{"id":2742,"date":"2009-05-05T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2009-05-05T06:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=2742"},"modified":"2010-04-02T15:34:04","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T14:34:04","slug":"joes-web-pick-of-the-month-may-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=2742","title":{"rendered":"Joe’s Web Pick of the Month: May 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

After starting this new monthly feature for BaseballGB<\/em> with a British site (www.britishbaseballdata.co.uk<\/a>) in April, I\u00c2\u00a0make the inevitable\u00c2\u00a0Stateside move with the second instalment. With so many to choose from,\u00c2\u00a0what will\u00c2\u00a0my first US site be? There are several fascinating sites I have come across “off the beaten track” in recent years, but they are normally run as hobbies and so there is no guarantee that they will continue to be maintained. I was very disappointed, for instance, when updating of the Hitting Streak Blog<\/a> ended in November 2007 after only a few months. It’s fantastic\u00c2\u00a0when someone finds their own niche in baseball, such as hitting streaks,\u00c2\u00a0and then sets about\u00c2\u00a0informing the\u00c2\u00a0world\u00c2\u00a0on it.<\/p>\n

Another niche site that I have enjoyed – and that is still updated – is this month’s web pick.<\/p>\n


\nHit Tracker (<\/strong>click here to open the site in a new window<\/strong><\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The main premise of Hit Tracker<\/em> is as follows:<\/p>\n

When a batter hits a long home run, people want to know how far it traveled. Unfortunately, in the past it has been difficult to determine this distance with accuracy when the ball does not complete its trajectory all the way to the ground, i.e. when it strikes a light tower or other tall structure, or even when it lands in outfield seats that are elevated above field level. Hit Tracker determines the true distance a home run travels by recreating the precise trajectory the ball followed during flight, and extending that trajectory all the way back to field level to allow \u00e2\u20ac\u0153measurement\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the home run.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The distances of Major League home runs\u00c2\u00a0are calculated using a spreadsheet built by Greg Rybarczyk, a baseball enthusiast with a very\u00c2\u00a0impressive engineering background. The\u00c2\u00a0spreadsheet\u00c2\u00a0combines atmospheric data (such as wind speed and altitude) with the location and timing of a point near the end of the home run’s trajectory, and then establishes what the initial speed and direction of the hit ball would have been through an advanced form of trial an error. Once these\u00c2\u00a0factors have been determined, the\u00c2\u00a0full trajectory of the home run can be plotted, which\u00c2\u00a0includes how far the ball would have travelled had an\u00c2\u00a0obstacle not interrupted its flight.<\/p>\n

The\u00c2\u00a0length of\u00c2\u00a0a home run had it\u00c2\u00a0returned\u00c2\u00a0to field level\u00c2\u00a0uninterrupted\u00c2\u00a0is referred to as the “true distance” on the website. In addition,\u00c2\u00a0a “standard distance” is also presented for each home run hit, which is the same as the true difference, except it is corrected for atmospheric conditions. These and other stats are presented in a sortable format going back to 2006 (there are a few home runs from 2005 as well).<\/p>\n

There’s plenty more to explore on the site, and I will leave some surprises for you. I hope you will find enough to\u00c2\u00a0decide that\u00c2\u00a0the site is worth a bookmark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After starting this new monthly feature for BaseballGB with a British site (www.britishbaseballdata.co.uk) in April, I\u00c2\u00a0make the inevitable\u00c2\u00a0Stateside move with the second instalment. With so many to choose from,\u00c2\u00a0what will\u00c2\u00a0my first US site be? There are several fascinating sites I have come across “off the beaten track” in recent years, but they are normally run […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553,86],"class_list":["post-2742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2","tag-web-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2742"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7275,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742\/revisions\/7275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}