrett-Bowen trade contained this tidbit: Behind the plate, Bowen has turned in a 3.46 ERA in 26 contests with San Diego, posting a 16-10 record in those games. It didn’t surprise me that Catcher’s ERA as a stat exists. I’m sure it is used … Continue reading “Catcher’s ERA”

A news release I received via email from cubs.com announcing the Barrett-Bowen trade contained this tidbit:

Behind the plate, Bowen has turned in a 3.46 ERA in 26 contests with San Diego, posting a 16-10 record in those games.

It didn’t surprise me that Catcher’s ERA as a stat exists. I’m sure it is used and discussed in more esoteric baseball stat web sites. But it does surprise me that a mainstream media outlet like mlb.com would use it so prevalently in a news release.

Am I living under a rock or is Catcher’s ERA as a stat becoming mainstreamed?

5-1-07 problem?

Seems the suspended game played havoc with MLB’s databases or something. I know that Soriano and Jones hit their first homers of the year yesterday for the Cubs yet in the boxscore that came out afterwards look liked this: and my post game alert sent to me after every game: It has since been fixed.

Seems the suspended game played havoc with MLB’s databases or something. I know that Soriano and Jones hit their first homers of the year yesterday for the Cubs yet in the boxscore that came out afterwards look liked this:

cubhr

and my post game alert sent to me after every game:

hrscore

It has since been fixed.

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!!

What does a guy have to do?

During our interview with baseball-reference.com’s Sean Forman, we got talking about his Cup of Coffee feature. That lists all players who have played in exactly one game in the bigs. No one has hit a homer in their only appearance in the majors. However, some have made the most of their short time. John Paciorek … Continue reading “What does a guy have to do?”

During our interview with baseball-reference.com’s Sean Forman, we got talking about his Cup of Coffee feature. That lists all players who have played in exactly one game in the bigs.

No one has hit a homer in their only appearance in the majors. However, some have made the most of their short time. John Paciorek comes to mind. John had a pretty good game in his only MLB appearance in 1963.

John Paciorek’s linescore:

3 for 3, 4 runs, 3 rbis, 2 BB

There is actually a web page at astroland.net dedicated to John’s efforts. Which is probably good because stats tell only part of the story.

Paciorek had had problems with his back throughout 1963, and sometime during his 1964 season (spent at Durham and Statesville) had back surgery performed. He was inactive in ’65, then tried to come back in 1966. But bad back or no, it looks like Paciorek had a problem hitting for any kind of average, although the power seems to have been there.

Tom Paciorek was rumored to quip that John was the better player in the family.

BZR interviews Baseball Reference’s Sean Forman

If you’re a user of Baseball Reference, definitely check out this week’s episode of Baseball Zealot Radio. We interview Sean Forman the creator and maintainer of the baseball stats web site which will celebrate its seventh birthday next month.

Seems like I’ve been using it for that long. If you use it, I don’t need to tell you how good it is.

Anyway, Sean gives us a “behind-the-scenes” look at one of the most definitive stat web sites out there.

Take a listen.