Sports on For Your Consideration

Childish Delight in a New Jersey Warehouse

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My favorite summers were in middle school and early high school, when a few friends and I would monopolize three consecutive backyards to play a version of baseball with a pitcher, batter, and one or two fielders. We used tennis balls. Once our metal bats made it too easy to hit balls in the swamp, onto roofs, or over the tree line into the fourth consecutive backyard of the Harley’s¹ we switched to a heavy wood bat I bought at a hardware store years prior.

SmarterEveryDay Deep Dives on Disc Golf Physics

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What a great video. Destin is always captivating, and I enjoyed the crossover into one of my favorite sports.

My only comment is near the end, where he takes issue with the terms “overstable” and “understable” to describe different disc flights. While it’s the opposite of what one might consider as stability for aerodynamics, it makes perfect sense in the context of the sport: an “overstable” disc is extremely stable in different wind conditions and forgiving of angles.

The Best Baseball Countries

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

With the World Baseball Classic coming up, I pulled every baseball player in the Lahman Database whose name perfectly matches a country. Here are some simple statistics among the country representatives with a batting record.

Country Name	Total Hits	Total Homers	Total AB	Batting Average	AB/HR
Jordan	5669	450	21717	.261	48.26
Chad	3854	384	15903	.242	41.41
Germany	2569	56	10346	.248	184.75
France	662	74	2514	.263	33.97
India	482	63	1905	.253	30.24
Chile	142	0	627	.226	NA
Holland	127	3	618	.206	206.00
Jersey	111	2	727	.153	363.50
Portugal	89	2	450	.198	225.00
Poland	39	0	211	.185	NA
Israel	33	6	132	.250	22.00
Monaco	2	0	13	.154	NA
Ireland	1	0	7	.143	NA
Ceylon	0	0	18	.000	NA
Total	13780	1040	55188	.250	53.07

Here’s a fun bit of trivia about these Jordan folks: Until 1999, every player matching Jordan had it as their last name. Since 1999, all but two have the first name Jordan.

The Beautifully Broad Scope of SABR

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I first joined the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) as a student member around 2016. Back then, I only knew about SABR by the semi-eponymous term “Sabermetrics” that roughly refers to the growing list of statistics and measures used to evaluate baseball. I was studying math and dabbling in computer science with vague hopes and dreams that I could bring those interests to bear on the game I loved. I knew little else about the organization, so when I met some excellent members of the Halsey Hall chapter in Minnesota at TwinsFest that winter, I was a bit shocked to find them all rather old. Not that they couldn’t have been career statisticians or have other relevant skills to analyzing baseball, but I was an introverted college student and didn’t appreciate the interaction.

2025 MLB Playoffs Recap

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It comes down to extra innings and squandered opportunities, a year of firsts and not quite enough. Series were earned and given away, and the emotional pendulums of games were like rocket-propelled swing sets.

Amherst Wallops Williams in Two Consecutive Years

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

While the modern iteration of Amherst College’s baseball team is approaching three decades of minimal success in NCAA Division III, its origins date back over 165 years. That’s before John Smoltz was regularly announcing how much he hates baseball on national baseball broadcasts, before Nolan Ryan demonstrated the thrilling force of old man strength, before the Shot Heard Round the World, before the Iron Horse, before the Red Sox were cursed or Mordecai Brown lost the end of his index finger.

The team began before rules were consistent.¹ Starting at 11 in the morning on the “cool, clear, and bracing”² day of July 1, 1859, Amherst faced Williams in the first recorded “Base Ball” game between two colleges.

Satchel Paige Project

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mark Armour has worked on his Satchel Paige Project for a few years. It’s an amazing feat of historical research about one of the most enigmatic characters and players in baseball history. It’s worth looking through regardless of your overall interest in baseball.

If you’d like to hear a good conversation about the project, I suggest listening to episode 2352 of Effectively Wild, which is how I first learned about this work.

I Might Be a Runner?

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

And it’s a potentially positive identity crisis.

Throughout college, I ran two Turkey Trots in St. Paul, and two Goldy’s Runs at the UMN Twin Cities campus. None of those 5K races were completed without pauses to walk, and I don’t believe any of them were finished in faster than 35 minutes. I played baseball, which famously doesn’t involve much beyond sprinting. I never thought I’d catch this particular fitness bug.

