May, 2012, "By the Numbers" now available
The May, 2012 issue of "By the Numbers" is now available.
It features four articles:
-- Charlie Pavitt: "Academic Research: Correcting the Aging Bias"
-- Phil Birnbaum: "Review: "Basic Ball""
-- Donald A. Coffin: "Trends in "Strategy" in Major League Baseball"
-- Kevin D. Dayaratna and Steven J. Miller: "First Order Approximations of the Pythagorean Formula"
Hope you enjoy the issue!
posted by Phil Birnbaum @ 5/25/2012 12:03:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Donald Coffin misinterprets the history of scoring sacrifices, you really cannot compare 1940 to the present to any time before, there were too many other thing included in the SH.
1) Before 1940 the sacrifice hit was not limited to bunts. Any ground ball, batter out runner moves up would qualify.
2) From 1908 to 1930 SF were included in SH.
3) From 1926 to 1930 whenever a base runner advanced on a fly ball out it counted as a sacrifice.
4) There were other relevant changes to the rules, including whether ROE would be scored as SH.
Since there was so much else included we cannot compare 1940 and later strategies to those of earlier times. The rule changes overwhelm the tactical variations.
I have to confess Bill James’ Pythagorean Projection has kept me up late into the night thinking about how to improve on it. However, I got nothing. Further, I checked y = 1.8 for last year teams, and I've got to admit it is stunning how good of an approximation it actually is.
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