Wizardry

Baseball's All-Time Greatest Fielders Revealed

Michael Humphreys (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

432 Seiten

2011
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
9780195397765 (ISBN)

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Michael Humphreys' metric for measureing defensive performance, Defensive Run Anaylsis (DRA), is the first to systematically rank and profile the greatest fielders at each position from throughout major league history.

Sabermetrics, the systematic analysis of baseball statistics, has evolved over time to resemble something of a science, attracting fans from diverse professional and educational backgrounds, all fascinated by both the analysis itself and the objective insights it provides into the game. Although fans and analysts have devoted exhaustive efforts to developing statistics that measure offensive performance, defensive metrics have historically been deemed too difficult to measure accurately and objectively.

In Wizardry: Baseball's All-Time Greatest Fielders Revealed, Michael Humphreys introduces a system that conclusively quantifies fielding statistics and compares player performance from as early as 1893 by estimating how many runs each fielder "saved" or "allowed." While a number of methods for analyzing defense have recently gained exposure, they rely on expensive proprietary data held by professional sports statistics companies and only capture information drawn from the contemporary era. Humphreys' method, Defensive Runs Analysis (DRA), makes unique use of free, open source data available to the average fan and incorporates equalizing historical factors to place players from different eras on equal footing. Wizardry is the first book to systematically rank and profile the greatest fielders at each position from throughout major league history. To frame and validate his results, the author tests DRA data against other well-known statistical measures and also presents an analysis of other defensive statistical metrics.

Casual fans with little mathematical background will appreciate Wizardry's accessible style while professional statisticians will value the opportunity to validate Humphreys' methodology and results. Given the topic and the author's presentation of the material, the book will draw in both the serious, baseball statistics audience and the average fan.

Michael Humphreys does international capital markets tax work at Ernst & Young LLP.

PREFACE; 1. THE BIG PICTURE; 2. ONE WAY TO MEASURE FIELDING; 3. MEASURING THE MANY MEASURES OF FIELDING; 4. SUMMING UP FIELDING CAREERS IN ONE NUMBER ... AND ATTACHING ASTERISKS THERETO; 5. PUTTING TOP PLAYERS FROM DIFFERENT ERAS ON 'EQUAL' FOOTING; 6. SHORTSTOP; 7. SECOND BASE; 8. CENTER FIELD; 9. THIRD BASE; 10. RIGHT FIELD; 11. LEFT FIELD; 12. FIRST BASE; 13. CATCHER; 14. (A SELECT FEW OF) BASEBALL'S ALL-TIME GREATEST PITCHERS; 15. INCORPORATING FIELDING RATINGS INTO OVERALL PLAYER RATINGS; 16. CONCLUSION; APPENDICES; A. DEFENSIVE REGRESSION ANALYSIS ("DRA"); B. NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF FIELDING ANALYSIS; C. CHART OF ALTERNATIVE FIELDING SYSTEMS; D. CAREER DRA RATINGS FOR ALL FIELDERS WITH 3,000 INNINGS OR ESTIMATED INNINGS AT ONE POSITION; E. SINGLE-SEASON DRA RATINGS FOR ALL FIELDERS SINCE 1893 (AVAILABLE BOOK'S WEBSITE); F. CERTAIN DATA USED TO DEVELOP DRA (AVAILABLE BOOK'S WEBSITE)

Erscheint lt. Verlag	31.3.2011
Zusatzinfo	50 line drawings
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	234 x 155 mm
Gewicht	610 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport ► Ballsport
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik
	Naturwissenschaften
ISBN-13	9780195397765 / 9780195397765
Zustand	Neuware