Catchers Get Bigger

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’m fairly confident all Major League Baseball players have gotten bigger over time, but I specifically decided to use the newest version of the Lahman Baseball Database to look at the average weight of catchers by the decade in which they debuted. Their listed weights are static so we can’t be certain what their debut weights were, but we’re looking at large trends. I also required any catcher in the list to have caught at least 200 career games.

Update to "Zero-Sum Series Splits of One Run"

Sun, 06 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I just updated my post answering a question from a coworker. It feels good to put that to rest.

A Quick Note on "Sports Fan"

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t recall what I was listening to when this popped into my head, but I was curious about the origin of fan used to mean a “supporter” or “devotee.” I recently installed Terminology across my devices and set the Online Etymology Dictionary as a preferred resource.

According to them:

1889, American English, originally of baseball enthusiasts, probably a shortening of fanatic, but it may be influenced by the fancy, a collective term for followers of a certain hobby or sport (especially boxing)… Fan mail attested from 1920, in a Hollywood context; Fan club attested by 1930.

Zero-Sum Series Splits of One Run

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres split their four-game series last week, with each team winning two games by one run. In our #social-baseball slack channel, my coworker asked:

any data whizzes wanna figure out how many MLB 4 game series have ended 2-2 with all one-run games?

I put myself on the case.

UPDATE JULY 6, 2025

I finally took the time to do this properly. I exported game-by-game data from Retrosheet since 1900 and (with the help of Claude) used pandas to analyze the data for these split series decided by one run each game.¹

Tulsa Sandlot Baseball

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t know Isaiah’s age or last name. He’s a stocky, tanned, thickset Sooner with a thick mess of curly brown hair and the same twang as all his teammates. His acned baby face and constant smile endear him to everyone around, which wouldn’t matter without that naturally generous and hospitable attitude, a tremendous work ethic, and an easygoing manner that brings everyone together. Most importantly, for the weekend I spent in Tulsa, Isaiah fully understands what Sandlot Baseball means and embodies it in a time when polarization emphasizes the importance of everything he, the Tulsa Breeze, and every other Sandlot Baseball team works for.

A Great Twins Winning Streak

Mon, 26 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Last week, the Twins’ 13-game winning streak came to an end at the hand of the Brewers. I don’t professionally write about baseball, so I’ll leave the detailed breakdown to Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs. I’ll instead focus on how this streak felt as a fan.

It was magnificent.

Pete Rose, a Threat to Integrity

Tue, 13 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A quote from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, pulled from the CNN coverage on the 17 players reinstated from their permanently ineligible status¹:

Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game.

This is not obvious to me.

With institutions of culture like MLB, each notable player is a symbol, an icon, representing something greater than themselves. Who the institution allows to represent them fundamentally describes their standards, ethics, and beliefs as an organization. By walking back names from the—ahem—permanently ineligible list, Manfred is himself compromising the integrity of the game and claiming the reason Rose was banned was solely as personal punishment to he man, rather than a level enforcement of rules against betting on baseball that, though indeed having the effect of punishing the individual, also acts as a clear signal that the actions are not tolerated in the least.

Bad Hall of Fame Seasons

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This post isn’t about who does or does not deserve to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It’s simply this: which Hall of Fame players had the most bad seasons, or the worst seasons in general. My thanks to Sports Reference’s Stathead for existing and making this easy to find. Let’s get started.

Ella Black Series on Effectively Wild Podcast

Sun, 20 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Effectively Wild, a fantastic baseball podcast from FanGraphs, put out the third and final installment in the scripted series Only a Woman: Ella Black, Lost and Found. It’s an excellent historical dive into the first known woman baseball journalist in the late 1800s, who is woefully not generally known and has certain mysteries hanging around her work. Each episode is thoroughly engaging and well-constructed, and I only wish they were YouTube videos with basic imagery so more people would stumble across them.

