Baseball Stats: It's Abacus Time!

One of the best parts of the baseball season is the stats. Fans and writers are obsessed over them. At the beginning of the year, fans struggle internally over whose stats warrant them being drafted on their fantasy team. By fall, the “who is the MVP?” debate is peppered with numbers. This stat fetish is somewhat unique to baseball. There are hints of it in football, but it’s not given the same slavish devotion. Over the course of the coming months, some “thoughtful” color guy will solemnly inform us that Alex Rodriguez is hitting .389 against left-handed managers on Tuesdays in Yankee Stadium and that those numbers put him “near the top of the league” in that category. God bless baseball.

In this spirit, I thought I’d point you towards this excellent piece on statistical analysis that’s on ESPN’s Page 2.