Jason Rosenberg (of whom I'm a big fan) at It's All About the Money has a great graphic depicting...

Jason Rosenberg (of whom I'm a big fan) at It's All About the Money has a great graphic depicting the best pitchers (by ERA+) in rolling ten-year increments from 1980-2010. Definitely worth a look, as is his similar chart depicting pitcher wins.

over 1 year ago J-Doug 6 comments 0 recs |

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huh

It’s taking me a while to get my head around this graphic, which it shouldn’t — data graphics should make sense more or less immediately.

My first thought was that the height (or thickness) of each bar was significant of something, but it’s not (apparently). Maybe putting all the pitcher’s data on one line would make it clearer. Also, that Copperplate Gothic font is horrible and makes it difficult to read, especially at lower resolutions.

Billy Hayes: His job is better than yours.
"ZIPS Is Indeed Supose To Science." --GRM

by delorean on Jan 4, 2011 3:30 PM EST reply actions

It's a lot easier to read when you go to the site and click on the high-res image

I also thought the thickness could also be informative, but I think this works pretty well in indicating the time period in question.

Blogger and Editor, Rational Pastime Blog. Twitter: @RationalPastime.

by J-Doug on Jan 4, 2011 3:46 PM EST up reply actions

I did click through

still had a tough time reading the info. the choice of font is poor, and generates lots of wasted ink. that’s like Tufte 101.

I appreciate Jason’s approach and his data, but the presentation could be tightened up.

Billy Hayes: His job is better than yours.
"ZIPS Is Indeed Supose To Science." --GRM

by delorean on Jan 4, 2011 3:59 PM EST up reply actions

WAIT WHERES JACK MORRIS???A/A/??

On Twitter: @baseballtwit

by adarowski on Jan 4, 2011 9:30 PM EST reply actions

Jason asked that I post his response before his SBN membership is approved

As far as the graphics go, I wish I had something better than Excel to generate this chart. I tried to adjust the thickness of each bar based upon the stats used, but I could not.

As far as the font goes, that was the one which allowed the most ink in a narrow space, but only on two lines. Not my favorite either. But, as I learned after the fact, when the original picture is compressed to fit on a normal sized webpage, it’s much tougher to read. Live and learn.

Thanks for the criticisms, though. It will help in future chart generation.

Sorry that it got in the way of the data, even a little bit.

Blogger and Editor, Rational Pastime Blog. Twitter: @RationalPastime.

by J-Doug on Jan 5, 2011 11:12 AM EST reply actions