My First Article For the SABR Games Project

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I rejoined SABR a couple of years ago and focused my volunteer work on fact-checking articles for the Games Project. These accounts of past MLB games are notable in some context of the author’s choice. They could be historically impactful, meaningful within a player’s career, highlighted by a rare event, or any other such factors that make an otherwise mundane day in baseball history something worth remembering.

Last month I decided to try writing one of these articles. I trawled through the archives of Minnesota Twins history for interesting seasons and landed on an early game in 2009 that defined the year for Jason Kubel.

2025 Fantasy Baseball

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Some of the fine folks I met last fall through a casual baseball league expressed interest in playing fantasy baseball this season. Most of us had never played it or hadn’t played in years—my first and only time was sophomore year of high school. It turns out that making and running a league with good-natured people and without money on the line is straightforward and made even easier with a smartphone.

Coding with Baseball

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Last month, I finished going through Nathan Braun’s Coding with Baseball, a book I purchased around four years ago. If you’re at all interested in baseball statistics and want to build a quick foundation for exploring them, I highly recommend the book. It doesn’t hold your hand—it’s not a reference text, and you’ll need documentation for pandas, seaborn, and scikitlearn for the exercises—but it’s an excellent, concise overview that teaches exactly what you need with a straightforward style and relevant examples. It encouraged me to set up the Lahman Baseball Database on my computer and led me down a few rabbit holes, one of which I’ll explain here.

Idle Minnesota Twins Statistics Exploration

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Given a thoroughly disappointing end to the Twins’ 2024 season, I wanted to look back to interesting (and hopefully excellent) Twins performances throughout my lifetime. As I often do, I started at Stathead and began exploring. Here are two batches of unimportant tidbits.

Aim For the Gaps

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Sports offer excellent metaphors that are used for general success in life precisely because they exist to be entertaining microcosms of life itself. Individuals or teams vie in a competitive landscape typically officiated by imperfect referees. Preparation is allowed, but on-field performance is all anyone remembers. Sports reflect real life in numerous ways, and each sport brings its own flair to the conversation.

Golf of any variety is a wonderful mix of planning, tactics, and execution. It’s about discrete decisions, managing each shot based on given strengths and the likelihood of success. I became overwhelmed each time I tried untangling these metaphors. It was too much.

Let me instead focus on one mindset adjustment I first jokingly heard in a disc golf YouTube video, but which I found impactful: The woods are mostly air. Aim for the gaps.

Angel Stadium

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A short post during a hectic time. I’ve officially visited all MLB stadiums within a reasonable distance of the Pacific Ocean: Petco Park (San Diego), Dodger Stadium (Los Angeles), Angel Stadium (Anaheim), Oracle Park (San Francisco), Oakland Coliseum (Oakland), and T-Mobile Park (Seattle). The next two closest to the west coast are Chase Field in Phoenix and Coors Field in Denver.

On my way to San Diego this weekend, I stopped in Anaheim to see the Los Angeles Angels play the New York Mets. It was a toasty experience in 90º heat, but I found the stadium beautiful and the game itself was good. Going to a stadium surrounded entirely by parking lots is weird—I’ve grown used to Oracle Park and Target Field in Minneapolis, both nicely nestled within their cities—but the setup was nice. It feels good to check it off the list.

The 2024 Red Sox Stink at Fenway

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Going into the MLB All-Star Break, the Boston Red Sox have a respectable 53–42 record, good for third in the AL East. However, their 24–25 record at home is surprisingly poor. I had to investigate what could cause that. Spoiler: I’m left with more questions than answers.

Two Baseball Charts

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I made two more charts in the past week that are worth a brief discussion. The first looks at injuries by team, and the other considers team winning percentage at home or on the road.

Here Come Your Nuts!

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I went to Modesto this past Friday to watch my first Single-A baseball game between the local Modesto Nuts of the Seattle Mariners organization and the San Jose Giants, creatively named after their parent organization, the San Francisco Giants. The environment reminded me of a mid-season high school football game, complete with inexpensive food vendors, large groups from local church and youth sports organizations, and season ticket holders who maintain conversations from several rows away. There are angry dads, town heroes, and four-dollar hot dogs. I adored it.

