SB Nation Boston: All Posts by Bryan Grosnick

MLB and Qualcomm team up to improve wireless connectivity in stadiums

2013-04-04T17:52:32Z

MLB and Qualcomm team up to improve wireless connectivity in stadiums

Hey everyone! You may be interested in hearing about how we'll be able to take our spreadsheets with us everywhere -- even in MLB stadiums. Check it out!

Perfect games for every fielding position

2013-04-01T15:45:04Z

Let's face it ... perfect games are a little boring these days. There have been more perfect games (six) since 2009 than there have been between 1989 and 2008. Pitchers are throwing more perfect games these days ... so it's time to give position players their due. Why can't we have perfect games for the guys in the field as well?

When thinking about this, I considered one major thing: a perfect game for a second baseman might not be the same as a perfect game for a left fielder. Each player is expected to do different things for his team, so these perfect games might have to be different for the different positions. At the same time, any perfect game has to have a certain standard for perfection. So I came up with some rules.

Every position player perfect game has a few common characteristics:

The player cannot make an out, either at bat or on the bases.
The player cannot make an error / "bad fielding play".

Pretty simple, no? Offensively, you can't call it a perfect game if you make an out. No strikeouts, no hard line drives right at a fielder, and definitely no getting caught stealing or blowing through a third-base coach's sign to get nailed at the plate. And you can't make an error or a should-be-error that costs your team the game. That's hardly perfection.

Below, you can find what my idea of a "perfect game" would look like, based on the expectations for each defensive position. It's all opinion and up for debate, but I think they're pretty good.

First Baseman

Two or more home runs.
One or more doubles.
A walk or HBP.

Jason Giambi is our photo for this article ... because I think he's one of the few players who actually did this in a game somewhat recently. The big hitter did everything an elite slugging first sacker is supposed to do: he belted two homers, smacked a double (and a single), and reached base on an HBP ... all without making an out or an error. That's the kind of run production you'd associate with a "perfect" game. (Giambi's game was on June 7, 2000, against the San Diego Padres.)

Second Baseman

Be the pivot man on a 5-4-3 or 6-4-3 double play.
Tag out a stealing baserunner.
Drive at least one ball into the gap for a double or triple.
Leave the game with dirt on your uniform.

Second base is considered a defensive position, so most of what we require from a perfect game is going to be on the defensive side. It can't be a perfect game without at least one double play with the second baseman as the pivot, so that's on there. And we'll also add a nice tag on a stealing runner. But the second baseman these days needs to have some sort of power, at least gap power, so we'll require at least one well-struck extra-base hit into the outfield gap.

And, lastly, the second baseman has to be a gritty, grinder-type, so let's make sure he leaves the game with a little dirt on his uni. #sabermetrics

Third Baseman

Hit one or more home run.
Hit two or more extra-base hits (in addition to the HR).
Score OR drive in four or more runs.
Make one "did you see that!" fielding plays: diving stop, leaping catch or rocket throw from the knees.

From those whom much is given, much is expected. And getting the keys to a third base job in the major leagues means that you're expected to do quite a bit. Third basemen are usually required to be offensive cornerstones, and often #3 hitters in a lineup. That means they have to provide home-run power, rack up hits, and either score or drive in a host of runs. But third basemen are usually expected to make killer defensive plays as well, so let's require one of those as well -- something of suitable web gem quality.

Shortstop

Have at least five defensive opportunities.
Make at least three assists to first base.
Make at least two "did you see that!" fielding plays: diving stop, leaping catch or rocket throw from the knees.

For shortstops, all I require is excellence on the defensive end -- paired with the not-making-an-out component, of course. We need both quantity and quality here: five or more defensive chances, as well as two excellent plays. And, of course, we need some solid laser-quality throws to the first baseman. Is that really too much to ask?

Right Field

Hit at least one home run.
Hit at least one other extra-base hit.
Throw out a runner trying to score at home.

Right field is a prototypical power-hitting position, so we've gotta go with a homer and another extra-base hit to cover the power situation. And there's nothing I love more than a right fielder with a cannon mowing down a runner at home, so let's throw that one on there as well. Sounds pretty perfect to me.

