Deviating from the Past

Every baseball ranking—even those based on statistics—is biased in some way. It’s what makes practically every list debatable. For instance, take a list as fundamental as “hit leaders.” As a counting stat, a player’s hit total is impacted by his place in the batting order as well as his lineup’s offensive strength, two factors that […]

Measuring a Pitcher’s Ace Factor

Below is a statistical collection of the seasonal performances of every starting pitcher between 1950 and 2010. Each pitcher’s season, represented by a blue diamond, was measured by a calculation that didn’t consider any of the usual suspects typically used in measuring a pitcher’s effectiveness, such as ERA, strikeouts, WHIP, shutouts, or even ground ball percentages, contact […]