good graphing program?

by JDanger on Feb 6, 2010 10:18 PM EST

I'm looking to download a good graphing program to visualize some pf/x and bdb and retrosheet data I've been messing around with. Any suggestions?

Anything from free to under a hundred bones, preferably, so long as there's no weird trojans or spyware involved.

I think it would be an interesting addendum to the Colin Wyers sabermetric workbench tutorial set up over at The Hardball Times.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/databases-for-sabermetricians-part-one/

As well as the saberizing a mac series here at BTB.

Thanks!

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I pretty much use Excel for everything, and I make pretty complicated graphs sometimes using pfx data and what not. With addons you can do pretty much anything in Excel (unless you are dealing with an unmanageable amount of data).

If you want something that has a little more horse power, try R. The problem with R is that you have to write code and that can be real tough to learn. I’ve never gotten into using R – although I wish I had, as you can do some pretty cool stuff if you’ve mastered the code.

I’m not sure if there is anything in between. Maybe someone else could chime in.

by vivaelpujols on Feb 7, 2010 6:02 AM EST reply actions

Might be pretty interesting to start a thread about useful Excel add-ons for various purposes, including graphing, and where to get them...

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by Sky Kalkman on Feb 7, 2010 10:06 AM EST up reply actions

I agree

Also, an SQL thread.

by vivaelpujols on Feb 7, 2010 11:25 AM EST up reply actions

Yesplease

to both.

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by oo_nrb on Feb 8, 2010 4:35 AM EST up reply actions

What exactly are people wanting?

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by Jeff Zimmerman on Feb 8, 2010 3:01 PM EST up reply actions

A thread where we can discuss graphing techniques

And writing R and SQL code.

by vivaelpujols on Feb 8, 2010 3:19 PM EST up reply actions

I think those are just too open.

Could be more specific and go from there.

Such as:

Linking R to SQL database
Doing heatmaps in R
Running Lowess in R

Graphing WAR Charts
Plotting Pitch FX pitches

The above could be 6 months courses

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by Jeff Zimmerman on Feb 8, 2010 3:27 PM EST up reply actions

I would love to learn how to do the first 2!

by vivaelpujols on Feb 8, 2010 8:04 PM EST up reply actions

Sounds good, I got the first, but no further

Maybe we can work on a series of setting it up and doing a heat map

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by Jeff Zimmerman on Feb 8, 2010 8:56 PM EST up reply actions

Yeah, I think it might work better as a series

by vivaelpujols on Feb 8, 2010 9:14 PM EST up reply actions

How about this:

Part 1. Installing Pitch FX on a machine
Part2. Installing R and running a simple query
Part3. Create a heat map for a hitter
Part4. Create a heat map for a pitcher
Part5. Create an umpire’s strike zone

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by Jeff Zimmerman on Feb 8, 2010 9:24 PM EST up reply actions

Sounds great

The 1st part should also be used for general Pitch f/x related queries.

by vivaelpujols on Feb 8, 2010 9:29 PM EST up reply actions

Give me a few days.

I am all good till part 3 then I am in mystery land.

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by Jeff Zimmerman on Feb 8, 2010 9:38 PM EST up reply actions

Maybe

Get Dave Allen or Jeremy Greenhouse to do a guest post…

I’ve done a few heat maps, but they’ve been less than stellar

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by stevesommer05 on Feb 8, 2010 10:09 PM EST up reply actions

Ditto

by vivaelpujols on Feb 9, 2010 1:05 AM EST up reply actions

Dave Allen did a presentation

at the 2009 PITCHf/x summit on how to do heatmaps in R.

The presentation is available here:
http://baseball.sportvision.com/summit/2009
“Dave Allen- Creating Contour and ‘Heat Map’ Graphs to Display PITCHf/x Data”

by Mike Fast on Feb 9, 2010 2:57 PM EST up reply actions

Thanks Mike

I have looked at that already though, and even emailed Dave Allen several times for clarification, and I was never able to get it working very well. My heat maps were always way to flat. I know that Steve has also had this problem, so I think a thread devoted to that would be a good idea.

by vivaelpujols on Feb 9, 2010 3:09 PM EST up reply actions

I don't know how much these things cost...

but SPSS and Minitab are alternatives to R if you don’t want to write code. They are more like excel, with a spreadsheet, but have more statistical utility. I personally use SAS at the moment, but I think that’s expensive if you aren’t in school, and R is a good alternative if you can handle a little code writing.

"Pinch-bunters don't have a ton of value, even with the Twins"

by Steven Ellingson on Feb 7, 2010 9:47 AM EST reply actions

If you're in school, you can get a steep discount...

…but they’re both very pricey for those of us out of school. Minitab is $1,195 for a single-user license. SPSS’s web store is down right now, but I don’t recall it being any cheaper.

If you need something somewhere between Excel and R on the power/ease of use spectrum, I recommend gretl.

by cwyers on Feb 7, 2010 3:33 PM EST up reply actions

You can also use Open Office instead of Excel and it is free

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by Jeff Zimmerman on Feb 8, 2010 12:06 AM EST reply actions

If you're willing to spend a little bit of money

Psi-Plot is pretty nice—easy to use, very flexible, does more than Excel or Open Office can. It has a downloadable demo that will give you a good idea of whether it will fit your needs:
http://www.polysoftware.com/plot.htm
They have a coupon code that will let you have it for $60 right now. Normally $300, or $99 as an academic/student.

You might need to be associated with an academic institution for the coupon to count, not sure. Send me an e-mail (justin at basment-dwellers dot com) and I’ll forward you the coupon code.
-j

I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds

by JinAZ on Feb 8, 2010 11:22 AM EST reply actions

oh man you guys are awesome,

I’m absolutely looking into each of these suggestions. I’m using Open Office right now but I’d like to upgrade to something that will really impress the ladies. I’ve yet to meet the code that scares me, so put me down for one who plans on taking full advantage of whatever sort of introductory threads you guys find the time to start.

by JDanger on Feb 9, 2010 5:13 AM EST reply actions 1 recs