Center Field

Hit for the cycle.
Rob a home run.
Steal a base.

I don't think any position requires the breadth of skills that center field does. These days, center fielders have to be fast, capable defenders who, oh yeah, also have to be able to hit a ton. So, I'd say this is the absolute hardest "perfect game" to knock out ... absolutely fitting given their position.

Left Field

Hit a home run.
Drive in two or more runs.
Make a diving catch.
Hit the cutoff man.

The seven is a tough position to address these days, as it really has become something of a dumping-ground position. Have a second center fielder? Put him in left and reap the defensive benefits! Have an extra first baseman? Throw them in left and pray he hits. But left fielders are outfielders, and despite the increased focus on defense, they're still expected to hit and drive in runs. The diving catch can be made by fleet defensive whizzes, but can also be made by a slow-footed fielder going all out to get to a ball. And the cutoff man, well, that's a personal pet peeve, I suppose.

So there you have it. What did I miss? Is there something in the methodology that you'd like to see changed?

(Editor's Note: Whoops. It looks like Giambi's 2000 game against the Padres wasn't so perfect. He was thrown out trying to go from first-to-third in the first inning. But hey, he's caught on with Cleveland this season. There's still hope!)

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MLB 2K13 proudly announces the return of the Perfect Game Challenge. Pitch a perfect game for your favorite team and you could win some serious money, including a top prize of $250,000. Go to facebook.com/mlb2k for details.

Opening Day 2013 Open GameThread

2013-04-01T12:59:30Z

All day today, we're celebrating Opening Day. This thread's a home for us to start the conversation about what's happening on Opening Day. Excited about a particular player or team? Have any bold predictions about what we'll see today? Let us know in the comments below!

Once the games get going, some of the Beyond the Box Score contributors will be dropping by with their thoughts on what we're seeing. Stick with us all day (and all night) for plenty of action on Opening Day!

McEwing Scores for 2012

2013-03-22T11:00:12Z

I love it when a player has the ability to move around the diamond and play any number of positions. While we can't objectively identify the value that a player brings with the ability to play many positions (yet!), there's no question that this is a way that a player can provide some additional value to his team.

But like I just mentioned, there's no easy way to identify what the value of a player's ability to play multiple positions is. What we can do, is instead of saying that a player played first, third, shortstop, etc. -- we can create a number that encapsulates how many (and which) positions they played. That was the thought process behind my invention of a new "toy" statistic.

Last year, I wrote up a series of articles about McEwing score -- which is shortened to McE, for your reference -- which is a silly way for us to turn a player's position utility into a number. Now, I like to use the term "positional utility" rather than "positional flexibility", because "flexibility" implies potential while "utility" implies usefulness, but that's what I'm referring to here.

At any rate, McE is a rating, between 20 and 101, that tells you how many positions a player played in multiple games, and is ideally computed over the course of a single season.

So you don't have to go back to the original article, here's a little bit on how McEwing score is calculated:

If a player appears in a regular-season game at a given non-pitching defensive position twice, he gets a certain number of points.
Right field and left field are combined in this exercise, since the positions are so similar. If you appear in one game in right, and one game in left, you get combo RF/LF points. If you appear in two games at either position, you get combo RF/LF points. But you only get the points once.
Points are based on the same scale that Tom Tango invented for positional adjustments (and are used in FanGraphs WAR), but modified slightly.

Here's a quick table with how points are tabulated:

Position	Points
C	19
SS	17
2B	15
3B	15
CF	15
RF/LF	11
1B	9

Pretty simple, right? All you need to do is find a player -- let's use Todd Frazier of the Reds as an example -- and look at their log of positions played in 2012. Frazier spent time during 73 games at third base (earning him 15 points), 39 games at first base (earning him nine points), and seven games in right and left field (earning him 11 points). When you add those up, he earns a total McE of 35 for 2012.

So now that we've got the methodology down, let's get to the tasty, tasty data. If you want the whole thing, you can find it in a Google Doc here.

