Mathematics, Baseball, Nolan Ryan vs. Robin Ventura, and Other Fun Stuff

Finally, Oxford scientists are pulling their weight.

While I was navigating the “Internets” to find some footage of Nolan Ryan vs. Robin Ventura, the epic basebrawl that had old men smiling everywhere (Ryan was 46 and Ventura was 26), I came across an article posted on Wired’s website entitled Six Degrees of Nolan Ryan. It’s definitely worth a read for hardcare baseball fans, as it discusses how Oxford scholars have used a new formula created by sabermetric enthusiasts called “Runs Until End” to compare players of any era. From the article:

The model begins with a statistic called Runs Until End, according to which the outcome of every at-bat is assigned a score derived from the expected number of runs a team would score before an inning’s end. The total RUE score of every pitcher-batter pair over the course of a season is calculated.

Then the model gets interesting. The final value for how Albert Pujols fared against Tim Lincecum is affected by how Lincecum matched up with Hanley Ramirez, which in turn is affected by how Ramirez did against Jamie Moyer, and so on down the line for every last at-bat in a season. Once those numbers are calculated, any two players can be compared.

A very interesting concept. However, as expected, PEDs are not factored into the mathematical equation, and this is addressed in the article, which found that Bonds was in fact the greatest hitter and that Pedro Martinez is the best modern day pitcher to have played.

What, you didn’t think I’d include a clip of the awesome Ryan vs. Ventura fight?

Elsewhere on the Web, it was hard to access any MLB-related blog without finding the following video, which is a very funny addition to funnyordie.com and includes Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard.

Finally, I want to begin to gear everyone up for football season, as if anyone needed it. 27pitches will be using its tag line (”Your perfect place for mindless sports commentary”) very loosely to accommodate all your football needs. I will begin peppering in some posts along with the help of a couple friends, so stay tuned. In the meantime, he’s one more reason to hate the traveling PR circus that is the Dallas Cowboys.