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...
First Round Pick Visualizations
Here are two auxiliary plots in conjunction to the post made last week. They provide a bit more insight into players who have been drafted in the first round over the past 19 amateur...
Happiness, Expectations, and the First Round
An oft-cited formula that I believe originated in psychology circles is this: Happiness = Reality – Expectations. At a glance, this formula seems to hold water; it very simply stands to reason that...
A Brief Glance at Variance
Much has been made over the past couple years as teams seem to, more than ever, embrace one of two attitudes leading into any particular season. The first attitude is of those teams who...
Who Has Won the Most Regular Season Games this Century?
This question was posed to me a week or so ago and I was disappointed to find no recent answer online. As such, I have done a bit of digging myself. What follows is...