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Encyclopedia > Sabermetrician

Sabermetrics is the analysis of baseball through objective evidence, especially baseball statistics. The term is derived from the acronym SABR, which stands for the Society for American Baseball Research. It was coined by Bill James, who has been its most enthusiastic (and by far its most famous) proponent. Baseball is a team sport, in which a fist-sized ball is thrown by a defensive player called a pitcher and hit by an offensive player called a batter with a round, smooth stick called a bat. ... As with many sports, and perhaps even more so, statistics are very important to baseball. ... The Society for American Baseball Research was established in Cooperstown, New York in August of 1971. ... This article is about Bill James, the baseball writer and father of sabermetrics. ...


From David Grabiner's Sabermetric Manifesto:

Bill James defined sabermetrics as "the search for objective knowledge about baseball." Thus, sabermetrics attempts to answer objective questions about baseball, such as "which player on the Red Sox contributed the most to the team's offense?" or "How many home runs will Ken Griffey, Jr. hit next year?" It cannot deal with the subjective judgments which are also important to the game, such as "Who is your favorite player?" or "That was a great game."

Sabermetricians call into question traditional measures of baseball skill. For instance, batting average is considered to be a statistic of limited usefulness because it turns out to be a poor predictor of a team's ability to score runs. Typical sabermetric reasoning would say that runs win ballgames, and so a good measure of a player's worth is his/her ability to help his/her team score more runs than the opposing team. George Kenneth Griffey, Jr. ... Batting average is a statistic in both baseball and cricket measuring the performance of baseball hitters and cricket batsmen, respectively. ...


Accordingly, sabermetric measures - such as Bill James's Runs created and Win shares or Pete Palmer's Total player rating - are usually phrased in terms of either runs or team wins; a player might be described as being worth 54 runs more than an average player at the same position over the course of a full season, for example. Runs created (RC) is a baseball statistic invented by Bill James to estimate the number of runs a hitter contributes to his team. ... Win Shares is a book (ISBN 1931584036) about baseball written by Bill James, published by STATS, Inc. ... Pete Palmer is an American baseball [statistician]], and one of the leading creators of the mathematical system referred to as sabermetrics. ... Total player rating (TPR) is a metric for measuring the value of baseball players, and to enable players to be compared against each other even when they played for different teams, at different positions, and in different eras. ...


Sabermetrics is concerned both with determining the value of a player in a season gone by, and with trying to predict the value of a player in the future based on his past performances. These are not the same thing. For example, a player with a high batting average one year may have been very valuable to his team, but batting average is known to be a volatile stat and relying on it to remain high in future years is often not a good principle. A sabermetrician might argue that a high walk rate is a better indication that a player will retain his value in the future. In baseball statistics, a base on balls (BB), also called a walk, is used in baseball to track the performance of pitchers and batters. ...


While this area of study is still in development, it has yielded many interesting insights into the game of baseball, and in the area of performance measurement generally.


Some sabermetric measurements have entered mainstream baseball usage, especially OPS (on-base plus slugging) and, to a lesser extent, WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched). In baseball statistics, on-base plus slugging (denoted by OPS) is defined by the sum of on base percentage (OBP) and slugging percentage (SLG). ... In baseball, walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) is a sabermetric measurement of how many baserunners a pitcher is responsible for allowing per inning pitched. ...

Contents


Examples of sabermetric measurements

In baseball statistics, on-base plus slugging (denoted by OPS) is defined by the sum of on base percentage (OBP) and slugging percentage (SLG). ... Runs created (RC) is a baseball statistic invented by Bill James to estimate the number of runs a hitter contributes to his team. ... Pythagorean expectation is a formula invented by Bill James to estimate how many games a baseball team should have won based on the number of runs they scored and allowed. ... Total player rating (TPR) is a metric for measuring the value of baseball players, and to enable players to be compared against each other even when they played for different teams, at different positions, and in different eras. ... Equivalent Average (EqA) is a baseball metric invented by Clay Davenport, and intended to express the production of hitters in a context independent of park and league effects. ... Peripheral ERA is a pitching statistic created by the Baseball Prospectus team. ... In baseball, Defense Independent Pitching Statistics (DIPS), also known as DIPS ERA (dERA), is a sabermetric statistic which measures a pitchers effectiveness based only on plays which are completely under his control: home runs allowed, strikeouts, and walks. ... Secondary average, or SecA, is a baseball statistic - more precisely, a sabermetric measurement of hitting performance. ... In baseball, value over replacement player (or VORP) tells how much a player contributes offensively and defensively to his team in comparison to a fictitious replacement player, who is an average fielder at his position and a below average hitter. ... In baseball, walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) is a sabermetric measurement of how many baserunners a pitcher is responsible for allowing per inning pitched. ... Win Shares is a book (ISBN 1931584036) about baseball written by Bill James, published by STATS, Inc. ...

