Intentional Inexorability

Hello all--

Here are some quick updates on the progress I've made with the site in the last week or so, before I try to meet my 3 a.m. bedtime:

1. The 2001 stats got added to the site on Saturday night. It turns out that Barry Bonds led the majors that year with a massive 890 Bases Produced.

I'm pretty sure that I knew that, once upon a time, before I deleted the 2001 stats from the web page in the summer of 2003. It only remains to be seen whether or not Todd Helton really did crack the 900 BP barrier in 2000. I'm pretty sure I used to know that, too, before I deleted the 2000 stats from the site in the Spring of 2001, to make room for the 2001 stats. I won't really know for what anyone did, way back then, though, until this weekend. I'll keep you updated.

2. I've made more progress in creating a web interface that can automatically display season leaders in each statistical category. Try out the following link to give the current system a try. It only works for the first few rows of offensive stats right now, but it's still a lot of fun. Check out the league leaders in Hit by Pitch Percentage since 2001:

Year Name Team HBPPCT HBP BBPA
2001 Craig Biggio hou 0.039 28 716
2002 David Eckstein ana 0.039 27 687
2003 Jason Kendall pit 0.038 25 659
2004 Craig Wilson pit 0.047 30 644
2005 Jason Giambi nyy 0.035 19 545
2006 Reed Johnson tor 0.041 21 514

3. I got an interesting e-mail today from a Paul Tagliaferro, in Pittsfield, Mass. It seems that he's independently developed the basic concept of bases produced--with a few minor modifications--and was somehow referred to my site by Gary Hardegree, who did something similar about a year and a half ago. He even wrote to Bill James to tell him about it. :-)

Our numbers are growing. And I mean that in every way possible. :-)

Until next time,
Steve

Brave New World

Hey all--

I'm trying out a new blog format so that I can post new Bases Produced happenings to the world at large a little more efficiently. You can let me know what you think by posting comments to this site, among other things.

Anyhow. This is an exciting time to be alive. After failing to get the tenure-track job at the U of I , I got down in the dumps over winter break, but then I got myself out by finally sitting down and trying to convert Retrosheet play-by-play data into the natural language play-by-play descriptions that my stat tabulators can handle. It was remarkably easy to do so; I think it took me about a week to set up the conversion script. There are usually a few problems in each game that I have to fix by hand (annoyingly, retrosheet does not specify which bases are produced by errors after a base hit or out on a ball put into play), but I can apparently take care of an entire season's worth of those problems in about a weekend's worth of time.

Long story short, I was able to parse the play-by-play data for the 2002 season last weekend, and then I figured out how to post it all to the database on Friday night. It's tremendously cool. You can expect more seasons to be forthcoming throughout the rest of the semester. Ideally, I could get 15 or so done by the beginning of May. In reality, my goal is to get through the 1998 season, which is the year for which I first tried to create Bases Produced stats, nearly a decade ago. I've never succeeded in doing so, however.

Anyhow. That's one exciting news item. The other is that I figured out how to make year-by-year leader pages for particular stats. Here's an example for the Major League leaders in Bases Produced, since 2002:

Bases Produced Leaders

Allright. The external world is calling, but hopefully I will be able to post more later. I still have to tell you all about Chuck Wepner.

Until next time,
Steve