THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Any shot at a webstream of this?

It’s 10am to noon.  And apparently, the “4” in the number refers to the building number. http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the time.  Thanks Mike.  I have no idea about web streaming.  Not that I am trying to discourage anyone from attending (the more the merrier), but it is a class for young people, so consequently, we will be discussing things that most of our blog readers already know.  The question and answer session at the end will be open to anyone so that might be interesting.

I did not mean to imply that the entire class was not open to everyone.  It is.  I meant that all attendees, and not just the students, are welcome to ask questions during the Q&A.

Do any of the classes ever come down to the Atlanta area?

I’d be willing to miss a day of high school for this.

I think this is a Boston area thing for local high school and middle school kids. I am not sure of the details.  You’d have to ask Chuck.

Hopefully there are some future GM’s in the class.

I don’t think we’ll be able to webstream this class, but we’ll look into options for streaming the next public class, where we’ll have a scout talking about, well, scouting.

It’s a good group of students - most of them have had basically no exposure with statistics more complex than OPS, but by the end of the first class we had them understanding why and how we measure things in runs.  They even “discovered” the importance of positional scarcity on their own.  I was impressed with how quickly they grasped concepts.

Edit:  If the class is large (over 57 or so), it might be moved to room 4-370.  And remember that the “4” is the building #.

Had a good time guys, thanks!

By far, the best moment of the day: David wrapping up an hour of pitching metrics talk, from W to ERA to DIPS and FIP.  A graphic up on the projector showing the top 5 guys with the biggest difference between ERA and FIP - the guys likely to improve their ERA as the season goes on.  And the question from one of the middle schoolers: “Is lower FIP better or is higher better?” It was like a sitcom moment

Lots of fun meeting you guys, I’m really glad I went.  Hope you enjoyed the ballgame after.

How big was the turnout for the classes so far?

There were around 30-40 people at this class, though I don’t think more than 10 were actual students. I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout—thanks to everyone who came out, I had a blast meeting you!

Pelfrey pitched a gem tonight, mgl!

How does someone go about becoming a GM?

Yes, he did (Pelfrey).  Is that 6 wins in a row for him?

How does someone go about becoming a GM?

Paint yourself green and sneak into Fenway Park at night?

MGL--

I didn’t see the talk, but I feel compelled to mention this. I felt so proud of myself tonight when I quoted 3 years worth of statistics (albeit un-regressed stats) in an argument about Greg Maddux, and I also inverted (inversed?) the ERA+ numbers before averaging them (although I didn’t feel like weighting them by IP).

Pelfrey has added a 4-seam fastball to go with the sinker.  It’s made all the difference in the world.  His K rate has gone up, his BB rate down....he looks like a totally different pitcher.  I do wonder how effective someone can be throwing an extremely percentage of fastballs compared to other pitchers.