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
The Birdwatch has a Win Probability Added review of the Cardinals’ incredible comeback last night. Nice job, though he used the win probabilities from 1979-1990, which was a lower run-scoring environment than today’s, plus there is a sample size issue even with 3,360 games in the database.
If he had used our spreadsheet instead, he would have found that the WP of the top of the ninth was 0.2% instead of 0.1%!!
Seriously, it’s nice to see other folks using the WP model.
Is anybody else having problems with the “Update Players” tool in the Players worksheet? I logged Astacio’s debut in MMP tonight, and it doesn’t seem to want to compile a nice looking list. Everything else seems to work as it did before.
OK, I messed up the player macro when I added those extra fields. I’ll fix it and re-post the spreadsheet later today.
Thanks, Awrr.
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