Making MLB Team Scatter Plots

Mon, 10 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

You may have seen any number of scatter plots on the internet that show data comparisons among players or teams in a given league. These are part of my daily experience on the /r/baseball community, and I finally decided to scratch my statistical presentation itch by making my own. This post isn’t to cover what statistics to compare, just the process I’ve settled on for now to turn a table of comparisons into precisely-designed charts suitable for sharing on the internet.

I Just Learned What BBCOR Means

Wed, 15 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In early high school, I remember all the hubbub about requiring metal baseball bats to align to the BBCOR standard. Given the pronunciation of this (“Bee-Bee-Core”), I always assumed it was a regulation about what specific materials must be used to make the bat. That’s only true insofar as the standard actually defines a material property.

BBCOR stands for “Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution”. In other words, the standard tells you how elastic the collision between ball and bat is allowed to be. This standard was designed to dull metal bats in an effort to protect pitchers, the most likely players to be grievously injured by a batted ball. It was adopted by the NCAA in 2011, and most youth leagues that I’m aware of followed their lead. I used BBCOR-certified bats throughout high school, and continue to do so in my adult league.

MLB Player Country of Origin

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I was talking with a friend of mine late last year about baseball and the Ohtani signing. He idly speculated that the ratio of foreign-born to domestic players in the MLB had stabilized a while ago, perhaps around the 1960s. This was mostly a gut check, and I wasn’t convinced. I went digging for more info.

Playball for Terminal

Sat, 30 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I came across the javascript terminal app Playball. It’s fun and slick, and I’m enjoying using it. It gives you a way to view MLB Gameday data from the terminal, and it’s beautifully done.

When you first run the app after installing it via npm, you are greeted with the day’s schedule, and the box scores of any games.

Keyboard navigation hints are shown at the bottom of the window at all times, so you can easily look at scores from previous days, or check out the schedule in the future. You can jump back to the current day at any point. Navigating any screen can be done with either the arrow keys or vim keybindings.

Joe Mauer Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

From Anthony Castrovince on MLB.com:

The St. Paul, Minn., kid made good on his 2001 selection as the No. 1 overall Draft pick by his hometown Twins to become a six-time All-Star, five-time Silver Slugger, three-time batting champ and the 2009 AL MVP. He was a member of four division-winning Twins teams.

Though his catching career was cut short by concussions and five seasons as essentially a league-average first baseman complicated his Cooperstown case, Mauer made enough of an impact at his primary position to stand among the greatest to ever don the tools of ignorance. His .306 career batting average is tied for the sixth highest among catchers with at least 3,000 plate appearances, and his .388 on-base percentage is tied for third. He’s the only catcher with three batting titles, and his total of 44.6 bWAR during his 10 years as the Twins’ primary catcher from 2004-13 was by far the best at that position in that timeframe.

Ohtani to Dodgers

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Sarah Wexler, reporting for MLB.com:¹

After a fervent sweepstakes, reigning American League Most Valuable Player Shohei Ohtani has agreed to terms with the Dodgers on a record-demolishing 10-year, $700 million deal, according to his agent, Nez Balelo.

This is incredible, ridiculous, and frustrating.

Incredible

No free agent in any sport has ever received a contract worth this much. It’s a huge play by the Dodgers, and a windfall for Ohtani who definitely has nothing to worry about financially. Time will tell whether the deal is good when considering Ohtani as a player long-term, but as a move they can leverage as marketing it’s likely going to pay for itself rapidly. Ohtani is a superstar across the world, particularly in Japan and the United States. Between the merchandise the Dodgers will sell and the butts in seats they’ll get even in the next two seasons, I have to imagine they know it’s worth the investment. If they can make some deep playoff runs, that’ll do even more.

2023 World Series Review

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Texas Rangers won the World Series in five games over the Arizona Diamondbacks, and by the end it looked as inevitable as the 4–1 victory shows. I was fairly neutral going in—I have some connections to the Rangers via the Twins, but felt myself rooting for the underdogs in Arizona more often than not—and so my hope, as always, was for a tense series that went at least six games. That didn’t transpire, and viewership was down as the matchup was panned across popular sports media, but that hardly matters to me.

