October, 1998
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By the Numbers Volume 8, Number 1 The Newsletter of the SABR Statistical Analysis Committee October, 1998 RSVP Phil Birnbaum, Editor Well, here we go again: if you want to continue to receive By the If you already replied to my September e-mail, you don’t need to Numbers, you’ll have to drop me a line to let me know. We’ve reply again. If you didn’t receive my September e-mail, it means asked this before, and I apologize if you’re getting tired of it, but that the committee has no e-mail address for you. If you do have there’s a good reason for it: our committee budget. an e-mail address but we don’t know about it, please let Neal Traven (our committee chair – see his remarks later this issue) Our budget is $500 per year. know, so that we can communicate with you more easily. Giving us your e-mail address does not register you to receive BTN by e- Our current committee member list numbers about 200. Of the mail. Unless you explicitly request that, I’ll continue to send 200 of us, 50 have agreed to accept delivery of this newsletter by BTN by regular mail. e-mail. That leaves 150 readers who need physical copies of BTN. At four issues a year, that’s 600 mailings, and there’s no As our 1998 budget has not been touched until now, we have way to do 600 photocopyings and mailings for $500. sufficient funds left over for one more full issue this year. But whether that issue gets published depends on whether we get In the worst case, we’ll enough article start asking for a little submissions. I bit of extra money. But have we might not need to. In this issue corresponded If, for instance, 50 with a few of more of us switch to an RSVP ......................................................................Phil Birnbaum.................... 1 you who have e-mail subscription, Editor’s Comments ...............................................Phil Birnbaum.................... 2 told me that and 25 are no longer Committee News ....................................................Neal Traven........................ 3 you’re working interested in receiving A Flaw in the “Big Bad Baseball Annual” .............Clem Comly ....................... 4 on preparing BTN, that leaves only A Leadoff Hitter Rating System .............................Bill Felber .......................... 5 submissions for 75 paper subscribers, Runs, Earned Runs, and Adjusted Runs ................Doug Pappas ...................... 8 BTN; I hope which just fits into our Speed and Opposition Errors .................................Dan Levitt ........................ 11 you’ll have a $500 budget. Offensive Replacement Levels ...............................Clifford Blau .................... 13 chance to get August on SABR-L ................................................Phil Birnbaum.................. 15 them to me by And so: apologies December, so again, but if you want we can get to keep on receiving another BTN BTN – and I know out the door in that’s most of you – please let me know. I know it’s ’98. inconvenient, and I know you’ve been asked this before, and I know you’re probably frustrated that BTN isn’t published as Thanks for your patience. Welcome to BTN, and I hope you much as you’d like, but those potential 25 dropouts and 50 e- enjoy this issue. mail recipients are critical to our budget, and I just need a quick note or e-mail for you to say you’re not one of them. All I need You can e-mail me at [email protected]. Or, you can write is your name and a “yes.” me at #608-18 Deerfield Dr., Nepean, Ontario, Canada, K2G 4L1. ♦ By The Numbers, October, 1998 Page 1 Editor’s Comments Phil Birnbaum Sabermetrics doesn’t have much of a would be active in the field? If anyone public profile. You won’t find should be keeping tabs on what’s And if it’s you doing the research, by all “Sabermetric Weekly” next to The happening in baseball analysis, it means, send it along. Ever since the Sporting News on your local newsstand, should be us. If you call the American demise of the Baseball Analyst in the or “This Week in Baseball Statistics” on Medical Association, and they have a late 80s, sabermetrics has had no ESPN. You won’t even find a Cancer Research Chapter, wouldn’t you journal, no place for us to take our sabermetric column in Baseball Weekly, expect them to know something, as an research to share with the sabermetric a publication devoted to baseball organization, about what’s been community. Though officially termed a fanatics, and I’d bet that the phrase happening in cancer research? “newsletter,” I’d like to see BTN take “linear weights” has never appeared in over as the Journal of sabermetrics. your local newspaper. But if someone came to be, as a member We’ve tried serving that purpose in fits of our committee, and asked me what’s and starts, but the constant committee Nobody cares about sabermetrics– new in the field, I wouldn’t be able to turnover and inconsistent publication except us. And that’s why I think it’s answer. dates have hurt us immensely. so important that this newsletter be Speaking personally, I have research active in the field. There’s a lot happening in sabermetric papers I wrote ten years ago looking for research, I’m sure. I’ve seen some very a place to publish, and one paper I sent Heard any interesting developments in nice research-oriented websites; there to BTN several years ago is long lost. I baseball analysis lately? I haven’t, and are baseball annuals, many of them have done close to zero over the past I’d bet most of you haven’t either. And home-published, that come out every while–why spend the time if nobody that’s a problem. year, and, less formally, there are seems to be interested?–and I can’t be informative postings to internet the only one in that situation. I hope we Suppose you’re a reporter, or a baseball newsgroups and our very own SABR-L. start getting some of our members’ researcher, or just a baseball fan who research in here. stumbled across a Bill James or Pete Let’s start keeping track of this stuff. Palmer book in your local library. Your To that end, I promise a deal: if you do interest piqued, you want to find out When a new movie comes out, you the research, I promise that BTN will be more. What’s the state of the science? expect to find a review in Entertainment a reliable place to get it reviewed and What’s new in sabermetrics? The field Weekly. When a new sports car is built, published. must have advanced quite a bit since you expect an article in Car and Driver. Craig Wright’s book came out, mustn’t And if there’s new sabermetric work It takes more than me and my computer, it? What does the world know about happening, this committee should of course–it takes articles, and those are baseball that it didn’t know back in expect it to hear about it in By the by no means guaranteed. Back in the 1988, or 1991, or even last month? Numbers. last days of the Baseball Analyst, publication was spotty because of a lack Where would you go to find out? To And so, a request: if you see new of submissions, and it would be us, of course. I mean, if you wanted to research, or a new book, or an foolishly optimistic to think that more know the state of sabermetrics, interesting internet posting, and if you members would want to send articles to wouldn’t your first stop be the Society learned something from it, let us know. me than to Bill James. But you never for American Baseball Research? Even better: summarize it for us, or know. There might possibly be a five- Wouldn’t you think that perhaps the write a review, or a letter of criticism. year backlog of frustrated members out Statistical Analysis Committee for the But at the very least, drop me a line to there, and I hope you’ll consider BTN Society for American Baseball Research let us know it’s out there. as a place to submit your research. Phil Birnbaum, 18 Deerfield Dr. #608, Nepean, Ontario, Canada, K2G 4L1; [email protected] ♦ By The Numbers, October, 1998 Page 2 Committee News Neal Traven, Committee Chair Welcome back to By The Numbers. It's areas of research being pursued by the been far too long since the last issue of Clem Comly now has an email address– attendees, punctuated by impromptu our newsletter, an absence that I take [email protected]. digressions into the subject matter itself. full blame for. To address that Several of the research presentations deficiency, and to get committee news All of my contact information is now given during the convention also and views out to you on a more regular different from what's in the SABR became brief discussion topics during basis, I've decided to accept Phil Directory, and from what's in the list of the committee meeting. Birnbaum's offer to become the editor committee chairs in the September- of BTN. As Phil put it himself, this October 1998 SABR Bulletin. They do Perhaps the most valuable item at the way I'll have someone to fire if the have my correct info in their mailing list SAC meeting came from SABR newsletter doesn't get published! and on SABR-L, but not in the place Publications Director Mark Alvarez.