The Leaders of the Pack

Last season, three players scored an McE of 73 to lead all of baseball: Emilio Bonifacio (Marlins), Mike McCoy (Blue Jays) and Michael Martinez (Phillies). This year, believe it or not, five players scored a 73 ... or better. Jason Donald of the Indians, Pedro Ciricao of the Red Sox, and Elian Herrera were three of them. Fine work by all three players -- as a score of 73 indicates that the player hit five positions: short, second, third, center field and one or more outfield corner. That's quite a bit of flexibility.

The fourth player to score a 73 was Michael Martinez of the Phillies ... which made him the only player to score that high in both 2011 and 2012. Pretty cool, if you ask me. He's the most consistent McE stacker in the game today.

But the highest McE in the game for 2012 goes to a super-sub who changed teams twice during the 2012 season: Brent Lillibridge. Lillibridge managed an McE of 73 ... just in his time with the Cleveland Indians. When you factor in his time with the White Sox and Red Sox, Brent gets credit for first base time as well, bringing his total score up to 82 for the season, the highest score of the past two years! He's also the only player to play two or more games at six different positions in a single season over the past two years.

Get pumped, Cubs fans! Brent Lillibridge!

The Best Player With A High McEwing Score

Martin Prado. By a ton.

You want more explanation? Well, Prado kicked it at five positions (everywhere in the infield, as well as his usual left field spot) at least twice, while also racking up this WAR triple-slash: 5.9 fWAR / 5.4 bWAR / 2.3 WARP. His McE of 67 was third-best in baseball, after the five players I already talked about above.

The Diamondbacks got the best super-utility player in the game this offseason. It's almost a shame that he's projected to get very little time anywhere other than third base.

The Team Perspective

So which teams used the most and least McE-eligible players in 2012? Well, the team that used the least number of players was the Cincinnati Reds, who only used four players who played multiple positions for multiple games. The Seattle Mariners only used five. On average, most teams used about 10, so they're pretty serious outliers.

The Red Sox used the most multi-positional players, running 15 of them out there last season. It's probably fair to chalk some of that up to the team's injury situation -- seven of those players just played an outfield corner and center field. The Rays, Astros, Brewers and Rockies all tied for second place, with 13 McE players.

While it might be fun to try and posit reasons why a team uses more or fewer multi-position players, there are probably a lot of factors that play into it: from injuries, to the skillsets on the team (if the team doesn't have a solid shortstop, perhaps they cycle through a lot of utility-infield types over the year), to a manager's tendency. Without more data, it's hard to say any one particular reason exists for the over- or under-use of super-utility players.

For what it's worth, the team with the highest average team McE score is the aforementioned Reds ... they only had four players, and Wilson Valdez had a huge McE score of 62. Cleveland ranks second, due to the presence of Brent Lillibridge and Jason Donald, and Toronto third. The lowest average? That'd be the Washington Nationals, which surprised me due to the presence of Steve Lombardozzi, but is true nonetheless. The Giants come in second-from-the-bottom (and they would have scored higher had Bruce Bochy ~~crazily~~ played Aubrey Huff at second base a second time).

The Godfathers of McE

To close out this article, I'd -- once again -- like to reflect on the amazing case of Shane Halter. The highest possible McE for a player to obtain is a score of 101 -- and the only player in baseball history to do this in a single season is the unforgettable Shane Halter. During the 2000 season, Halter played in two or more games at each position -- with the exception of pitcher -- for the Detroit Tigers.

He only pitched once that year.

But instead of naming this statistic after Halter, who admittedly, I only discovered after considering this stat, I named it after "Super" Joe McEwing. McEwing is a former super-utility player for the Cardinals, Mets, Royals and Astros who never played less than six different positions during a full season in the major leagues. He wasn't very good, but his ability and willingness to move around the diamond was pretty special.

And who knows ... maybe players like McEwing, Halter, Lillibridge, and Michael Martinez have more value than we can name right now.

All data from Baseball-Reference ... or FanGraphs ... or Baseball Prospectus.

2013 Team Previews

2013-03-12T17:46:06Z

Here at Beyond the Box Score, we're rolling out team previews for all 30 clubs.

[Editor's Note: Today we're kicking off our 2013 Team Previews here at Beyond the Box Score. Every weekday, from now until the start of the season, you'll be able to drop in and see a saber-slanted preview of each team in the bigs, written by one of our staff members. Today, we'll be focusing on the Baltimore Orioles.]

Notable Numbers

.655: This is the Baltimore Orioles' team winning percentage from August through the end of the regular season. Coincidentally, the team truly got themselves back on track -- and then some -- with the surprise arrival of Manny Machado. Machado helped solidify the team’s defense at third base and showed the ability to hit the ball well. The ERA/kwERA of the starting rotation from this period was 3.85/4.02 and the offense averaged 4.76 runs per game, and if they are able to continue this level of performance, then they will be in great shape.

152: This is the total number of double plays that the Orioles hit into during the 2012 season, which was also second most in all of baseball (just four behind the Detroit Tigers). Grounding into double plays is one of the absolute worst things a player or team can do on offense, as it kills rallies and drastically lessens your chances of scoring runs. Those 152 double plays cost the Orioles at least 80 runs, and that translates to roughly eight wins, in a vacuum.

While double plays are going to happen and they won’t necessarily make or break your season, they also don't do your team any favors. It’s just one of the many different ways a team can help themselves by not costing themselves a win here or there through the course of a season, and could very well mean something by season’s end.

2012 Season in Review: The Orioles shocked everyone by going toe-to-toe with the New York Yankees and nearly winning the American League East. Instead of prevailing, they had to settle for a 93-win season and a wild card berth. Not only was it the team's first winning season in 15 years, but they also earned their first postseason victory in that same span of time when they beat the Texas Rangers in the wild card play-in game. After dispatching the heavily-favored Rangers they went on to face the Yankees in the ALDS, and were within a Game 5 victory of moving on to the ALCS.

Key Offseason Moves:

Re-signed Nate McLouth to one-year $2 million contract: This is not a sexy signing (or re-signing rather) and it certainly won’t win the team major points with the fans who clamored for Josh Hamilton or Nick Swisher. What it will do is bring back a player who revived his career while helping carry the Orioles to the playoffs last season. He did that by batting .268/.342/.435 with the team over 55 games, and McLouth then went on to hit .308/.321/.462 in the postseason.

Many jokes were made when the team originally signed McLouth -- and many more were made when they re-signed McLouth -- but he gives the Orioles options at the top of the lineup, provides some much-needed speed, can play a decent left field, and he can do all of that for just a $2 million investment. It’s called investing wisely and the Orioles, behind Dan Duquette, have shown an ability to do it and do it well up to this point.

Extended Buck Showalter and Dan Duquette through 2018: If there’s one thing that this organization has lacked during their 15-year run of futility it was continuity. They now finally have it as team owner Peter Angelos extended both manager Buck Showalter and General Manager Dan Duquette through 2018. These two men have worked well together since Duquette was hired and the two have cultivated a winning environment. This is the most important thing the organization has done since extending Adam Jones.

Depth Chart: If there’s one thing that this team has that they lacked last season, it is depth. They finally have depth for the starting rotation, even more depth for the bullpen, and depth in the outfield and corner infield spots. The only position they don’t have a great deal of depth at is second base, but depending on the arrival of second base prospect Jonathan Schoop’s bat that may not be a huge issue come August.

To even further illustrate how much pitching depth they have, there are currently around 11 players fighting for that final spot in the starting rotation and those that don’t make it will make up the most formidable pitching rotation that their Triple-A team has had in a long, long time.

Check out Baltimore's 2013 depth chart at MLB Depth Charts.

2013 Outlook: The Orioles aren’t predicted to win 90+ games again this season and Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA Playoff Odds system is giving them just a 4.8% chance of even making the playoffs. They’ll be getting key players such as Nolan Reimold, Nick Markakis, Jason Hammel, and Brian Roberts back from injury to begin this new season healthy, which can only be seen as a positive.

While the bullpen is likely to regress somewhat, they are still capable of putting up numbers worthy of a top-10 unit. Add to the fact that manager Buck Showalter is one the best managers in the game in keeping his players focused, no one should be surprised if they make another playoff run.

Check out Baltimore's 2013 ZiPS projections at FanGraphs.

Bold Prediction: I’m sure any prediction made stating that the 2013 Baltimore Orioles will make the playoffs and win a playoff series would be considered bold by many but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they did just that. What would be a bold statement though is predicting that the Orioles will finish in the top 12 for offense, pitching, and defense ... and that’s exactly what I believe will happen.

What's the value of analytics to the fan?

2013-03-07T21:54:53Z

Today at SB Nation's main site, Andrew Sharp wrote a long, obviously thought-out piece on the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference that just took place at MIT. This conference is a place where fans, front-office folks, media, and plenty of others get together to talk about analytics -- new ways to look at sports data, and how to measure sports.

Andrew went to Sloan as a skeptic, and he says so early in his article. And while I appreciate the fact that he says he wanted to understand where his skepticism of advanced stats comes from, I came away from this article feeling like there's something missing in his article and argument.

I'm not here to slag on Andrew or his article. But as the managing editor of one of SB Nation's sites specifically dedicated to advanced stats and analytics (along with Football Study Hall), what I am here to do is provide, what I see, as the democratic response. I'd like to take a couple of points that Andrew made specifically in his article, and talk about what they mean to someone who's very much a part of this new wave of "analytics" -- especially appropriate as I have three staff writers on site at the SABR Analytics conference in Arizona today.

What I'd like to do is pull a few arguments against the increased use of analytics from Andrew's post, and provide my personal reaction to them. I think that there's plenty of room for other viewpoints, but some of the arguments brought up in this article are ones that don't quite ring true to someone who spends a lot of time around analytics, and the people who use advanced analytics.

There's one section in Moneyball where Michael Lewis spends a few pages on a scene from an Oakland front office meeting where they're arguing over a prospect named Jeremy Brown, a catcher from the University of Alabama. He's overweight and the scouts don't like him, but he scores high in a lot of the categories that Billy Beane and his assistant Paul DePodesta use to predict success. An argument ensues and lasts several pages, and it ends like so:

The fat scout looks up from his giant chocolate chip cookie and seeks to find a way to get across how unimpressed he is. "Well," he says, exaggerating his natural drawl. "I musta severely unnerestimated Jeremy Brown's hittin' ability."

"I just don't see it," says the vocal scout.

"That's all right," says Billy. "We're blending what we see but we aren't allowing ourselves to be victimized by what we see."

This argument is fat, slobby ignorance vs. Billy Beane, the grinning badass who's here to shake up the game whether scouts can handle it or not.

That doesn't actually sound like an argument of ignorance vs. Billy Beane. That sounds to me like someone making the argument that there might be a way to examine player performance beyond what a person sees. If Andrew wants to make the point that we don't need analytics to tell us whether a player is good or not -- something that he points out when deriding Kirk Goldsberry's NBA infographic comparing Larry Sanders to David Lee -- okay, I see his point to an extent.

The point of advanced analytics, at least the way I see it, is in part to bring together what we see with what we don't see. But sometimes we don't see everything. If one person were to see Jeff Francoeur play baseball, especially sporadically, they might think that they're seeing a good baseball player, because he occasionally hits the ball well, or he has a cannon arm, or because he looks like a good ballplayer.

But isn't there room to say that what we see isn't always what's the right.

Oh, and the Moneyball caricatures are at times embarassing, both in the movie and the book. I don't see it as much different than any sort of perspective, which spins an account due to a particular viewpoint.

Analytics experts are never wrong.

This is a truly bizarre blanket statement, in my opinion. I can't imagine ever speaking to an analytics expert who claims to be right all the time.