Donnie Barrels

Mon, 04 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I fulfilled an adult dream of getting season tickets to the San Francisco Giants in 2021. I became familiar with this new team and their players, and something about Donovan Solano—Donnie Barrels to his friends—rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t know if it was how he carried himself at second base, or his inconsistent hitting on a team that won 107 games, but I was pretty down on him all year.

After spending 2022 with the Cincinnati Reds, he signed with the Twins in February this year. I wasn’t bullish on this acquisition, but with the season nearing its end I’m all in on Donnie. He’s playing a good-enough first base and seems like he’s always the one with clutch hits. However, I didn’t want to rely on the eye test. I have the tools to determine whether my baseball opinions are correct.

From the Desk of Owl P. Jackson, Esq.

Mon, 15 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I went to the 2023 OTB Open this weekend, and had a blast. However, it’s late on a Sunday and I don’t have the time or energy to dive into that right now. Instead, I encourage you to go read the Top 10 Storylines series from “Owl P. Jackson, Esq.” at Ultiworld. They’re a quick, humorous, and insightful set of recaps for each stop on the Disc Golf Pro Tour. It’s probably the best way into the sport of professional disc golf.

Scorekeeping With the MLB Pitch Clock

Mon, 17 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Last year, I wrote a long post on scorekeeping in baseball. An hour before I headed to my first MLB game of 2023 with my scorebook in hand, I realized there was a new element to track: pitch clock violations that end a plate appearance. If a batter takes too long, they are assessed a strike. If a pitcher takes too long, the count gets an additional ball. It’s totally possible that a pitch clock violation would result in either third strike, or fourth ball, of a count and directly cause a strikeout or walk without a final pitch being thrown.

Baseball Ramblings to Begin the 2023 Season

Mon, 03 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A few days into the 2023 MLB season has me thrilled by baseball, and I have a few short thoughts and links to share.

MLB Rule Changes in 2023

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Each time I sit down to establish my feelings about the new MLB rules going into the 2023 season, I flounder. I have a hard time separating the baseball I know and love from the inevitable future version it must become if it’s to survive and hopefully thrive. I can only imagine what the players faced with learning these new rules must feel, because some of the changes are rather drastic.

Consider this post a snapshot of my mind right now. It’s not clean or concise, and my feelings will change once I get a few games under my belt this year and see the practical ways these rules affect gameplay. But here’s where my heart and my head lie for now.

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.

New Minnesota Twins Jerseys

Mon, 21 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The Minnesota Twins released new jerseys this past week, introducing a different aesthetic to their main uniforms, and an alternative version featuring inspiration from the Twin Cities, the namesake of the team. Here are a few thoughts.

My Disc Golf Bag

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been playing disc golf for nearly a year and a half.¹ It’s an incredibly fun activity that I play mostly by myself in California, and love meeting up with friends to play while back in Minnesota. It’s relatively cheap to get into, lets me explore fun bits of nature, I get to directly compete against myself, and have a clear way of seeing whether I’m improving.

My set of discs has mostly stabilized (with the exception of losing a disc here or there), so I thought it would be good to talk through each disc and why I like to use them.

The Finer Points of Scorekeeping

Mon, 22 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

My dad kept score for my baseball teams as a kid, and taught me how to do the same. I would keep score on and off during college when I went to Twins games, and just recently got back into the habit. My goal is — excepting games where it’d be a social faux pas to be nose-deep in a scorebook — to keep score when I attend games in person.

The Good News About Squash

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I first learned how to play squash during my freshman year of college. I was hooked pretty quickly. That year, my roommate and I both bought rackets so we wouldn’t have to keep renting from the university. I continued to play throughout college, just recreationally with friends, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

When I finished college and moved to San Diego, there was a squash-shaped hole in my life. I suddenly didn’t have any sports to play.¹ I instead began walking about, going for hikes, keeping myself entertained through other means. Eventually, I found a group of guys to play flag football with on Saturdays; that was a great change.

The Preserve Championship

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This past weekend, I went to the DGPT Preserve Championship at the Airborn Preserve. We had gorgeous weather, and the course was incredibly well-designed to handle eager spectators. There’s a great central gathering spot with food and drinks, from which you could watch holes 7, 8, and 9 before proceeding to see the rest of a card.

