The book “Moneyball” chronicles how Billy Beane used certain batting statistics to build the low budget Oakland Athletics into a contender in the early 2000s. With the help of Paul Depodesta he showed that on-base percentage (OBP) was much more valuable for run production than batting average. Concentrating on a player’s OBP and ability to …
In the good old days of the 50s, 60s I remember watching such baseball managers as Casey Stengel, Leo Durocher and Billy Martin. In those days the manager ruled his team as a dictator with absolute power. Even a super star like Mickey Mantle feared Casey Stengel. When Mickey stayed out all night before a …
This January I gave similar talks at both the Math Conference in Seattle Washington and at the Kiwanis Club of Naples on the Gulf. Both talks discussed my philosophy of teaching. That is, the teaching of any subject matter is more successful for the teacher and more enjoyable for the student if the student both …
Sabermetrics is derived from the acronym SABR used for the Society of American Baseball Research. Sabermetrics is the science that uses baseball data to form statistics allowing baseball people to make objective baseball decisions. In the past most general managers just followed what previous general managers did in making crucial decisions. However, as the amount …
In Michael Lewis’ book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, he chronicles how Billy Beane, the long-time GM of Oakland, a small budget team, had to resort to unusual tactics to make Oakland competitive. One of these strategies was to just stay within reach of making the playoffs for the first half of the …
In my previous blog I decided to focus on Derek Jeter’s hitting and base-running statistics. I created Table 1 below which I called the Sum of Ranks Table. This table compared Derek Jeter to the 22 Hall of Fame shortstops who played at least 1500 games. The statistics I chose are the regular season career …
After retiring in 2001 as an active player, Rico spent a short time figuring out what a 32 year old retired ballplayer will do with the rest of his life. He continued his connection to Major League Baseball scouting for such teams as the Rays, Rockies, and Diamondbacks. He returned to his roots and coached …
In teaching my Baseball and Statistics course at Quinnipiac University, besides using my bookSandlot Stats,I require my students to read the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis. The book describes how Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletics general manager, navigated his team through the 2002 season. In that season, Oakland finished first in the American League West with a …