I've read Nate Silver's book, where he talks about forecasting in terms of probabilities. Any good forecaster is wrong at times, and it allows you to refine your models and make adjustments. Analytics experts, like anyone else, are wrong often.

In the comments, Kurt Mensching mentions that the "smugness" associated with sabermetrics hurts the cause, and I think Andrew implies this in his article throughout. Personally, I couldn't agree more that taking a know-it-all or smug stance that analytics is the "right" way to view baseball is detrimental to getting other people to appreciate your viewpoint.

You know who's great at explaining analytics without being smug? Rob Neyer at SB Nation. And Jonah Keri at Grantland. And Tom Tango. And dozens of other analytically-savvy writers and analysts. If you look, it's easy to find plenty of people who believe in analytics and express their opinions without coming across as a know-it-all. We all have our opinions, and anyone can sound smug at a given time. The more that we can do to talk about this branch of sports enthusiasm with a measured tone, the better.

But ... I also don't think this is any different from any non-analytical talking heads that you see on any sports studio show, or writers who advocate that analytics isn't the "right" lens to view a game through. Smugness is a turn-off no matter which side presents it. I understand that just because sabermetrics or analytics produces a data-based view of the game, it doesn't mean that that view is always right.

On the same token, I feel like data-based views of the world are more likely to be correct than non-data-based views. That's why I value things like natural science over things like non-scientific explanations for natural phenomena. I have my viewpoint on the matter, and it's a strong one ... but there's room for reasonable people to disagree. And I do feel like many analytics experts understand this.

The idea of the smug, arrogant analytics expert who listens to no one else and watches no baseball games, focusing on his spreadsheet instead is just as much a caricature as Art Howe in the Moneyball film. It's an easy fiction, and hardly representative of the whole

A growing faction of the media uses advanced stats to write mythbusting articles to make the sports conversation smarter, but it actually just makes things more pedantic. We are not scouts. Rather than couch all of our 2013 sports arguments in data that's not as conclusive as it seems, it's more fun to just have an argument.

Is the claim here that analytics are ending arguments, and that's taking away the fun of arguing? I don't see it. I see people who dismiss or de-value analytics, arguing with people who value analytics or advanced stats. Saying that analytics ends arguments, when it's created a whole new subsection of things to argue about, doesn't make sense to me.

(And for the record, I don't really find arguing to be much fun. This is not a fun article for me to write. It is a chore. Arguing for advanced analytics has been done in a number of other places, and in a number of different ways, by people plenty smarter than me.)

Analytics have value as we try to learn more, and anyone who really cares about sports will end up using them in one way or another. But in the end, all the data and process revolves around humans, and there's a big part of this that'll always be a guessing game.

Has anyone ever argued the opposite of this second sentence? That the human factor of sports is something that cannot be controlled for simply using stats and analytics and numbers? In all seriousness, who is making this argument? I'm not sure that anyone here at Beyond the Box Score, or anyone at any other major analytics site, would insist that analytics can be a one-stop-shop for everything having to do with sports.

And if we're talking about what the analytics movement means for people like you and me, that's the point that seems missing from all the analytics panels about the future of sports.

I'm not entirely sure an event like Sloan is designed to speak to the casual fan -- it's something that caters very specifically to the analytics crowd.. The way I see analytics, in regards to being a fan, is just as another angle with which to view sports. People watch sports for all kinds of reasons. Some watch to see phenomenal acts of athleticism. Some watch because they identify closely with a particular city or team. And some might watch to see acts of statistical achievement

When you take the misleading data that distracts teams and all the insufferable Internet arguments that distract fans and put it next to the handful of analytics approaches that actually add insight, the plus and minuses really might equal zero.

This sounds like someone is advocating an analytical approach to figuring out whether analytics are worth anything. I think we've hit analytics Inception.

And it's an argument against arguments, which if confusing given the previous argument that having arguments is fun. Is it only that internet arguments are insufferable?

Now and forever, everything you can't quantify is what makes sports worth loving.

This last line, the last of Andrew's article, probably frustrates me most. Different people love different things about sports. Some people love sports because they identify with a particular team, some people love sports because they love seeing acts of physical grace or strength or skill. Some people love sports because they gamble on it, and it makes them a boatload of money.

