Splash Biography

How do you know Sammy Sosa was a great hitter? Well, he hit lots of home runs, of course. But there's a lot more to baseball than just batting average, home runs, ERA, and strikeouts. So much more, in fact, that lots of mathematicians make good money telling baseball teams how to win by looking at the right statistics. In this course, we'll dive into the world of sabermetrics, or the study of baseball through numbers. We'll talk about how to figure out if a power hitter is really good (Albert Pujols) or just plays in a ridiculous ballpark (Carlos Gonzalez); if a pitcher wins a lot because he's got a great defense behind him or because he's actually that good; and how to come up with ways to rate defense other than fielding percentage (hint: Derek Jeter has never been a very good shortstop).