Tag Archives: Stats

Roundshaw Hop: Avoiding infamy

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Roundshaw-Hop-(128x128)Yesterday I was reading in The Great American Novel about the record-breaking exploits of the woeful Ruppert Mundys, a team that finishes with an abysmal 34-120 record in the 1943 season of Philip Roth’s fictional Patriot League. It set me thinking about what undesirable records the Croydon Pirates might be on pace to break in the 2009 National Baseball League season.

I have compared southern top-tier teams across the last nine seasons in four statistical categories, each of which can give us an indication of how overmatched a team was (averaging across the players) in a particular season. This is what I found. Continue reading →

An early-season look at NBL stats

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Measured against MLB standards, the sample sizes for statistical categories are very small in British baseball even by the end of the season, so there is not much point exploring the early-season stats in any great depth, with not even a third of the schedule completed. Therefore, the focus of the piece is on career stats and feats. Continue reading →

Roundshaw Hop: The name remains the same (for now)

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Roundshaw-Hop-(128x128)Croydon managed to get nine players out for their double-header at home to Richmond on Sunday, which means that “Roundshaw Hop” can stay as the name of this column for now. However, the Pirates’ performance was dismal, with the 29 walks they issued over 10 innings being perhaps the best single statistic to sum this up.

The team comprised a couple of stand-outs and a handful of other players who were not out of their depth, but the line-up was rounded off with a few players who would struggle to get into some single-A starting IXs in the British league. It is a real shame that the Pirates’ troubles are currently overshadowing what is otherwise a league with pleasing competitive balance (the Falcons’ split with the Blazers in the other double-header on Sunday further exemplifies this).

The Richmond-Croydon scorelines of 20-4 and 17-4 in two five-inning slaughters could have been much worse were it not for baseball’s etiquette of easing up. They offered very little entertainment value. Of course, with baseball, there is always something that can be rescued from an otherwise dull game. For me, it was the base-stealing of Richmond’s Robbie Unsell.

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Full article: Comparing the quality of the 2008 National Baseball League against other seasons and other leagues

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articlesSummary
In this article I present a method for comparing the quality of baseball across different leagues or different seasons, based on four factors that contribute to the quality of baseball from the perspective of a spectator. I then use the method to compare the National Baseball League season of 2008 against other country’s leagues and against other British seasons.

Access the PDF: Click here

Please leave comments on the article below.

NBL South stats update

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As mentioned in my last game report from 2008 before the National Finals, this coming weekend sees the autumn-heralding curtain come down once more on the regular season in the NBL South, as Richmond travel to Bracknell for a double-header. Players from the two teams have one last chance to improve (or spoil) their season statistics. Many categories are one stitch short of being sewn up, but a handful are still yet to be decided. Full sortable stats can be downloaded by right clicking here and choosing “Save Target As…”. Continue reading →