It was my first time fully watching a tournament.¹ I had an absolute blast, and will be doing what I can to attend events in the future. Roaming around, watching the best of the best, taking it in with others just as excited as me, all contributed to a fantastic weekend.

Luis Arraez

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

He is officially my favorite Twins player these days. He plays the kind of game that connects with me, the kind I wanted to emulate growing up. A true utility player with a great intuition at the plate, he plays smart, and quietly does his job correctly.

Baseball Virus

Mon, 23 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I joined a city softball league with some people in Erin’s program (along with some free agent strangers) this past month. It’s been fun getting out and competing again, playing a version of the game that I love. However, it’s caused a problem. After years of not playing baseball (or softball) at all, I fooled myself into thinking I’d “replaced” it with other athletic activities. I assumed the personal challenge of disc golf, for example, would fill the gap left when I stopped playing baseball after high school.

I was incredibly wrong.

The Spirit of Competition

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Competition is a slippery idea. In both professional and casual interactions, people often walk a fine line when showing a desire to compete. It can be fun and humorous to have a friendly intensity, but there’s always a tipping point where it becomes uncomfortable for those involved. Competition is one of the most natural things in the world, but needing to play out the act of competition in society muddies the waters.

Antenna TV

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The NFL playoffs are long over, but I still wanted to quickly document my experience using an antenna to watch a fair chunk of it in my San Francisco apartment. I bought an $11 “HD” antenna from Amazon after consulting with my dad. It’s good to see that it’s affordable, and made it an easy purchase. I scanned for channels a few times to find the ideal location for the antenna in my apartment¹ and started experiencing my childhood again.

A Taste of Competition

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This weekend, I played my first competitive round of disc golf. On a whim, I signed up for a league round where everyone pays 5 dollars. What I hadn’t realized when I signed up is that it was a course I’d never played before, so I didn’t have the benefit of being comfortable with either of the factors involved. However, I had been craving a way to force some assessment of my current skills, and also generally some athletic competition that I haven’t had for quite a while. This round gave me plenty of both, and really hooked me.

Romanticism, Fairness, and Baseball

Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

After moving to San Francisco this year, I was lucky enough to fulfill a childhood dream by getting season tickets for Giants baseball. There were no expectations for the team. I just wanted to follow baseball closely again, have a team to root for, after being mostly on the fringe after college.

A Brief Encounter

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I watch my shot glide to the basket on hole 18. It’s a short hole to finish the course, but treacherous. The basket is perched in front of a large boulder, and anywhere off a straight line to the basket is a precipitous drop-off.

My shot lands a little short, to the left, but on the flattest line down to the basket. It’s my typical safe shot. I hop off the tee pad and collect my things. As I begin walking down the path, a little tuft of fuzz catches my eye. It’s quite still overall, but the bits of fur at the end wiggle in the light breeze.

They’re mostly black, with a clear white stripe down the middle.

Starting on Disc Golf

Mon, 10 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve wanted to try disc golf for a couple of years. I discovered it through the fantastic YouTube channel JomezPro, and have been into the sport since. However, I never took the time to buy and mess around with discs, or check with my friends for people to play with.

While in Washington, I discovered that a few friends of mine have started playing. That was enough to encourage me to give it a go while back in Minnesota. It’s already been a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to working on it even more once I’m back in California.

First Game of 2021

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

With a vaccine in my veins and a cautious reopening of Oracle Park in San Francisco, I was able to attend my first baseball game of 2021, and my first MLB game in nearly 2 years. It was an absolute privilege and joy to do something that has always meant so much to me over the years. I’m incredibly lucky to live just a short walk from this absolutely fantastic stadium.

Marble League 2020

Mon, 29 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With no sports yet available in the United States, I’ve fallen back in love with the Marble League, a genuinely interesting, engaging, and exciting set of “athletic” events for – you guessed it – marbles.

Super Bowl LIV

Mon, 03 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve watched the Super Bowl every year for as long as I can remember, and this year was no different. However, this year gave me a slightly different perspective. First, the Patriots were not playing and that was exciting; it’s nice to see an entirely different set of teams competing. Second, I had a conversation with my roommate the day prior that required to contextualize the Super Bowl and its cultural impact.

