Baseball Hacks : Tips and Tools for Analyzing

Baseball is the ultimate statistical game. There are millions of variables which is why fantasy baseball is so popular, not only among devoted baseball fans, but those who love data and statistical probability. Baseball Hacks shows fantasy baseball fanatics-and those who love the game-how to get data, process it, and use it to truly understand baseball. This book lists a number of sources for current and historical baseball data, and explains how to load it into a database for analysis. It then introduces several powerful statistical tools for understanding data and forecasting results. The book also explores a number of classic problems about baseball..

Joseph Adler has years of experience working with lots of popular data mining packages, including databases (including Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MS Access), statistical analysis tools (SAS, SPSS, S-Plus, and R), and data mining tools (SAS Enterprise Miner, Insightful Miner, Oracle Data Mining, Weka, and SPSS Clementine). He is currently leading a project at Verisign to pick a data mining package for enterprise deployment.

Credits

ix

Preface

xiii

Chapter 1. Basics of Baseball

1

(38)

1. Score a Baseball Game

4

(8)

2. Make a Box Score from a Score Sheet

12

(7)

3. Keep Score, Project Scoresheet—Style

19

(7)

4. Follow Pitches During a Game

26

(5)

5. Follow the Game Online

31

(2)

6. Add Baseball Searches to Firefox

33

(3)

7. Find Images of Stadiums

36

(3)

Chapter 2. Baseball Games from Past Years

39

(75)

8. Get and Install MySQL

40

(6)

9. Get an Access Database of Player and Team Statistics

46

(3)

10. Get a MySQL Database of Player and Team Statistics

49

(5)

11. Make Your Own Stats Book

54

(10)

12. Get Perl

64

(3)

13. Learn Perl

67

(7)

14. Get Historical Play-by-Play Data

74

(4)

15. Make Box Scores or Database Tables from Play-by-Play Data with Retrosheet Tools

78

(6)

16. Use SQL to Explore Game Data

84

(8)

17. Use Microsoft Access to Run SQL Queries

92

(2)

18. Get a GUI for MySQL

94

(3)

19. Move Data from a Database to Excel

97

(3)

20. Load Baseball Data into MySQL

100

(5)

21. Load Retrosheet Game Logs

105

(2)

22. Make a Historical Play-by-Play Database

107

(4)

23. Use Regular Expressions to Identify Events

111

(3)

Chapter 3. Stats from the Current Season

114

(44)

24. Use Microsoft Excel Web Queries to Get Stats

114

(7)

25. Spider Baseball Sites for Data

121

(6)

26. Discover How Live Score Applications Work

127

(4)

27. Keep Your Stats Database Up-to-Date

131

(11)

28. Get Recent Play-by-Play Data

142

(9)

29. Find Data on Hit Locations

151

(7)

Chapter 4. Visualize Baseball Statistics

158

(52)

30. Plot Histograms in Excel

158

(4)

31. Get R and R Packages

162

(2)

32. Analyze Baseball with R

164

(6)

33. Access Databases Directly from Excel or R

170

(10)

34. Load Text Files into R

180

(2)

35. Compare Teams and Players with Lattices

182

(3)

36. Compare Teams Using Chernoff Faces

185

(3)

37. Plot Spray Charts

188

(5)

38. Chart Team Stats in Real Time

193

(7)

39. Slice and Dice Teams with Cubes

200

(10)

Chapter 5. Formulas

210

(100)

40. Measure Batting with Batting Average

213

(8)

41. Measure Batting with On-Base Percentage

221

(3)

42. Measure Batting with SLG

224

(3)

43. Measure Batting with OPS

227

(3)

44. Measure Power with ISO

230

(4)

45. Measure Batting with Runs Created

234

(4)

46. Measure Batting with Linear Weights

238

(8)

47. Measure Pitching with ERA

246

(5)

48. Measure Pitching with WHIP

251

(2)

49. Measure Pitching with Linear Weights

253

(4)

50. Measure Defense with Defensive Efficiency

257

(3)

51. Measure Pitching with DIPS

260

(6)

52. Measure Base Running Through EqBR

266

(5)

53. Measure Fielding with Fielding Percentage

271

(2)

54. Measure Fielding with Range Factor

273

(8)

55. Measure Fielding with Linear Weights

281

(7)

56. Measure Park Effects

288

(7)

57. Calculate Fan Save Value

295

(5)

58. Calculate Save Value

300

(5)

59. Calculate Holds and Decent Holds for Relief Pitchers

305

(5)

Chapter 6. Sabermetric Thinking

310

(100)

60. Calculate Expected Runs

311

(10)

61. Calculate an Expected Hits Matrix

321

(8)

62. Look for Evidence of Platoon Effects

329

(3)

63. Significant Number of At Bats

332

(10)

64. Find "Clutch" Players

342

(6)

65. Calculate Expected Number of Wins

348

(4)

66. Measure Hits by Pitch Count

352

(9)

67. OBP, SLG, and Scoring Runs

361

(4)

68. Measure Skill Versus Luck

365

(12)

69. Odds of the Best Team Winning the World Series

377

(7)

70. Top 10 Bargain Outfielders

384

(16)

71. Fitting Game Scores to a Strength Model

400

(10)

Chapter 7. The Bullpen

410

(21)

72. Start or Join a Fantasy League

410

(6)

73. Draft Your Fantasy Team

416

(3)

74. Make a Scoreboard Widget

419

(9)

75. Analyze Other Sports

428

(3)

Appendix A. Where to Learn More Stuff

431

(5)

Appendix B. Abbreviations

436

(3)

Index

439

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Baseball Hacks : Tips and Tools for Analyzing and Winning with Statistics

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials