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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
Gryphon
Charter Member
22419 posts |
Jun-01-13, 06:13 PM (EDT) |
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"Some Thoughts on Baseball"
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LAST EDITED ON Jun-02-13 AT 03:29 PM (EDT) Someone mentioned in another thread that "even Babe Ruth struck out sometimes", and that got me to thinking - or rather revisiting some thoughts that I just happened to have yesterday, while watching the Sox lose to the Yankees. The principal thought among them is this:One of the things I love about baseball is that failure is not only always an option; statistically speaking, it's the norm. I mean, since someone already brought him up, let's take Babe Ruth as an example. He's still considered one of the benchmark great hitters today, and he had a lifetime batting average of .342. That means nearly 66% of the time he came up to bat, he didn't get a base hit. That doesn't mean he struck out, necessarily, since that percentage also includes things like instances in which he hit the ball, but didn't make it to first base because someone caught it and/or got it to the first baseman before he reached the bag*. Which probably also happened quite a lot, since like many power hitters, Babe wasn't what you would call a real baserunning threat. :) (Edit: Walks aren't included because BA is calculated by dividing hits by at bats, and as Offsides pointed out, an "at bat" does not include walks. The stat I was thinking of, "plate appearances", does, but that would skew batting averages dismayingly low.) In a game where you're doing really well if you only fail two-thirds of the time, well... I dunno, it appeals to that British part of my ancestry that craves and appreciates disappointment, I think. (As you can probably tell from the above, another thing I love about baseball is that it's all very statisticky. Lots of math, all of it simple, but lots of it, and as the correction above demonstrates, it pays to keep your variables straight. :) On the other hand, because the sample size you're working with is so large - 162 games per team in a regular season, 30 teams in the major leagues, so 2430 regular-season games all told, which works out to a really spectacular number of individual plays - there's a lot of room for really wacky outlier moments on both sides of the success/failure line. So, on the one hand, you get the aforementioned fact that great batters still fail around two-thirds of the time, and many similarly lopsided statistical realtiies; and on the other, you get days like that one in 1999 when Nomar Garciaparra hit two grand slams in the same game. (Even Nomar - never a man to doubt his own prowess - seemed startled that he'd done that. :) You get a nearly unending procession of pitchers whose names you're not even going to remember after the game, and then one day you get to see Pedro Martinez at the peak of his powers, sitting down members of the Minnesota Twins like they had dinner reservations in the visitors' dugout and he was the maître d'. As with so many things, I have an off-and-on relationship with professional baseball, but unlike some other things where I consistently keep wondering why I've waded back into the pond, it's good at reminding me why I keep coming back. There's sketchy conduct on the field sometimes, and bureaucratic horseshit aplenty in the front office, and sometimes you just want to smack the entire institution in the face... but then there are moments like those, and everything's OK again. :) --G. * It also doesn't include the so-called "sacrifice" plays, but that gets quite abstruse indeed. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Offsides
Charter Member
1264 posts |
Jun-02-13, 12:02 PM (EDT) |
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1. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #0
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Just to pick a nit, walks are not counted against batting average, as a walk is not considered an "at bat" (in theory, you never got a pitch to hit). But the overall point still stands... Offsides [...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles. -- David Ben Gurion EPU RCW #π #include <stdsig.h> |
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Gryphon
Charter Member
22419 posts |
Jun-02-13, 03:22 PM (EDT) |
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2. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #1
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>Just to pick a nit, walks are not counted against batting average, as >a walk is not considered an "at bat" (in theory, you never got a pitch >to hit). But the overall point still stands... Oh, duh, right, I'm thinking of a different stat for the denominator in that calculation. Dividing hits by plate appearances would yield a significantly lower figure. I'll just fix that, shall I... Thanks, --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Offsides
Charter Member
1264 posts |
Jun-03-13, 12:39 PM (EDT) |
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4. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #2
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Yeah, baseball has more stats than you can easily keep pointers to without a computer. Of course, some of them are REALLY useless (as if Saves weren't bad enough, now they track "holds" or something like that, which is basically a pitcher who throws a save but exits the game before the pitcher who gets the save comes in (or something annoying like that)). The list of things that don't count as an "at bat" are pretty extensive too, it's just that walks probably constitute the majority of those plate appearances (BB, HBP, Sacrifice, Interference). Not to mention the various ways you can be given an out for statistical purposes yet end up on base anyway (c.f., Tim Wakefield striking out 4 batters in an inning many times :)) Offsides [...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles. -- David Ben Gurion EPU RCW #π #include <stdsig.h> |
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Pasha
Charter Member
1018 posts |
Jun-03-13, 10:52 PM (EDT) |
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7. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #4
