RELATIVITY and NORMALIZATION What Is It?
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RELATIVITY AND NORMALIZATION What is it? • Relativity and Normalization can be used when making comparisons between and among players, teams and eras. • Helps “level the playing field” when comparing stats • Can help determine whether it was “more difficult” for Babe Ruth to hit home runs in the 1920s, or Sammy Sosa to hit home runs in the 1990s. • Transforms raw statistics into a new number, up to four decimal places. Example • Ralph Kiner, of the Pirates, in 1947: • Kiner hit 51 HR in 565 at-bats, for an HR to at-bat ratio of 51/565 = .0903 • Shows that he hit about 9 HR for every 100 at-bats, normally • In the Major Leagues in 1947: All players on the 16 teams hit a total of 1,565 home runs in 84,436 at-bats. What is the ratio? • 1565/84436 = .0185, or showing the “average” player hit slightly less than 2 HR per 100 at-bats • To find the normalization number, divide Kiner’s number by the overall number • .0903/.0185 = 4.8689 Interpretation • How do we interpret the normalization number? • One possibility is that Kiner was nearly 5 times better than the the average home run hitter of 1947. • By figuring these out for certain statistics, you can compare players from different eras — or even narrowing down between the AL and the NL. Demonstrating Sabermetrics • In 1928, Hall of Famer Heinie Manush had a slugging percentage of .575. If the slugging percentage of the AL was .397, find his normalized ratio and give an interpretation to this number. • .575/.397 = 1.4484 • Manush was nearly 45 percent better than the average AL hitter in 1928. • Generally, any normalized offensive number greater than 1 means the player was better than the average player. Below 1 means below average, and 1 means average. Demonstrating Sabermetrics • At the end of the 1959 season, the AL HR leader, Rocky Colavito of the Indians, was traded for the AL batting champion, Harvey Kuenn, of the Detroit Tigers. Compare their relative performances using normalization, given the following information: (1) Kuenn had an avg. of .353, while the league batted .253; (2) Colavito had 42 HR in 588 At- Bats, while the league had 1,091 HR in 41,964 at-bats. • Kuenn’s normalization: .353/.253 = 1.3953 • Colavito’s: 42/588 = .0713; League: 1091/41964 = .0260. Dividing .0713/.0260 = 2.7462 • Can any conclusions be drawn from comparing these numbers? Demonstrating Sabermetrics • Hall of Famers Walter Johnson, Bob Feller, Juan Marichal and Bob Gibson were all right-handed pitching aces for their teams. Compare their relative ERA to league ERA: Year Player ERA League ERA 1913 Johnson 1.14 2.93 1940 Feller 2.61 4.38 1966 Marichal 2.23 3.60 1968 Gibson 1.12 2.99 Pitching cont. • If we compare the individual ERA to the league ERA, then the lower ratio is the better ratio: • Johnson (.3891); Feller (.5959); Marichal (.6194); Gibson (.3746) • You could go the other direction, as well, dividing the league ERA by the individual ERA: • Johnson (2.5702); Feller (1.6782); Marichal (1.6144); Gibson (2.6696) • The second method shows that Johnson and Gibson were better than two-and-a-half times the average pitcher. .