The hierarchical cluster tree, or dendrogram, visualizes the relationships among 2023 MLB catchers based on their defensive statistics. As always, players who are closer together on the x-axis have similar defensive profiles, meaning their statistics in categories like putouts, assists, errors, and caught stealing percentage are more alike. The height of the horizontal lines (distance) […]
Author: RTNM
Twilight Embrace (Flash Fiction)
Twilight Embrace Roland stood on the edge of the pier, the salty sea breeze ruffling his thinning gray hair. The sunset cast a golden glow on the water, turning it into a shimmering mirror. He’d always loved this time of day, when the world seemed to slow down, the chaos of life pausing to catch […]
Steps Forward (Flash Fiction)
Steps Forward Sergio stood at the edge of his driveway, phone in hand, staring down the quiet, leaf-strewn road that led to the harbor. The late September air was cool, tinged with the smell of damp earth and the first hints of winter. Lake Erie was only three miles away, a place he’d gone a […]
Pitching is (or was) more Important than Hitting? Who knew?
This analysis examines the relationship between a team’s On-base Plus Slugging (OPS) and their total wins in Major League Baseball (MLB) over a five-year period from 2004 to 2008. OPS is a key statistic in baseball that combines on-base percentage and slugging percentage, providing a comprehensive measure of a player’s (or team’s) ability to […]
Now, Isn’t This Interesting?
This scatterplot visualizes the relationship between a baseball team’s WHIP (Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched) and the number of wins they achieved during the seasons from 2004 to 2008. I included both the AL and NL in this analysis. Each point on the graph represents a team in a specific year, with the […]
2018 AL WAR vs OPS
The scatterplot titled “2018 AL WAR vs OPS (Colored by Position)” visually explores the relationship between Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and On-base Plus Slugging (OPS) for players in the American League during the 2018 season. Each point on the plot represents a player, with OPS on the x-axis and WAR on the y-axis, and […]
Here’s a Little 3D For You
How is this for a different perspective? The 3D Cluster Analysis of 2023 National League (NL) shortstops visually represents player performance using an extra dimension, highlighting their key differences and similarities. Using a sophisticated technique called Principal Component Analysis (PCA), the high-dimensional performance metrics of the shortstops were reduced to three principal components, which […]
Scales of Unusualness: Offensive Production of NL Shortstops in 2023
To the surprise of no one, Mookie Betts was, by far, the most unusual offensive performer last year among NL shortstops. If you study the plot, you can follow the line connecting Betts to the other players. Betts is a cluster of one. His offensive production was so far above all the other shortstops […]
Scales of Unusualness: Offensive Production of AL Second Basemen in 2009
The title of this post is unusual (you see what I did). Why? Historically, I have chosen titles inspired by the band Arctic Monkeys. They had a propensity for overly long song titles that may or may not have anything to do with the actual song. For the longest time, they were my favorite band. […]
19 Percent…huh?
19 Percent…huh? I spent a lot of time putting together the lone figure in this post. My forthcoming baseball book will be filled with plots like the one that follows. I have known many people whose eyes glaze over when presented with figures or graphs (including professors who should know better). Pay a little attention […]