Count and Percentage Statistics, Passing in the Night
This is a post about Albert Pujols. In his prime, Albert Pujols was one of the best baseball players of an entire era, a time during which he built the very formidable foundation of...
Author: Ben
Loyalty, a Fleeting Luxury
A week or so ago MLB Trade Rumors highlighted the hot start that Alex Gordon is off to, and the obvious implications of that quick start for his trade value. In their writeup, MLB...
Another Implication of Strikeouts
This post aims to make use of a few graphics to briefly consider strikeout rates and their potential impact on walk rates. In short, does shirking pitching to contact for the sake of coveted...
Round Numbers and An Approaching Milestone
People love round numbers; baseball people love them especially. As such, this post is about one particular round number. There is a lot to like about the website Baseball Reference. One oft-overlooked feature though,...
Why Run When You Can Jog?
When I was younger in school, a popular card game that made its way through my social circle was called MLB Showdown. The cards featured players that my friends and I loved to watch,...
Has the Extension Market Eclipsed the Free Agent Market?
Just as the regular season is really upon us, an “Extension Fever” of sorts has swept through MLB. In the past week alone, four nine-figure contracts have been awarded to players who, in decades...
Felix’s Streak, In Scatter Plots
As MLB’s 2019 Opening Day nears, managers seemingly take turns naming their starters of choice to begin their teams’ season. It is of note that Felix Hernandez will not, for the first time in...
My Very Subjective Problem with WAR
A long time ago, relatively speaking, a really smart guy named Aristotle proposed, among many other thoughts and concepts, three modes of persuasion. His modes of persuasion were ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is...
Soccer, Basketball, and Where Baseball Lies in Between.
I was recently listening to a podcast called Revisionist History. Revisionist History, hosted by the (among other things) journalist and writer Malcolm Gladwell, is really, really good, but that isn’t the point here. ...
How Do Various Defensive Metrics Relate to Each Other?
This post aims to very generally shed light on how a couple key defensive metrics often applied in baseball circles relate to each other. Observed will be five such stats, all cumulative scores of...