I love sports, in part, because when I was growing up, I had a baseball card collection, and my dad and I would spend hours and hours poring over cards, and talking about the crooked numbers on the back of them, and watching games. And part of what we talked about, part of how we communicated, and made sense of the game, was through the statistics. The fact that we can still do that, to this day, is something I think is important.

I love sports, in part, because we have the ability to see the forest for the trees, and vice versa when we look at it through the lens of baseball. When I look at a game, and I see David Wright make a boneheaded throwing error and go 0-4 the one Mets game a year when I can make it down to Citi Field, I don't have to think that he's a bum. I can use the entire set of data for his year, and recognize that, not only is he not a bum, but he's a great player -- and that doesn't change just because he had one bad game.

I love sports, in part, because investing time and energy into analytics is an intellectual exercise that gives me a lot of joy -- the joy of problem-solving, the joy of discovery, the joy of feeling part of a team.

So yeah, things you can quantify at least contribute to the way I feel about baseball. They matter to me, just as they may not matter to someone else.

I'm glad Andrew doesn't love sports because of analytics, in part or in whole -- I'm just glad he loves sports at all. Sports are great. But for some people, analytics is the way they view the sport and it gives them joy. It's not the only way for us to look at sports, but it's another way. Maybe it's useful, maybe it's not.

I'm not a casual fan of baseball, I'm an insane person. I study it intently, and analytics is part of my hobby. I have strong feelings and opinions.

But I am a rather casual fan of NBA basketball, and analytics has added to my enjoyment of the game, not taken from it. Knowing usage rate, PER, true shooting percentage, and the fact that the Nuggets a crazy amount of assists at home compared to on the road has made the games I watch more enjoyable, the same way that learning a little more about pick-and-roll defenses has.

In the end, analytics has become a large part of sports, but it's a part that can be just as much fun to fans as it is to the potential GM or internet writer or anyone else. It's just another way to look at the game.

Beyond the Box Score is hiring!

2013-03-04T15:00:12Z

As the 2013 baseball season begins to heat up, and Spring Training gets started, it's time for us at Beyond the Box Score to gear up for the new season as well. We're looking for a few good persons to join us on staff here, and we'd like to open up the hiring to our community and the public.

One of the things we pride ourselves on at the site is sabermetric analysis. And our current (and former) staff writers are very, very good at that. But there's another thing we'd like to do more of, and that's link and respond to sabermetric articles from the rest of the internet. You've seen a number of those articles here on the site, things like this piece on the WBC by Matt Hunter, which responds to an article by Dave Cameron at FanGraphs.

We'd like to do more of this, to help link out to other great saber-slanted sites and articles, and to keep moving discussion forward. So, we'd like to hire one or two folks to help us do this. If you think that you could write 3-5 articles per week like the one I posted from Matt above, then shoot me an email at bryangrosnick {at} gmail {period} com. We'd really like to hear from you.

In addition, we're also looking to add someone to help supplement our writing and analysis with eye-catching infographics. If you've got an eye for design and a head for baseball, drop us a line (same email address), and join our team.

These positions are volunteer positions, but you get the benefit of working with some remarkable baseball minds on a site that has great visibility and is part of the SB Nation network of blogs. In addition, if you'd like to do analysis at some point in the future, this is a great, great place to start. Beyond the Box Score contributors have moved on to do work in baseball operations, as well as write for just about every smart, savvy baseball publication / web site on the planet.

Site News: Beyond the Box Score in 2013

2013-03-01T13:00:26Z

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to share a bit of news regarding Beyond the Box Score, and at the same time welcome anyone who's new to the site to our community.

For nearly two and a half years, this site has been helmed by Justin Bopp, who's done a truly fantastic job of building and growing the site into what you're seeing today. He's been able to build not just a community of brilliant thinkers, analysts and writers (make no mistake, my colleagues here are, to the person, brilliant), but a vibrant community that works together and is greater than the sum of its parts. And that community includes our great readers and commenters.

