Blogmas on For Your Consideration

2022 Blogmas Day 24 - Retrospective

Sat, 24 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This Blogmas experience proved to be a fun, engaging, and informative project. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but I’m glad I dove in and made it happen.¹

2022 Blogmas Day 23 - Defensive Runs Saved and Defensive WAR

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Hot on the heels of Ultimate Zone Rating is another tool with the same goal: measure a player’s defensive contributions in terms of runs saved. This other statistic, Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), doesn’t just have a better name, but in my experience is favored over UZR in most situations.

2022 Blogmas Day 22 - Ultimate Zone Rating

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to the wonderful book The Last Nine Innings by Charles Euchner¹ I had an early introduction to some advanced statistics, at least those that were popular a few years into the 21st century. Among these was Ultimate Zone Rating, a first crack at trying to measure how well a player defends their position.

2022 Blogmas Day 21 - Fielding Percentage and Range Factor

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Leading into the home stretch, let’s discuss some defensive statistics. As a category, these represent recent innovations in baseball, as defense is the most dynamic aspect of the game. Players can change where they are positioned, which affects their ability to get to a ball. As we gather more data — ball speed off the bat and launch angle — we can better analyze defensive ability. But it’s still messy.

2022 Blogmas Day 20 - Pitcher WAR

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve already addressed the concept behind WAR (Wins Above Replacement) in the abstract and for offensive players in particular. Today, we’ll consider how we quantify runs for pitchers and overview calculating their WAR.

2022 Blogmas Day 19 - Leverage Index

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Relief pitchers can enter the game in very different situations, and that should be accounted for when evaluating their performance. Coming in to clean up a 12-0 victory (or defeat) is different than coming in during a close, tense game with a lot on the line. We measure this disparity using Leverage Index (LI).

2022 Blogmas Day 18 - Fixing ERA+ With a Minus

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

ERA+ is a funny, messy statistic. Unlike OPS+, it doesn’t tell us how much better a player is than the league: it instead tells us how much worse the league is than the player. This ignores our intuition and causes unnecessary confusion. Furthermore, it makes it harder to use as a tool for direct comparison: someone with a 200 ERA+ is not twice as good as someone with a 150 ERA+, while that would effectively be true with OPS+ (and similar offensive statistics.)

2022 Blogmas Day 17 - Expected FIP

Sat, 17 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

FIP is a cool, clever, and simple statistic to try and normalize how we work with ERA in a way that simply ignores defensive factors. However, we can ignore, or normalize for, at least one other factor to adjust the comparison.

2022 Blogmas Day 16 - Pitcher Miscellany

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Halfway through our pitching posts, let’s take a step back and learn about some miscellaneous statistics that we’ve either barely touched, or entirely ignored. These are all counting statistics that we use to help determine value and ability. While most are not explicitly used when calculating advanced statistics, they have historical cachet and many fans (including me) still enjoy looking at them.

2022 Blogmas Day 15 - Fielding Independent Pitching

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Remember many days ago when we talked about how pesky it is to have a ball in play? That’s as true for pitchers as it is for hitters. So, some enterprising folks struck out to roughly measure ERA in a way that ignores balls put in play, instead focusing entirely on the Three True Outcomes. Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) is a defense-agnostic statistic to compare against ERA, and in some ways is an ideal “predictor” statistic for ERA.

2022 Blogmas Day 14 - ERA+

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

That’s right, the “+” statistics exist in the realm of pitching. Park adjustments and a percentage normalization is a natural extension of ERA, and makes it more meaningful for directly comparing pitchers, even across generations.

2022 Blogmas Day 13 - Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

While ERA is a measure of overall pitcher effectiveness, there’s a more nuanced statistic that considers how frequently a pitcher allows runners on base. Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched (WHIP) is easy to calculate, has a cool acronym, and is another factor to consider when measuring how good a pitcher is at keeping hitters from doing their jobs.

2022 Blogmas Day 12 - Other Basic Pitching Statistics

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

While ERA is the best way among the simple statistics to compare pitchers, it does not tell the whole story of their season. Historically, there is much interest in the details of a pitcher’s approach and how that influences their ERA. Does a pitcher rely on power and strikeouts, or precision and defense?

