The Luck of Baseball

I read the book "Moneyball" a couple months ago and finally am getting around to writing a blog post about it. The book centers are the Oakland Athletics management team -- more specifically, their GM Billy Beane -- and a fresh approach they starting taking a few years ago at analyzing players based on statistics rather than on a scout's subjective analysis. Here are some of the interesting tidbits I picked up from the book regarding the game of baseball:

1. On-base percentage and slugging percentage are the most objective statistics for measuring a hitter's success. Other statistics such as batting average and RBIs are overrated because they have more to do with luck and situational consequences than a hitter's ability.
2. For measuring pitchers, the amount of strikeouts they get and the amount of home runs they give up are the most objective statistics. Strikeouts indicate a pitcher had good enough stuff that the hitter couldn't succeed on 3 pitches; home runs indicate a pitcher was bad enough that the hitter could hit the ball very far.
3. A lot of baseball comes down to luck. In a given three game series between the worst team in the league and the best team in the league, if the worst team gets enough good breaks, they could easily win 2 or 3 of the games even though they are not the better team. The best indication of a team's ability is to look over a large set of data, i.e. games. Maybe that explains why there's so many games each team plays (162 to be exact) in a baseball season.

Reading this book has made me re-evaluate baseball statistics and how they are used to measure players; it has even made me brainstorm possible new statistics to incorporate into baseball. Maybe I can be the one to invent the next important baseball statistic that can objectively evaluate hitters or pitchers. Maybe people will pay me money for this new statistic. Maybe I can be famous for it and the statistic will be named after me.

Or maybe I can just continue sitting on my recliner watching baseball and hope the Brewers get lucky enough this year to make the playoffs.