Well, today, Justin's officially moving on from his role here at the site. The entire staff wishes him the best of luck in his continued work with SB Nation, and we were privileged to have him as our managing editor for the time we've had him. Anyone who's worked for and with the site over the past few years know just how much effort he's put into not only growing the site, but also the careers of the people who've contributed here.

So what does that mean for the future? Well, I'm pleased to announce that I've been granted the tremendous opportunity and honor to be the new managing editor for Beyond the Box Score. I am so humbled by this new role, and am excited about the opportunity to do more for this site and community.

At the same time, I'm indebted to each of the site managers that have come before me for what they've built here. Between Justin, Sky, Jeff, Tommy, R.J., and Marc -- well, there are some enormous shoes to fill. I won't let you or your legacy down.

(More personally, I'm indebted to Eno Sarris, Dan Mennella, and of course Justin for their support and the opportunities they've given me to write over the past couple of years. And, of course, also the greater SBN family, the writers and analysts I've gotten to work with here -- and at other sites -- and my family for their support.)

Most importantly, I want to assure members of the staff and community that what you've come to know and love about our site won't be changing in a meaningful way. Our core focus areas -- saber-slanted baseball writing (and not the other way around), high-quality objective analysis, warm community, and constant movement forward -- are all staying the same. Sure, the staff might embark on a few new projects for the site, and we'll continue to add the best new baseball writers to the fold, but if you liked what you've seen in the past, you'll love what we're going to do this year.

And that's all thanks to the tremendous talent of our writers, all of whom are listed below.

Our Current Staff

Bryan Grosnick -- Managing Editor, Columnist

Glenn DuPaul -- Editor, Columnist

James Gentile -- Editor, Columnist

Matt Hunter -- Editor, Columnist

Alex Kienholtz -- Editor, Columnist

Julian Levine -- Editor, Columnist

Jon Roegele -- Editor, Columnist

Spencer Schneier -- Editor, Columnist

Adam Darowski -- Historian-in-Residence, Editor, Columnist

Blake Murphy -- Podcast Host, Editor, Columnist

Ari Berkowitz -- Featured Writer

Ben Horrow -- Featured Writer

Stephen Loftus -- Featured Writer

Mike Mulvenna -- Featured Writer

Lewie Pollis -- Featured Writer

Ryan Potter -- Featured Writer

Lance Rinker -- Featured Writer

Chris St. John -- Featured Writer

Nathaniel Stoltz -- Featured Writer

Lee Trocinski -- Featured Writer

Max Weinstein -- Featured Writer

All kidding aside, that's a Murderer's Row to rival the '27 Yankees.

Our Philosophy

I like what Justin said once about the site, so instead of trying to restate it in inferior terms, here's what he said:

Baseball is an intellectually, spriritually, artistically beautiful sport. It captures the imagination of the world because it represents overcoming obstacles, beating the odds, and triumphing in individual battles versus both yourself and your opponent. And sabermetrics makes it more beautiful, captivating, and compelling.

We're a blog that focuses on watching, analyzing, and observing baseball through a sabermetric lens ... but we're not people who focus on numbers to the detriment of any other part of the game. Sabermetrics, the objective study of baseball and its statistics, is a tool we'll use to appreciate the game and search for understanding.

At our best, we'll make you think about baseball in a way that you may not have before.

At our best, we'll make you appreciate this game in a way that you may not have before.

But we're a saber-slanted baseball community, and not a place where we focus on stats or numbers instead of looking at the whole picture.

One Final Thing

My door is always, always open to comments, ideas, and whatever sorts of feedback you (yes you!) have for us. You can find me on Twitter at @bgrosnick (that's probably the fastest means of communication), or via the email in my profile. Or in the comments. Or send a carrier pigeon. Whatever works for you. We promise to listen.

I literally could not be more excited about what the future holds for this site. I sincerely hope you'll join us for the ride. And hey, who's psyched for Opening Day?

Bryan Grosnick

Managing Editor | Beyond the Box Score

03/01/13

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