Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Numbers, numbers, numbers...

But not Numb3rs, the CBS show that stars former Ally McBeal cast member and 24 good-guy Peter MacNicol, one of 12 "promising new actors of 1981." I love the Internet.

I'm referring to sabermetric numbers, which illuminate the game but do little to enhance our viewing of it and therefore, to this blog, are immaterial. I mention them now because if you have some time, check out this post by Garth Sears over at Royals FanGraph. Don't be alarmed by all the numb3rs and disarrayed letters -- just know that WPA is a counting stat that uses some fairly elementary statistics (paragraphs 4 and 6 of this post explain) to calculate the factor by which a player affects his team's chances of winning, and that WPA is your friend.

And if you need another diversion before today's 7:10 CT game between Josh Beckett and Odalis Perez, check out The Pipeline's extensive farm preview, which makes up for its lack of paragraph breaks with elucidating info about our squires and princes.

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