Out on the Road Today - a World Champions 2004 Sticker on a Cadillac
A friend of mine recently told me she's thinking of making her move on a young man who happens to be a transplanted Boston native. Like any good New Englander, I informed/reminded her that young ladies wearing Red Sox hats are 20% hotter, perhaps even more so if they know Tim Wakefield's signature pitch, which player best personifies "clutch," and who won the 2003 batting title. She seems to be on board, so if the guy continues to be worth it I think she'll be all set.
That's what I thought of when I heard about a new statistic: chicks who like the Red Sox are hot. I know it's unfair and vaguely sexist for me to draw that conclusion when a young lady from Connecticut comes up with a simple and effective pitching stat called Bases per Batter (BpB). On the flipside though, it's rare to find chicks who are into baseball statistics, and rarer still when someone of either gender creates an interesting new one. As 12eight suggests, new stats come up all the time, but useful new stats are pretty rare.
In any case, BpB is pretty easy to understand: bases given up, divided by number of batters, and it comes out as a three-digit decimal that looks like batting average or OBP. (Here's a good post that uses some real examples.) I get the impression this is a recent formulation, i.e. it'll need a lot more fleshing out to see if it's a reliable indicator of anything. Still, Red Sox-loving ladies, hot new statistics, the Sox in first place and beautiful summer days. How lucky can you get?
Comments
1) What is that a picture of?
2) BpB seems like a fancy version on WHIP. Including SB in there is probably a mistake, since every Mets fan knows even the best pitcher can't hold runners with Piazza behind the plate.
Posted by: Matt | June 26, 2005 11:00 PM
As a dude who's a life-long Sox fan, and is friends with the girl in question, I have to say, her stats are real, and they're spectatcular...but she's taken.
Posted by: jere | June 27, 2005 1:26 AM
That's an interesting point you make about Piazza, Matt. That's why I've been keeping better track of the bases breakdown lately. Not only can we tell an awful lot about the pitcher from looking at that breakdown, but we can also see trends like this. Normally I believe the SB is a function of the pitcher's delivery time, but if you are right about Piazza, we would see a trend in the stolen bases of all Mets pitchers. (once we compile all that data, that is.)
Posted by: Rebecca | June 27, 2005 10:40 AM
wait a minute, you weren't supposed to actually READ this. didn't you see where I said it was vaguely sexist? oh well. still friends?
oh, and matt, that's what you see when you look out my window. I took it from the patio though. there's a pond just left of the center of the photo.
Posted by: Terry | June 27, 2005 9:10 PM
Piazza is having a horrible season throwing out runners; he's only thrown out only 5 runners in 52 steal attempts. I'd be interested to see how the Mets' pitchers compare to a pitching staff with a good defensive catcher. Also, if you don't mind, I have two questions about BpB.
1) If someone hits a single, and then the next batter hits a HR, do you count that as 5 bases, or do you count that as 8? That is, does it matter what the order of events is or is each batter treated independently?
2) Can you explain why you are including pitcher errors that result in a base runner? That isn't really a function of the pitcher's pitching ability, but his fielding ability.
Posted by: Matt | June 27, 2005 10:54 PM