I don't want to keep beating a dead-horse, because somewhere I fear that even doing so metaphorically might bring the wack-jobs from PETA out of the woodwork, but who didn't see this coming?
from NCAA.com
Midseason report shows Division I baseball home runs up 39 percent | NCAA.com:
INDIANAPOLIS -- The NCAA media coordination and statistics staff released statistical trends for NCAA Division I Baseball comparing 2014 with 2015 through the last weekend of March.
The trends compared the use of the raised seamed baseball that was used by institutions in 2014 to the flat-seamed baseball used in 2015. The biggest statistical change from 2014 to 2015 is an increase in home runs that is up more than 39 percent from 0.36 per game in 2014 to 0.50 per game in 2015.
“The NCAA Division I Baseball Committee is encouraged by the statistical trends using the new baseball in 2015,” said chair Dave Heeke, Associate VP/Director of Athletics at Central Michigan. “The committee looks forward to studying the results the rest of the year and into the championship.”
As of March 29, runs scored in a game are up five percent, and the batting average is basically flat from .268 in 2014 to .269 in 2015. However, this season, strikeouts have risen from 6.64 per nine innings in 2014 to 7.34 per nine innings in 2015, an increase of 10.5 percent.
The complete trends report is below.'via Blog this'
Hat Tip to Dr. Alan Nathan. If you follow the link to the Baseball Prospectus article you get some fascinating information on some further studies Dr. Nathan did with the Houston Astros regarding the factors that change the flight of the ball in mysterious ways. Not any of them related to PED's BTW.
http://baseball.physics.illinois.edu/
Home runs are up 39% in NCAA D1 baseball, as of March 31, 2015. This is a direct result of the improved "carry" from the switch from a raised-seam to a flat-seam baseball. Read about our own testing, as reported in our Baseball Prospectus article.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=25167
by Alan M. Nathan, Jeff Kensrud, Lloyd Smith and Eric Lang
How Far Did That Fly Ball Travel (Redux)?
Alan Nathan#, Jeff Kensrud*, Lloyd Smith*, Eric Lang#
#Department of Physics, University of Illinois
*Sports Science Laboratory, Washington State University
A couple of years ago, one of us wrote a ProGuestus article entitled "How Far Did That Fly Ball Travel?". The article posed the question: How well does the initial velocity vector (speed and angles) determine the landing point of a fly ball? Utilizing HITf/x data for the initial velocity and ESPN Home Run Tracker for the landing point and hang time, it was determined that the initial velocity vector poorly determines the landing location. Specifically, with a narrow range of initial speed and launch angle, distances in the range 370-440 ft were observed, with a mean of 405 ft and a standard deviation of 16 ft. Much of the rest of the article was devoted to speculation about why that is the case. Variations in air density due to temperature, elevation, and related effects were eliminated by only considering home runs hit in a narrow range of air density. A similar range of distances was observed in covered stadiums, thereby eliminating wind as the primary factor. Two other possible reasons were identified and investigated: variation both in backspin and in the air drag properties of the baseball. The latter is a very intriguing possibility, since variation in the seam height and/or surface roughness of the ball might have a significant effect on the air resistance experienced by the ball.
As a follow-up to this research, we decided to do an experiment under more controlled conditions rather than use MLB game data. Since we wanted to eliminate wind as a possible factor, we approached the Houston Astros organization about using Minute Maid Park (MMP) with the roof closed for our experiment. To our delight, they agreed. So, the four of us gathered in Houston for two cold days last January for the experiment.
Comments:
Bryan Cole(42707)Was there any attempt to measure the physical differences between the balls in each MLB lot? If not, what do you think is responsible for the variation in distances?
MGL(2121)What do you mean by "2 different lots of MLB balls?" Were they merely 2 boxes of balls or were they specifically from two different manufacturing "lots?"
I assume that these were not rubbed up with mud. Do you think that makes a difference - how much mud and perhaps the configuration of mud on the ball?
Alan Nathan(53214)Bryan: We measured the weight, diameter, and seam height of each ball. The MLB balls were quite uniform and there was nothing in the physical appearance that gave a clue to their preformance.
MGL: Two different boxes (one dozen each, both boxes previously unopened). Correct, not rubbed with mud. I think the mud does make a difference. But I am not sure if it increases or decreases the uniformity. I can easily convince myself either way. I think the mud roughens the surface, which ought to reduce both the drag and lift (all other things equal). But I don't know how uniformly the ball is rubbed. Good question and something we ought to investigate.