Major proponents of sabermetrics

Billy Beane has been the general manager of the Oakland Athletics since 1997. Although not a public proponent of sabermetrics, it has been widely noted that Beane has steered the team during his tenure according to sabermetric principles: Batters should try to get walks, traditional defensive statistics (such as errors and fielding percentage) are less important than people think, pitchers should be able to strike out batters, spending amateur draft picks on high school pitchers is a bad use of resources, etc. What's remarkable about this is that so few other teams in baseball apply these principles, the Boston Red Sox being a prohibitive exception, thus making the Athletics the first, best test case for sabermetrics in action. In 2003, Michael Lewis published Moneyball, a book about Beane and how his approach to running the Athletics works. In recent years, Beane assistants J. P. Ricciardi and Paul DePodesta have been hired as general managers for the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers. There is another former major league player named Billy Bean. ... In Major League Baseball, the General Manager typically controls player transactions and bears the primary responsibility on behalf of the ballclub during contract discussions with players. ... This article is about the baseball team currently active in the American League. ... See also: 1996 in sports, 1998 in sports and the list of years in sports. Auto Racing Stock car racing: Jeff Gordon is the youngest driver ever to win the Daytona 500 NASCAR Championship - Jeff Gordon Indy Racing League - Indianapolis 500 - Arie Luyendyk CART Racing - Alex Zanardi won the season... The Boston Red Sox are a Major League Baseball team located in Boston, Massachusetts. ... See also: 2002 in sports, other events of 2003, 2004 in sports and the list of years in sports. // Auto Racing Stock car racing: Michael Waltrip wins rain-shortened Daytona 500 Winston Cup Championship won by Matt Kenseth for Ford. ... Michael Lewis is an American contemporary non-fiction author. ... Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game is a book by Michael M. Lewis in 2003 about the general manager of the Major League Baseball team Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane, and his teams approach to running the organization. ... J. P. (John Paul) Ricciardi (born September 26, 1959 in Worcester, Massachusetts) is the current general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. ... The Toronto Blue Jays are a Major League Baseball team based in Toronto, Ontario, notable for being the first team from outside the United States to win the World Series. ... Brooklyn Dodgers redirects here. ...


Bill James is widely considered the father of Sabermetrics. He began publishing his Baseball Abstracts in 1977 to study some questions about baseball he found interesting, and they soon became popular with a generation of thinking baseball fans. He discontinued the Abstracts after the 1988 edition, but continued to be active in the field. His two Historical Baseball Abstract editions and Win Shares book have continued to advance the field of sabermetrics, 25 years after he began. In 2002 James was hired as a special advisor to the Boston Red Sox. This article is about Bill James, the baseball writer and father of sabermetrics. ... See also: 1976 in sports, 1978 in sports and the list of years in sports. Auto racing Stock car racing: NASCAR Championship - Cale Yarborough Cale Yarborough won the Daytona 500 USAC Racing - Tom Sneva wins the season championship Indianapolis 500 - won by A.J. Foyt. ... See also: 1987 in sports, 1989 in sports and the list of years in sports. Auto Racing Stock car racing: Bobby Allison won the Daytona 500 NASCAR Championship - Bill Elliott CART Racing - Danny Sullivan won the season championship Indianapolis 500 - Rick Mears Formula One Championship - Brazil 24 hours of Le... Win Shares is a book (ISBN 1931584036) about baseball written by Bill James, published by STATS, Inc. ... See also: 2001 in sports, 2003 in sports and the list of years in sports. Auto Racing Stock car racing: Ward Burton wins the Daytona 500 NASCAR Championship - Tony Stewart Indy Racing League - Sam Hornish Jr. ... The Boston Red Sox are a Major League Baseball team located in Boston, Massachusetts. ...


Rob Neyer is a columnist for ESPN's web site who has espoused sabermetrics since the mid-1990s. He has authored or co-authored several books about baseball, and his ESPN website page focuses on sabermetric methods for looking at baseball players' and teams' performance. Rob Neyer is a baseball author and, since 1996, a columnist for ESPN.com. ... ESPN, an abbreviation of Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, is an American cable television network dedicated to broadcasting sports-related programming 24 hours a day. ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but keeping the same mind-set. ...


