FRONTIERS IN BASEBALL STATISTICS.

FRONTIERS IN BASEBALL STATISTICS. Yesterday, I contrasted the dramatic improvements in the collection of baseball data and in the number and sophistication of the statistical analyses of that data with what seems to be much less study of data on different medical treatments. Baseball Prospectus is perhaps the best known of a number of internet sites devoted to this kind of analysis. Eric Seidman had a report in Baseball Prospectus on a recent conference of baseball executives and baseball analysts on new developments in the gathering of baseball information. Seidman links to this article by Alan Schwarz who says: “A new camera and software system in its final testing phases will record the exact speed and location of the ball and every player on the field, allowing the most digitized of sports to be overrun anew by hundreds of innovative statistics….” Seidman says that some of the new data will include information on “balls put in play based … on their speed off the bat and launch angle, the initial position of fielders and distance traveled….” Seidman links to this site for much more detail on the presentations at the conference.