Welcome
Issue number thirty-four. Say hi to Chad Miller for me if you see him.
Lots of baseball this week, given the recent Hall of Fame announcement. I've been holding a few articles back, and the timing is right. Strangely enough, they're all by Jim Albert, who produces excellent work at Exploring Baseball Data with R. Rounding out this edition is value-added FBS kicker rankings and some (unfortunate) insight that the Avalanche are really, really good at scoring goals.
This Week's Lineup
Comparing David Ortiz with Six Contemporaries
The author compares seven players over the five years of 2004-2008 who had over 10k plate appearances. Their career trajectories are mapped using WAR, wOBA, wRC+, OBP, HRs, K rate, and defense. Summary at the end for who should make the HoF.
A FanGraphs Career Trajectory Graph
Another post on displaying baseball career trajectories. This one uses a few different data sets and merges them together to look at Hall of Fame career trajectories for batting and defense. Insights shared at the end about how the execution was performed.
Shiny App to Compare Career Batting Trajectories
Third post from Jim, and another Shiny App example. This one includes wOBA for Bonds and Griffey and HR rates for Helton and Rolen by age. One code block example is included for you R folk.
2021's Value-Added FBS Kicker Ranking
Kickers need love too. A good analysis on calculating expected points based on the yardage of a FG attempt. It allows us to understand which kickers performed better than an average one would. The best? Harrison Mevis from Missouri.The worst? Rory Bell from Temple.
The Colorado Avalanche Are Good
This one pains me. I'll forever hold a grudge on the Avs based on their rivalry with the Wings from a few decades ago. However, they're pretty darn good. They score more goals/game above league average which puts them in the top 10 all-time.
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Unexpected Points Added is curated and maintained by Patrick Hayes.
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