John Thorn and Pete Palmer are the authors of two key books that present sabermetric statistics and readable, common-sense explanations for why it's worth thinking about them: The Hidden Game of Baseball and the series of baseball encyclopedias called Total Baseball, with David Pietrusza and the late Michael Gershman. They also include the mathematical formulae for the hard-core statisticians, but the strength of their books is the accessibility of the statistics for everyday baseball fans. Thorn is a frequent commentator for ESPN and was advisor to the Ken Burns baseball documentary film. Thorn, Palmer and Gershman provided the statistics and analysis for the Tony La Russa Baseball series of computer games. B: April 17, 1947, Stuttgart, West Germany. ... Pete Palmer is an American baseball [statistician]], and one of the leading creators of the mathematical system referred to as sabermetrics. ... ESPN, an abbreviation of Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, is an American cable television network dedicated to broadcasting sports-related programming 24 hours a day. ... Ken L. Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American documentary filmmaker. ... Baseball is a team sport, in which a fist-sized ball is thrown by a defensive player called a pitcher and hit by an offensive player called a batter with a round, smooth stick called a bat. ... This article needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ...


Earl Weaver Weaver would vociferously deny any such statistical leanings, and say his baseball strategy is based on "common sense." Nevertheless, his use of what we would call sabermetric methods is well-documented. Weaver was the first baseball manager to start keeping stats about how each of his Baltimore Orioles batters did against each pitcher in the league, and the corresponding stats for each Orioles pitcher against each American League hitter. This kind of situational statistical study is one of the core concepts of sabermetrics, since the more detailed analysis gives us a far better idea of what might happen in each at-bat than more generalized numbers. Thorn and Palmer specifically identify a number of ways in which Weaver's strategies reflected sabermetric principles in their books. The computer game Earl Weaver Baseball (1987), the first comprehensive statistics-based baseball simulation game, had artificial intelligence based on Weaver's statistical principles. Earl Sidney Weaver (born August 14, 1930 in St. ... The Baltimore Orioles are a Major League Baseball team based in Baltimore, Maryland. ... The American League (or formally the American League of Professional Baseball Clubs) is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in the United States of America and Canada. ... 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...


Baseball Prospectus is an annual publication and web site produced by a group of sabermetricians who originally met over the Internet.


'SABR is the Society for American Baseball Research, founded in 1971, and the root of the term sabermetrics. Statistical study, however, is only a small component of SABR members' research, which also focuses on diverse issues including ballparks, the Negro Leagues, rules changes, and the desegregation of Baseball as a mirror of American culture. The XM29 Objective Individual Combat Weapon (OICW), also referred to as the Selectable Assault Battle Rifle, is a highly advanced new assault rifle / grenade launcher system slated to replace certain M-16 assault rifles with M203 underslung grenade launcher. ...


See also

Win Shares is a book (ISBN 1931584036) about baseball written by Bill James, published by STATS, Inc. ... This article is about Bill James, the baseball writer and father of sabermetrics. ... B: April 17, 1947, Stuttgart, West Germany. ... Pete Palmer is an American baseball [statistician]], and one of the leading creators of the mathematical system referred to as sabermetrics. ... See also: 1984 in sports, other events of 1985, 1986 in sports and the list of years in sports. Auto Racing Stock car racing: Bill Elliott won the Daytona 500 NASCAR Championship - Darrell Waltrip Ken Schrader enters NASCAR CART Racing - Al Unser Sr won the season championship Indianapolis 500 - Danny... See also: 2000 in sports, 2002 in sports and the list of years in sports. Auto Racing Stock car racing: Michael Waltrip won the Daytona 500 NASCAR Championship - Jeff Gordon Indy Racing League - Sam Hornish Jr. ... Pete Palmer is an American baseball [statistician]], and one of the leading creators of the mathematical system referred to as sabermetrics. ... B: April 17, 1947, Stuttgart, West Germany. ...

External links


  Results from FactBites:
 
Sabermetrics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (1145 words)
For example, a player with a high batting average one year may have been very valuable to his team, but batting average is known to be a volatile stat and relying on it to remain high in future years is often not a good principle.
A sabermetrician might argue that a high walk rate is a better indication that a player will retain his value in the future.
While this area of study is still in development, it has yielded many interesting insights into the game of baseball, and in the area of performance measurement generally.
Sabermetric Manifesto - The Baseball Archive (4946 words)
This is the major flaw with many of the statistics that are often used on TV; a statistic such as, "Wade Boggs is hitting.154 against Baltimore pitchers with runners in scoring position" means nothing because the sample is probably two hits in thirteen at-bats.
Sabermetricians agree with most fans that such stats are ridiculous; they are there only to hold the interest of the (mostly statistically illiterate) television audience.
Now, once you have some idea of how well the statistic measures the player's own contribution to the goal, the final question to ask is, "Is there a better way to measure the same thing?" A statistic which has problems with the other questions but has no reasonable alternative measurement may still be useful.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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