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>Yeah, baseball has more stats than you can easily keep pointers to >without a computer. Of course, some of them are REALLY useless (as if >Saves weren't bad enough, now they track "holds" or something like >that, which is basically a pitcher who throws a save but exits the >game before the pitcher who gets the save comes in (or something >annoying like that)). The list of things that don't count as an "at >bat" are pretty extensive too, it's just that walks probably >constitute the majority of those plate appearances (BB, HBP, >Sacrifice, Interference). Not to mention the various ways you can be >given an out for statistical purposes yet end up on base anyway (c.f., >Tim Wakefield striking out 4 batters in an inning many times >:)) What I really like is that they're all *derived* stats. You could (if you had a whole shit-tonne of time) input the official scores into a database, and then later on someone comes along and wonders "well, his hitting average is good, but I wonder about how his walks factor into that" and boom, OBP, and then "well his hitting average isn't great, but I wonder if I weighted doubles and triples higher" and boom, slugging. All from a few actually tracked statistics. -- -Pasha (I'd say something here about how the Red Sox won the series, but...) What was that feeling again? Oh yes. -Rage-
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Bad Moon
Member since Dec-17-02
310 posts |
Jun-05-13, 09:22 PM (EDT) |
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24. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #7
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Then you add them together and boom OPS. Which is hilariously considered somewhat obsolescent by most sabermetrics because it weighs OBP and SLG equally when they aren't. I could go on with shit like UZR, wOBA, WRC+, FIP, xFIP. Modern sabermetrics is a bit of a rabbit hole. ------ Jon Helscher Oh God, it was me. I was the grognard all along. |
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twipper
Member since Jan-8-03
279 posts |
Jun-03-13, 10:53 AM (EDT) |
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3. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #0
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>As with so many things, I have an off-and-on relationship with >professional baseball, but unlike some other things where I >consistently keep wondering why I've waded back into the pond, >it's good at reminding me why I keep coming back. In the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, Harrington's adopted world Grayson ends up seemingly being the only planet left in the know galaxy that still plays baseball. The first mention of the game appears in 'Flag in Exile', during a period of political unrest, including several mass demonstrations that had led to moderately serious scuffles between the various factions. Harrington panics when she sees a number of men heading across her steading carrying wooden cudgels, thinking that her colonists had finally decided to move up from fists to deal with the protesting crowds. The scene, and the pure confusion of her personal armsman at his Steadholder calling out the troops to stop the coming beat-down, was easily one of the most amusing in the entire series. Brian |
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laudre
Member since Nov-14-06
428 posts |
Jun-04-13, 08:37 AM (EDT) |
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8. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #6
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>(the Brit thinks the American versions of everything is >cissy; in American Rugby they even wear armour!)My wife, who is Singaporean and, thus, shares in a great many British views on things, once expressed something along those lines. Then she saw what American football is like. After this, she conceded that the armor does not imply that the average American football player is not a "big girl's blouse," as the slang goes, but is a strict necessity when there's about a ton and a half of large, burly men, also wearing armor, bearing down on you. "Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis." - Kenneth Boulding |
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Gryphon
Charter Member
22419 posts |
Jun-04-13, 07:56 PM (EDT) |
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12. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #11
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>>I know how the average Brit thinks, thank you. That'd probably be >>because I am one. >> > I feel that I ought to be abe to say something witty here, but >needless to say, I am another. > > Well, maybe not the average Brit other than statistically, >since I read and write fan fiction, actually did grow up middle class, >and vote Liberal Democrat (but only because there aren't any good >parties). Would anyone actually care to discuss baseball at any point? --G. I'm just curious. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Gryphon
Charter Member
22419 posts |
Jun-04-13, 10:25 PM (EDT) |
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14. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #13
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>Wow. The Sox are kinda crushing the Yanks this year. So far, so good, although things are pretty tight in the AL East so far this year, and it's early days yet. My grandmother used to say that the Red Sox would win the World Series almost every year, if only it happened in, say, the last week of June. The thing about the Sox, of course, is that over 162 games, failure is always an option. :) --G. "And the jokes... tie together," as the late Derek Bacon would've said -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Bad Moon
Member since Dec-17-02
310 posts |
Jun-05-13, 09:26 PM (EDT) |
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25. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #14
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>>Wow. The Sox are kinda crushing the Yanks this year. > >So far, so good, although things are pretty tight in the AL East so >far this year, and it's early days yet. My grandmother used to say >that the Red Sox would win the World Series almost every year, if only >it happened in, say, the last week of June. The thing about the Sox, >of course, is that over 162 games, failure is always an option. :) You guys had a pretty good decade, even eclipsing New York as the most hated fanbase for awhile! :) ------ Jon Helscher Oh God, it was me. I was the grognard all along. |
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Offsides
Charter Member
1264 posts |
Jun-05-13, 11:23 PM (EDT) |
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27. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #26
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At least not in Baseball. I think the Pats might have done it for a year or two. Not all that surprising when you consider how much of an a**hole Belichick comes across as... Offsides [...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles. -- David Ben Gurion EPU RCW #π #include <stdsig.h> |
