If you’re reading this, you probably like baseball (or you’re very bored and very lost). I like baseball too! So, I decided to make this series to share the way that I enjoy it: Sabermetrics. Even if you’re not a super devout fan, you’ve probably heard of that word. But many people don’t understand what it is. The purpose of this series is to inform people about Sabermetrics, the study of baseball in an analytical and statistical manner. I’ll assume everyone knows the basics (i.e. how you play baseball, the importance of runs, batting average, etc.) but everything beyond that, I will explain.
Of course, there are many resources that are probably better than me to use for learning about Sabermetrics. I can’t recommend The Book by Tom Tango more as well as his blog. The Fangraphs Sabermetrics Library and MLB Glossary are both indispensable, even if you’re following along with my blog. However, all of these resources can be a bit daunting, with tons of articles. It’s hard to know where to start. This series will be sequential, guiding you through various statistics and explaining them along the way. Here’s the basic structure of what I want to focus on, with articles in each category in this order:
- Sabermetrics 101: Basic hitting statistics—the foundational hitting statistics in Sabermetrics
- Sabermetrics 102: Basic pitching statistics—see the above explanation, but for pitching
- Sabermetrics 201: Advanced value statistics—explaining the concept of “value” and various ways of approximating it
- Sabermetrics 301: Statcast—this will be a long section about the measurement of physical quantities and how it can be analyzed to better isolate luck from the equation
- Sabermetrics 401: Philosophies and discussions—this last category is just a way for me to continue this series indefinitely, discussing various things in the field of Sabermetrics
Of course, I may come up with other ideas that I insert in the middle of this structure, but this is my basic outline. I aim to release one article every week, but that’s much easier said than done with school, motivation, etc. The first part of this series, about on base percentage, is out now.