I initially created Baseball Graphs to develop new and better ways of presenting baseball statistics. The 2003 season was my first full-season attempt, and it turned out pretty well. I now spend a lot of my time creating and formatting the baseball stats at The Hardball Times.

Along the way, I've also picked up the writing bug. I spend most of my energy writing for THT, but sometimes I like to write about more geeky stuff, baseball research and things like that. That's what this blog is for.

I'm very interested in graphics and other information display, so I'll probably post links to creative stuff like that. I also plan to write historical articles that complement the historical graphs. And I have inexplicably developed an interest in baseball win-related stats, such as Bill James's Win Shares and something called Win Probability Added. So you can expect a few posts about that stuff too.

If you're interested, I've created a complex spreadsheet full of WPA logic, which you can download at ftp.baseballgraphs.com/wpa. If you'd like to read more about Win Shares, try these links:

Win Shares Intro
What They're Good For
Mathematical Details
Archives
December, 2008
April, 2008
March, 2008
January, 2008
January, 2007
December, 2006
November, 2006
October, 2006
September, 2006
August, 2006
July, 2006
June, 2006
May, 2006
April, 2006
March, 2006
February, 2006
January, 2006
October, 2005
September, 2005
July, 2005
May, 2005
April, 2005
March, 2005
February, 2005
January, 2005
December, 2004
November, 2004
October, 2004
September, 2004
August, 2004
July, 2004
June, 2004
May, 2004
March, 2004
February, 2004
January, 2004
December, 2003
November, 2003
October, 2003


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If there is any aspect of WPA, Win Shares or baseball graphics you're interested in, drop me an e-mail and I'll look into it. Syndicate Baseball Graphs:

Sortable Pitching Stats

December 10, 2003

Announcing sortable 2003 pitching stats at [url=http://www.baseballgraphs.com]http://www.baseballgraphs.com[/url]

At the end of the season, I hastily assembled two long tables—one for the National League and one for the American League—of what I considered the most valuable stats for individual pitchers.  You can access them directly off the Baseballgraphs home page, or the Win Shares page, under “Individual Pitching Stats.” The lists are long and not very user-friendly (which violates the most sacred mission of this site), but I figured I would fix them eventually.  Well, I finally have, by adding sort capabilities to the table.

This is new technology; it’s javascript instead of database language, so the page doesn’t reload when you click on a sort category.  However, the table is large, so it will take a second or two for the re-sort to occur.

The tables contain pitcher, team, innings pitched, ERA and three other key stats:

- Earned Runs Saved Above Average.  This is league-average ERA/9 times pitcher innings pitched minus pitcher earned runs allowed.  It’s a simple measure of the total number of earned runs the pitcher saved below league average.  It’s also the key element of pitching Win Shares.

- DER, or Defense Efficiency Ratio.  This is a measure of the number of in-park batted balls that were successfully fielded into outs by the pitcher’s fielders.  If a pitcher had a very high or low DER, relative to the league average, it indicates they were somewhat “lucky” or “unlucky” in 2003, and that the DER is likely to “regress toward the mean” next year.

- FIP, or Fielding Independent Pitching.  This is a simple, yet powerful and elegant, formula built by Tangotiger (see the details page for a link to his specific explanation).  The formula captures the impact of all those things for which a pitcher is 100% responsible, namely home runs, strikeouts and walks.  It is a pure measure of pitching effectiveness.  The formula is (HR x 13 plus BB x three minus K x 2)/9.

FIP is very similar to DIPs ERA, for those of you familiar with DIPs.  In fact, if you add 3.20 to a pitcher’s FIP, you will get a very close approximation of his DIPs ERA (and without all the work).  This number is a very good predictor of a pitcher’s ERA next year—in fact, it’s a better predictor than his actual ERA.

FIP and DER are also key Win Share elements (though James didn’t call it FIP).  They are used, along with a few other things, to separate credit for pitching and fielding Win Shares.

Here are the direct links:

American League Pitching Stats
National League Pitching Stats

Enjoy!

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