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laudre
Member since Nov-14-06
428 posts |
Jun-05-13, 10:46 AM (EDT) |
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15. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #13
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>Wow. The Sox are kinda crushing the Yanks this year. The Mets swept the Yanks in the Subway Series. As a long-time Mets fan, I am alternately stunned and mildly euphoric. "Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis." - Kenneth Boulding |
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Gryphon
Charter Member
22419 posts |
Jun-05-13, 01:51 PM (EDT) |
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18. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #15
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>>Wow. The Sox are kinda crushing the Yanks this year. > >The Mets swept the Yanks in the Subway Series. > >As a long-time Mets fan, I am alternately stunned and mildly euphoric. Yeah, they mentioned that at the beginning of the next game (Sox @ Yanks, kind of a summary ass-kicking for us, but we got 'em back the next day). Gave me a bit of a giggle, particularly the incredulity in the WNYW commentary team's voices. "... lost a four-game home-and-home series to the Mets. The Mets!" --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Offsides
Charter Member
1264 posts |
Jun-05-13, 02:09 PM (EDT) |
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19. "RE: Some Thoughts on Baseball"
In response to message #17
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I hope you meant that you live on cold medicine, and not in it... And I for one would welcome our new on-topic overlords, should they appear here :) Offsides P.S. Go Sox! [...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles. -- David Ben Gurion EPU RCW #π #include <stdsig.h> |
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Gryphon
Charter Member
22419 posts |
Jun-05-13, 02:12 PM (EDT) |
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20. "In Which My Point Is Illustrated"
In response to message #0
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LAST EDITED ON Jun-05-13 AT 02:14 PM (EDT) Last night's game at Fenway Park was a perfect example of what I'm talking about. It had outlier moments galore and a ton of optional failure. The 8th inning in particular may have been the single wackiest thing that has happened there in a very long time.See, the Texas Rangers aren't a bad team this year. They're on top of the American League West, in fact, with a record of 35 wins and 22 losses so far. And yet, one of those losses was last night, to the Red Sox (also a strong team so far this year, so it wasn't as hideously embarrassing as it could've been, but still)... ... by a score of 17 to 5. But that's not the wacky outlier part. Starting pitchers and relievers get shelled sometimes, it happens. No, the wacky outlier part is that the only inning in which the Sox came up to bat and didn't score at least one run was the eighth. An inning in which the Rangers did not field an actual pitcher. Seriously. Last night was the first game of a long road trip for the Rangers, they were losing spectacularly, and their manager decided he didn't want to use up the entire roster of relief pitchers in the pursuit of a single lost cause, so for the 8th, he put their left fielder, a guy named David Murphy, who probably hadn't pitched since high school, on the pitcher's mound... ... and he gave up one hit and no runs, by far the Rangers' best pitching performance of the night. (Well, there was that one guy who didn't give up a hit either, but then, he was only in for one batter. Murphy was out there for the whole half-inning.) When he struck out Sox first baseman Mike Carp, Carp was so startled he argued the call and got ejected by the home plate umpire, prompting guest color commentator Dennis Eckersley to remark, "You don't see somebody get that upset in a 17-5 game normally." (The Eck had been writhing in pain the whole night, because he's a Hall of Fame pitcher and last night was basically a ritual slaughter of pitchers. Slightly on both sides - I mean, giving up 5 runs is not a performance for the ages on the Sox pitching staff's part either, it's just that in this case it was rendered moot by the circumstances.) For a non-pitcher to then come out and symbolically salvage the honor of the Rangers' defense was slightly more than he could bear, I think. :) See, now, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. That kind of stuff doesn't happen in football (or futbol, either). :) --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Bad Moon
Member since Dec-17-02
310 posts |
Jun-05-13, 09:13 PM (EDT) |
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23. "RE: In Which My Point Is Illustrated"
In response to message #20
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LAST EDITED ON Jun-05-13 AT 09:15 PM (EDT) Position players pitching is one of my favorite things in baseball. Speaking of Baseball Outliers, today my beloved Seattle Mariners committed baseball history as the first team to be down by five runs in extra innings to come back and tie it in the bottom of the 14th. Thanks for the grand salami, Kyle Seager! As of this typing they are losing in the top of the 16th because Mariners. ------ Jon Helscher Oh God, it was me. I was the grognard all along. |
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Pasha
Charter Member
1018 posts |
Jun-06-13, 00:09 AM (EDT) |
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31. "Favorite weird things in baseball"
In response to message #0
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It's even kind of on topic! There's the various position players playing pitcher (The earlier comment about Flamethrower (who may be the most terrifying person in baseball) reminded me of this) Jose Canseco pitched a game (against the Red Sox, amusingly enough) during which he destroyed his arm. Also, I was talking with someone once about Jim Abbott (my personal favorite baseball player Of All Time). They didn't believe me that a one handed person was a major league baseball pitcher. So, I looked him up on the internets, and, upon reading his stats came to the realization that he actually has a couple of hits. 2 hits in 21 AB (So a BA of .095). With one hand. -- -Pasha ("At all levels, teams tried to exploit his fielding disadvantage by repeatedly bunting to him; this tactic was never effective." |
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version 3.3 © 2001
Eyrie Productions,
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Benjamin
D. Hutchins
E P U (Colour)
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