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

by Adler, Joseph

• ISBN13: 9780596009427
• ISBN10: 0596009429
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-01
• Publisher: Oreilly & Associates Inc

Summary

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..

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

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