Deadspin: computer nerds

It's A Freebie Week At Baseball Prospectus

Leitch — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 18:11:22 EDT

If you're not already a subscriber — we are, because it's a tax writeoff, baby — you can check out the Baseball Prospectus merchandise for free over the next week and a half. (The highlight of Sweeps Week is, of course, a chat with A's general manager Billy Beane).

We've always wondered if the BP guys make money for their work over there. We mean, we know they get paid; we just wonder how much they actually get for it. So let's take a look. A premium subscription for BP goes for $34.95. If you buy the book, it's $12.21 on Amazon right now. The book credits 16 authors; let's call them their primary employees. So if you buy the top subscription you can buy AND you buy the book, you're spending $47.16, or $2.94 a person. (And that's not even counting printing and computer costs.) So they need about, oh, 25,000 people to buy both. That doesn't seem too unreasonable, does it? Free week? Of course: These dudes must be rich! Those nerds, they're so good with money.

Baseball Prospectus [Official Site]

Those Partying Sabremetricians

Leitch — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 17:33:08 EDT

Now, we're not saying that the sainted members of the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) are complete dorks or anything, but witness these earth-scorching quotes from their announcement that the 2006 SABR convention will be held in Seattle.

"This year, our convention is in Toronto and we'll have 32 research presentations."
"Just last week we had a member change our records on homers from Mike Grady, who played in the 1890s and the early 20th century. He looked through old box scores using the ProQuest Historical Newspapers program and could not find the homer for Grady in 1906 we had credited him with. We had an error and we changed it."

Boy, is the Seattle prostitution business ever gonna be busy that week.

A Slice Of Seamhead Heaven [Seattle Times]
SABR.org [Official Site]

Proving Once Again: Best-Selling Authors Are Morons

Leitch — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 12:21:44 EDT

The book Freakonomics has become a mammoth bestseller, with its askew looks on just about every measure of economic analysis. As would have to inevitably happen, one of those askew looks ended up landing on baseball, specifically Michael Lewis' own bestseller Moneyball and the Oakland A's. Author Stephen A. Levitt claimed, in a blog post in April, that the Moneyball principle was a fraud and that the A's were destined to finish under .500 this year.

Well, the A's, after collapsing at the beginning of the year, are now the hottest team in baseball and currently have the wild-card lead. Levitt, sheepishly, addresses the issue on the Freakonomics blog:

To all the Billy Beane fans I offended earlier this season:
I have noticed that the A's are now three games above .500.

I'm too busy with other stuff to even try to say something intelligent about baseball right now. Plus my fragile psyche can't take anymore of the kind of abuse that baseball fans hand out.

Boy, do we know how he feels ...

Oakland A's Are Three Games Above .500 [Freakonomics]
Do The Freak [Baseball Musings]

Clemens Sets Nerd Stat Record

Leitch — Tue, 31 May 2005 11:53:02 EDT

If the sabermetric nerds ran the planet, Roger Clemens would have been carried off the Minute Maid Park field last night. In a 9-0 loss to the Reds, Clemens, according to The Hardball Times' Lee Sinins, set the all-time record in the RSAA (Runs Saved Against Average) statistic. What does that mean? We're not sure, actually. We read an explanation of it once, but we saw a squirrel out our window and kind of droned off. But anyway, Clemens passed Lefty Grove last night for the all-time RSAA title. So there you go, you dorks.

Clemens Sets All-Time RSAA Record [The Hardball Times]
Astros Shut Out Again [Astros Daily]

And You Thought The Baseball Prospectus Guys Were Nerdy

Leitch — Thu, 26 May 2005 12:50:49 EDT

Because cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's and Robin Williams have all been cured, scientists are now tackling the big issues: How To Hit A Baseball. (Because you know these dorks were cut from the tee-ball team.) In an article in American Scientist magazine, three eggheads explain the physics of baseball, specifically in regard to the extreme difficult of hitting a 95-mph fastball. It's actually a fascinating piece, particularly its conclusion:

In conclusion, the pitcher should use a four-seam grip for fastballs and curveballs to remove the perceptual clue of the two red stripes and the flicker. Then, he should use the two-seam grip for the slider, to remove the clue of the red dot. These techniques could make a fearsome pitcher even more difficult to hit. But if you're in luck, he hasn't read this article.

In other words: Ball Fast! Hard To Smash Ball!

Predicting A Baseball's Path [American Scientist]

Baseball Prospectus Nerds Make Our Head Explode

Leitch — Tue, 24 May 2005 12:59:57 EDT

We love the Baseball Prospectus guys. They're fun, they're smart, they're scrappy and they're usually right. But sometimes they exhaust us. In a story about the offensive explosion of the last decade (subscription required), they produce the above graph.

We dumb. Brains hurt. They're still talking about baseball, right?

Crooked Numbers [Baseball Prospectus] (subscription required)

Carlos Zambrano's Internet Addiction

Leitch — Mon, 23 May 2005 09:12:42 EDT

It's a shame the Chicago Sun-Times had to go and ruin all our fun; they've refuted the story that Carlos Zambrano's recent injury woes were due to too much time on the computer. The Cubs say that Zambrano's injury is not carpal tunnel syndrome, though they admit they did ask him to spend less time online. Zambrano reportedly spends his computer time talking to his brother, or, as we called it in junior high, "talking to his brother." According to reports, Zambrano spends four or five hours a day typing on the computer, which, um, is, totally bad, right?

Somehow you get a feeling that the nerds at Baseball Prospectus will find some sort of anti-computer conspiracy in this.

Bum Report: Zambrano Doesn't Have Carpal Tunnel [Chicago Sun-Times]
Zambrano's Mystery Injury Computes [Northwest Herald]