The Base on Balls (December 24, 2003)
Fun stuff...
--posted by TangoTiger at 12:21 PM EDT
Posted 12:49 p.m.,
December 24, 2003
(#1) -
Rally Monkey
Great stuff. Tango, do you believe in past lives?
Posted 10:02 p.m.,
December 24, 2003
(#2) -
Patriot
Add Mr. Lane to LW history as an early, forgotten contributor.
Posted 3:37 p.m.,
December 25, 2003
(#3) -
Tangotiger
I finally got a chance to read this fully. A sharp-minded man, this guy was.
Home run
100.0%
Triple
74.1%
Double
.. 50.6%
Single
29.4%
Base on balls
. 16.4%
Multiply by 1.55 all the way, and you get:
Home run
1.55 runs
Triple
1.15 runs
Double
.. .79 runs
Single
.46 runs
Base on balls
. .25 runs
These numbers would be similar if you looked at R+RBI-HR. That is, a HR will score himself, plus 0.6 runners on base. A double would score himself .43 times, plus another .42 runners. A walk would score himself .26 times, plus .02 other runners on base (i.e, bases loaded).
This would be the first step towards understanding Linear Weights. Hard to believe it took so long before this finally took hold.
Posted 4:32 p.m.,
December 25, 2003
(#4) -
David Smyth
---"A sharp-minded man, this guy was."
You are making a sabermetrician's #1 error there--not stating your assumptions. You are obviously assuming that this guy is dead. What is the confidence interval for that?
Just kidding. :-)
Posted 7:34 p.m.,
December 25, 2003
(#5) -
Scoriano
Baseball Library does not show him to be dead yet.
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/L/Lane_FC.stm
:)
Lane wrote/compiled a very good book called Batting (I have a recent reprint), most of it quotes by players and other observers, but providing great insight into offensive attitudes of the era when Ruth was rewriting the record books. Unsuprisingly, much of the conventional wisdom of the day was not welcoming of the slugging approach take by Ruth.
Posted 11:00 p.m.,
December 25, 2003
(#6) -
Tangotiger
I particularly liked the approach that pitchers had already decided back then as the forerunner to dips: don't walk the batter, and take your chances with them hitting it to your fielders. Jamie Moyer and David Wells would have fit in perfectly back then.