2022 Blogmas Day 11 - Earned Run Average

Sun, 11 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Let us leave the world of sluggers and slap-hitters behind us, and move 60 feet forward to the pitcher’s mound. I’ve always enjoyed and valued pitching over hitting in my baseball life. As such, the first ten days of hitting required me to learn more than I anticipated, while I feel more prepared to handle this section of Blogmas.¹ We’re not starting as simple as possible, but we are starting with the most important of the original pitching statistics: how good are you at preventing runs from scoring?

2022 Blogmas Day 10 - Win Probability Added

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

On the heels of evaluating players based on how many wins they can provide to their team, let’s look at how clutch players are. Do they shine in the big moments, or just generally perform well yet fail to make an impact when it truly matters?¹

2022 Blogmas Day 9 - Offensive Wins Above Replacement

Fri, 09 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Today we move onto one of the gems of advanced baseball statistics¹ that generalizes player value beyond concrete elements like hits and runs, and looks specifically at how many wins a player is worth.

2022 Blogmas Day 8 - Weighted Runs Above Average and Runs Created

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s dive back into the weeds. Hitting the ball and getting on base are important jobs for hitters. But what actually wins the game? Scoring more runs than the other team. Today, we’ll look at two ways of quantifying run production, both of which are weighted in the same way we saw with wOBA.

2022 Blogmas Day 7 - Batting Average on Balls in Play

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Today we’ll look at a statistic that is interesting for both the offensive and defensive side of baseball. When a ball is put in play, how often does it go for a hit?

2022 Blogmas Day 6 - Isolated Power

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In another day of simpler statistics, Isolated Power (ISO) is derived from slugging percentage. It’s calculated in the exact same way, but ignores singles. Hence, it is isolating the power of a hitter, defined as the rate at which they get extra-base hits.

2022 Blogmas Day 5 - Three True Outcomes

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s take a step back today and consider an overall shift in the way baseball has been played over the last few decades.

2022 Blogmas Day 4 - Weighted On Base Average

Sun, 04 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

You may have recognized that OBP and SLG each measure slightly different things. OBP is only a measure of whether you got on base, while SLG makes a big fuss over your hits in particular, and how “big” they were. OPS (and even better, OPS+) are a quick summary of these combined, which is cool. However, OPS treats OBP and SLG as essentially equal in their importance, while getting on base is demonstrably of higher value. If you want a more accurate measure of offensive production that is (relatively) simple to calculate, look no further than weighted on base average, or wOBA.

2022 Blogmas Day 3 - OPS and OPS+

Sat, 03 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

BA, OBP, and SLG make up what is typically known as the triple slash line for hitting. You’ll often see something written like .275/.310/.382. That is BA, OBP, and SLG in order. However, we do like our summary statistics that reduce how many numbers we need to compare for making quick calls, so we use OPS: On Base plus Slugging.

2022 Blogmas Day 2 - On Base and Slugging Percentage

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We move on from batting average to discuss a much simpler statistic, as well as a weighted version of batting average. These two new statistics, along with batting average, have over the last decade come to comprise the base-level portfolio of a batter’s hitting abilities.

2022 Blogmas Day 1 - Batting Average

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Though not the most intuitive statistic, batting average was a gold-standard statistic for many decades, and is still considered important today.

2022 Blogmas Day 0 - Baseball Statistics

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

After a couple of years toying with the idea, I’ve finally decided to do a blogmas, my own take on creative challenges such as Advent of Code. In this case, you’ll be treated to 25 days of posts about the wonderful world of baseball statistics.

Tasty Cookies

Mon, 13 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve been using a new chocolate chip cookie recipe for several months, but it’s now the holidays and I was able to introduce it to my family. In short, it’s been a big hit. Here’s a direct link to the recipe, with none of the blogging excitement.

A key difference in preparation is that this recipe calls for browned butter. I’d never gone through the process before, but it does provide more depth to the flavor. Comparing it to our previous-favorite Toll House recipe, a few other changes are more sugar and less flour. And, specifically with the sugar, this new recipe focuses heavily on brown sugar, whereas the Toll House recipe uses equal amounts of both.