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May 1, 2003
by Clay Davenport
The standings present multiple realities.
At the top, of course, there is the genuine reality, the bottom line, the real deal, terra firma: the actual wins and losses of each team. To a statistician, the actual results are just a little boring: they don't necessarily reflect the likelihoods that this particular result would happen. The Indians, for instance, are 7-20, as of this morning. Ho-hum.
So the second reality, or the first alternate reality, is found by looking at how many games the team should have won, given how many runs they scored and allowed. There are plenty of ways to make that estimate--Rob Neyer, for one, regularly tracks the standings using Bill James' "Pythagorean" theorem (in fact, Rob recently wrote an article on pretty much exactly what I'm doing here--and believe it or not, I didn't read that article until after I'd finished drafting this. It must have been in the air). We'll be just a little different.
April 21, 2003
by Clay Davenport
Sixty years ago, America was at war.
That one was very different, and one of those differences was the way baseball reacted. This time around, no one from the major leagues was going to take any part in the fighting, and certainly won't now that it's winding down. It is unlikely that anyone from the minor leagues will take any part (if there are any minor league players who are in the Guard and have been called up, I haven't been able to find any mention of it.)
There are a number of ways to look at how much difference the military service of ballplayers made on the quality of the league at a given time. One of the simpler ways is to compare the aggregate statistics of players coming into the major leagues to the aggregate of the players who were going out.
October 28, 2002
by Clay Davenport
The Player Cards are back!
First, let me emphasize that these player cards are an ongoing project. I fully expect to be able to make future revisions to the cards themselves and the glossary without having to take everything down again. Some of these changes--like a full set of translated statistics for every player, to go with their actual statistics -are already in the works. Others -like extensions to the glossary- will follow the questions from readers.
May 17, 2002
by Clay Davenport
The middle of May is a good time to take a look at the park factors around the league.
Granted, its waaayyy too early to draw firm conclusions about these; most teams still haven't finished home-and-homes with their opponents to date, and the overall sample size is still small enough that chance has a lot to do with the results. Fact is, though, it's a fun thing to look at.
by Clay Davenport
February 21, 2002
by Clay Davenport
January 29, 2002
by Clay Davenport
October 9, 2001
by Clay Davenport
September 7, 2001
by Clay Davenport
March 29, 2001
by Clay Davenport
March 12, 2001
by Joe Sheehan and Clay Davenport
February 23, 2000
by Clay Davenport
January 11, 2000
by Clay Davenport
June 30, 1999
by Clay Davenport and Keith Woolner
June 29, 1998
by Dave Pease and Clay Davenport
June 19, 1998
by Clay Davenport
June 10, 1998
by Clay Davenport
June 5, 1998
by Gary Huckabay and Clay Davenport
March 12, 1998
by Clay Davenport
March 3, 1998
by Clay Davenport
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