Category Archives: Sports

THE OLDEST ROTISSERIE LEAGUE HOLDS ITS 35TH DRAFT TODAY. Our draft this year occurs Later today—after Opening Day, with the statistics being effective back to Opening Day. Our draft has been held after Opening Day more often than not. I … Continue reading →

A WHORFIAN COMES TO BASEBALL. I have posted a number of times about Whorfianism and posted here on my own Whorfian tendencies, so I was pleased to see Ken Arneson begin his article on pitch sequences with what he calls … Continue reading →

THE NEED FOR STATISTICS WHICH DEAL WITH PITCH SEQUENCES. Pitch sequencing affects the batter’s expectations for the next pitch as they are formed by both his conscious system and his unconscious system. Arneson says: “Pitch sequencing…is at the heart of… … Continue reading →

THE IMPORTANCE OF PITCH SEQUENCES. Nick called my attention to this article on pitch sequencing by Ken Arneson from 2014 which Nick had seen recommended several times. Pitchers and hitters talk about pitch sequences a great deal but analysts (sabermatricians) … Continue reading →

SIGNALING IN BASEBALL IS MORE SOPHISTICATED THAN ILLEGAL SIGNALING IN BRIDGE. Yesterday’s post described the illegal system used in 1965 in which two partners “were discovered using finger signals—clutching their cards variously with two, three, or four fingers, with an … Continue reading →

WHAT SABERMETRICS CAN DO IN 2016. I posted here two years ago about what changes were expected in the statistical analysis of baseball from the arrival of big data. This article by David Schoenfield on the ESPN site reports on … Continue reading →