Playoff Time

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

It’s finally the playoffs for the MLB. It’s an exciting time, particularly since the Twins are finally back in the running, albeit it once again against the Yankees, whom we’ve lost 15 straight playoff games to.

It’s a bit disappointing, and this weekend was rough, but we have another game tonight to try and keep the dream alive. I’m hoping for the best. This is my favorite time of year, and I’d like to be able to enjoy it first-person, rather than by jumping on another bandwagon.

Baseball is Back

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Although I missed another Monday deadline (spring break has really gotten me in disarray), it was for good reason. My parents were visiting in San Diego, and it was fun getting to do some of the more “tourist” type places with people who had fresh eyes for the area.

But more importantly, my dad and I went to Petco Park to watch the Padres. Baseball season is finally back, and it makes me incredibly happy.

Entering the Dead Period

Tue, 05 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Super Bowl ended not too long ago. It was an incredibly boring game (especially when compared to last year’s shootout extravaganza.). In a way, that is fitting. I spend a good chunk of time about 7 months out of the year watching baseball. Once baseball is over in early November, I transition to college and professional football. It is less frequent than baseball, but fills the sports-shaped void in my heart well enough.

Changing Teams

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I’m moving out to San Diego, and with that move comes a very important question: How wholeheartedly do I join the Padres’ fan-base, and how much do I keep following the Twins? For any of you who don’t follow baseball, the key thing to know is that as far as future prospects go, this decision feels like a total wash. The Twins do have a bit of a larger group around them, I believe, but the Padres seem to be making a few moves to help things improve. They care about their fans, and are at ease with their current losing situation. Last year when I was in San Diego, they had deal going where you could pay a flat rate (it wasn’t too much) and guarantee at least 10 tickets, and you would get a ticket for every game after that until they won. That is a team aware of their losing, and willing to help bring in fans. I also think they might have a better stadium. Don’t get me wrong, I love Target Field. I was there on its opening day, and have been to countless games there over the past nine years. But Petco Park (while being as horrifically branded as ours) has a certain distinct charm to it. First, it allows pets in a green area outside of right field. It seems larger, and it is in San Diego. However, the location, and traveling there, is not quite as good. Public transportation in San Diego is rather sparse, and I couldn’t determine a better way to get to the stadium than driving and pre-paying for my parking. Over time, we’ll have to see how the teams develop. I am more entrenched in the history and culture of the Twins, and in my mind the Padres have none except for Tony Gwynn. Thinking about who to support, what games to go to, and the relative difficulty of going compared to my current experience in the Twin Cities, is a little stressful. Sports, especially baseball, has been a big part of my life since I could walk. Throughout college I had the freedom of disposable income (kind of) and transportation to attend them at my leisure, as long as I had the time. I am not sure if the San Diego sports scene is quite as accommodating. This gets to a bigger question I’ve had in my mind. To what extent does changing states affect my life, my “loyalties” so to speak, and the bridges I have. In an interconnected world, it seems that physical barriers are not quite as important, but they do put forward some stress testing on friendships and what you know about where you are. I am so familiar with Minnesota culture, the Twin Cities and its surrounding suburbs, everything that is available to me. This information has been obtained through years of living here, driving around, growing up in it. How do I reach that level of comfort in a new place, when I don’t know exactly how long I’ll stay? What changes do I make in my activities? I know there is so much to explore, but at what point does the awe of exploration turn into either familiarity, or complacency? When I was out there last summer, I quickly latched onto safe places where I could be safe bide my time: Starbucks, Panera, and a single hiking trail I walked about 10 times. It took friends and family visiting to go beyond those places, and even then the exploration was minimal. I spent many weekends feeling sick, watching movies in bed, or just going to a local theater in a mall. I was afraid to strike out by myself. I found a minimally comfortable zone, and wished to stay there. This is what I need to change. I don’t need to change teams, or give up on what I love about Minnesota. I can still have that part of me, while appreciating the new things San Diego has to offer. I will always have a pain in my heart when the Twins lose, even if I support the Padres bandwagon for a while. That doesn’t make things less scary. It will be a long period of adjustment for me, but it something I know I must do.