Much Ado About Bunting
What makes a player a good, or successful, bunter? Is it because they have good to great speed? Is it because there truly is a skill associated with laying down a good bunt?
Research
Lineup Styles, Part Two
While OBP and SLG correlate almost equally to scoring, we will dive in further, seeing if the individual hitters make any more of a difference.
Lineup Styles, Part One
It is generally assumed that a balanced lineup is the most efficient, but is there any truth to this? Using team OBP, wOBA, and R/G, are there any trends that pop up over the past 17 years?
Expected Strikeout and Walk Outliers
Which pitchers strikeout and walk more or fewer batters than we expect and what similarities do they have?
How and When does Velocity Change During a Start?
Taking a look at fastball velocity trends of starting pitchers over the course of a typical game.
Adjusting Pitching for Quality of Offense
With pitcher performance partially influenced by the opponent they face, we develop the statistic OARA (Opponent Adjusted Runs Average, pronounced like "aura") to adjust for this.
Changing Philosophy with Well-Hit Balls
WHB analysis has provided a new way to look at baseball. Before leaving the subject, it's essential to know why the WHB theory is important and what it could mean for the future of baseball analytics.
A Closer Look at Home Run Perception
Splitting up the Home Run Perception data in any way possible.
Stolen Base Rates for Pitchers
Which pitchers are best at preventing the stolen base? And which pitchers are giving away the extra base?
Failing to Predict Walk Rates
I threw everything at the wall and not much stuck. Walks remain somewhat of a mystery.
What Starters Throw as the Game Progresses
A look at pitch selection for starting pitchers as they face the same hitters multiple times in the same game.
Predicting Strikeouts Using Velocity and Whiffs
Building on a 2012 study, attempting to predict changes in K% based on Whiffs and fastball velocity.
Quantifying Offensive Efficiency
We compile play by play data since 2002, using the overall run expectancy of teams to calculate the most efficient offenses of the 2000's. Then we look at last year's most efficient offensive attacks.
What If Pitchers Have To Keep Hitting?
With the DH not coming to the NL until A.S. (After Selig), what type of hitting could we see from pitchers in the coming years?
Home Run Depth Perception
How can we quantify the goosebumps we get from deep home runs down the line?
A Deeper Look At Plate Discipline
Many writers have been critical of the passive approach now widespread in the major leagues. Is this approach really hurting scoring?
Changing Philosophy, Part Five: SMASH
This installment takes WHB and gives it more game context, which leads to the development of a new metric: SMASH
Refusing the Walk for an Extra Hack
Jordany Valdespin and the umpires intentionally or unintentionally ignored ball 4. How did that affect Valdespin's chances of getting doing anything better on the next pitch.
Examining Home Run Apex by Horizontal Angle
What is the average height of each home run hit to each field at each park and how is that affected by the park dimensions?
Changing Philosophy, Part Four: BIP Data
Before I make the big jump and create my advanced WHB metric, we will look into what WHB data shows us that BIP data cannot.
Changing run environments within a single season
Looking at outlier months in league average runs-per-game.
St. Louis Cardinals Continue to Win
The Cardinals have a winning record once again. In fact they lead the tough NL Central, but how has Mike Matheny's squad done it?
Testing and Visualizing Similarity Scores
After developing Similarity Scores, we go through testing and visualizing these scores.
Changing Philosophy, Part Three: Pitching
Part of understanding offense is understanding what pitchers are going to try to do to create outs. In this installment, I'll challenge the DIPS theory and shed light on what pitchers can do to get batters out.
Predicting WAR Totals for April's Biggest Stars
We take a look at six of April's hottest stars, and simulate their full season outputs one-thousand times through a method we call bootstrapping, to arrive at a prediction for where their WAR totals will end up at the end of the year!
Do longer at-bats lead to more wins?
The ability to work the count and be patient at the plate is a highly praised skill in baseball. But does it actually lead to more wins?
