Math 197: Sabermetrics Independent Study, Spring 2008

♦ Useful Resources

• Statistics Books involving Baseball by Michael Schell:
  • Baseball's All-Time Best Hitters: How Statistics Can Level the Playing Field
  • Baseball's All-Time Best Sluggers: Adjusted Batting Performance from Strikeouts to Home Runs
• The Pythagorean Won-Loss Formula:
  • A derivation of the Pythagorean Won-Loss formula in baseball. Chance Magazine (20 (Winter 2007), no. 1, 40-48).
• Math 162: Mathematical Statistics:
  • course homepage
  • John E. Freund’s Mathematical Statistics with Applications (seventh edition) (course textbook, subset available online)
  • Textbook for Math 161: Probability (Fall '06)
• Mathematical handouts:
  • Principal component analysis
  • Generalized Gamma Distribution
• Mathematical programs:
  • Comparing AL v AL, AL v NL, NL v AL and NL v NL won/loss percentages (home team listed first)
• Pitcher f/x data: zipped file.

♦ Baseball webpages

• site with articles: http://baseballprospectus.com/ 
• site with articles: http://hardballtimes.com/
• data site:
  • http://www.retrosheet.org/
  • http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/
  •  http://webusers.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/tracking.htm (pitch f/x data)
  • brand-new advanced Gameday data from MLB, called pitch f/x data.  Try here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6269 and the first two links for what
    this is, but that link is chosen pretty arbitrarily; search for "pitch f/x" in either of the article sites I gave and you'll find lots of different ways of analyzing the results and articles on the validity of the data. 
• humidor effect: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5386
• modifications to Weibulls for park factors: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/consistency-is-key-part-two/ (not surprisingly, I know Sal).
• umpiring:
  • http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6502
  • umpire strike zones, pitch f/x data: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/a-zone-of-their-own/  and the two links in the second paragraph are a
    good three articles I've read on the topic of umpire strike zones and pitch f/x data. 
  • umpire strike zones: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6783 is different way of looking at umpire strike zones.
• Who's better: AL or NL:
  • http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/is-the-al-really-superior/
  • http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/is-the-al-really-superior-part-2/
  • http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/is-the-al-really-superior-part-3/
• Statistic: EQA.  http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2596
• Survey of NL west: http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7133
• NL West evaluation: http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?page=mlbdk2k8sdpreview
• Transaction analysis: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/index.php?column=1. See also http://www.retrosheet.org/ Click on "transactions" on the left (damn frames don't allow deep-linking). It includes all transactions in the major leagues (trades, signings, drafts), by year, team, player, whatnot, from the start of baseball to present.
• Who should bat where: pitcher 8th or 9th: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=Ak5h9C5SZeNhKmGE85_YRZcRvLYF?slug=larussayosthaveedgewhenp&prov=tsn&type=lgns
• Payroll numbers
  • http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1320
  • correlation b/w payroll and success: http://economicsbulletin.vanderbilt.edu/2003/volume1/EB-03A10003A.pdf  and  http://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/v1y2003i2p1-10.html 
• Pitch f/x
  • identifying pitches: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/pitch-identification-tutorial/
  • Enhanced Gameday analysis cataloged by author http://fastballs.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/enhanced-gameday-analysis-cataloged-by-author
  • Brian Bannister and pitch f/x: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AjH0EgfS6M2W0mVnwv7ZOM05nYcB?slug=jpspringbannister030808&prov=yhoo&type=lgn
  • Data from the NLWest.
  • pitch classification: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7346  and   http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=837. 
• DH history: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/the_bonus/03/20/changeup.designatedhitter/index.html
• Markov chains
  • http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/introducing-markov-chains/
  • http://www.pankin.com/markov/ - a page dedicated to various uses of these models
  • http://www.tangotiger.net/markov.html - includes a perl script actually using this,
  • http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/lineup_art.htm - evaluating lineups
  • http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0030-364X%28199701%2F02%2945%3A1%3C14%3AAMCATB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage
• Clutch hitting: http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/clutch_art.htm 
• When is a game won/lost:  http://winexp.walkoffbalk.com/expectancy/search   
• log5 method for winning percentages
  • http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/ps_odds.php 
  • http://www.diamond-mind.com/articles/playoff2002.htm 
• Alan Nathan's The Physics of Baseball.
  
   

♦ Pictures of Petco Park