BurrRutledge(18981)Fun stuff! Gotta love those Astros.
Test half the balls from a box with multiple successive and identical "hits" through the through the machine. Then test the other half of balls that get rubbed by a pitcher with a rosin bag handy before each of the "hits."
Does a box-fresh ball behave differently than a 'game-used' ball?
Does rubbing a ball with rosin on a pitcher's hands impact the characteristics that affect travel distance?
Alan Nathan(53214)The drag properties of a baseball are affected by small changes to the surface, such as mud, rosin, pine tar, etc. We did not specifically study these effects in our experiment. But the fact that seemingly identical looking baseballs carry differently suggests that it is true.
Bryan Cole(42707)I wonder if a professional pitcher would be able to predict which balls would go further. I'm thinking of David Laurilla's interview with Pedro Martinez(http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/pedro-martinez-on-the-art-and-science-of-pitching/). Could someone like Pedro "feel" that difference?
(Incidentally, he also mentions baseballs with "bad rub" in that article, so I'm guessing the rubbing isn't very uniform.)
Alan Nathan(53214)Interesting question, and one that I posed to people I know at Rawlings. Unfortunately, no answer from them.
JohnnyB(76452)For the balls which were repeatedly launched, was there any correlation between launch number and distanced traveled (i.e. did it tend to travel longer/shorter on each successive time you re-launched)? Also, it would be interesting to see how contact with a bat effects its travel distance. Balls are switched after pitches in the dirt but not necessarily after a ball is put in play.
Here, unless you pay for the article you can access the Comments section, which normally on most blogs/web sites, I do not recommend reading unless you want to lower your IQ, where there is some fascinating Q&A that leads to another fascinating Fan Graphs interview with Pedro Martinez (excerpt and link shown below).
Proof positive that you can learn a lot just by wandering around. There was once a management theory built around that premise MBWA ( Management by Wandering Around ) maybe I should promote ILBWA ( Internet Learning by Wandering Around )and make a million writing a book, Nah, too easy!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_wandering_around
from Fan Graphs:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/pedro-martinez-on-the-art-and-science-of-pitching/
Pedro Martinez was a genius with a baseball in his right hand. One of the most dominant pitchers of all time, he didn’t just overpower hitters. He outsmarted them. When he was on top of his game – as he often was – he was almost unhittable. No starting pitcher in history has a better adjusted ERA.
Martinez might be best described as a thinking man’s power pitcher. His pure stuff alone would have made him a star. His ability to read hitters and maximize his talent put him on a whole new level. The Hall of Fame awaits.Martinez – currently a special assistant for the Red Sox – shared the wisdom of his craft earlier this week at the site of some his greatest glory, Fenway Park.——Martinez on the art and science of pitching: “Pitching is both [art and science] and you have to put them together. You have to study a lot. You have to study the movement of your pitches – the distance your pitches move compared to the swing paths of batters. You have to learn to read bat speed against the speed of a fastball. You can tell a slow bat or a long swing, or a short, quick swing. You counter those things. If a hitter has a slow swing, I don’t want to throw him anything soft. I want to go hard against slow. If he has a quick bat, I probably want to be soft more than I want to be hard. You have to be able to repeat your delivery and be deceiving at the same time.
“You repeat – you try to be consistent – until they start to figure out what you’re doing. If they don’t, that’s great. Just go through your routine and repeat, repeat, repeat. I wish I could have just thrown fastballs, but that wasn’t the case. I went along with the way the hitters and the game was going. I let the game come to me. I executed whatever I had to execute.”
On being a student of the game: “I would say the second half in 1996 is when I [made the transition from thrower to pitcher]. After that I felt I was on top of my craft. I felt like I could do what I wanted to do. I’d have off games sometimes, but everybody does. But most of the time I’d be around where I wanted to be. That’s when I feel I was becoming who I wanted to be as a pitcher.
“So much goes into it. You spend as much time as you can watching the game. You watch what the players do and how they do it. That’s how you become better. You never learn how to play ball on your own. If you follow the ball, the ball should teach you. You see over and over, and you repeat over and over what’s going on with the ball – the ball curves, the ball bounces bad, the ball bounces good, the ball is caught, the ball is thrown, the ball is hit. Everything is around the ball.”
No comments:
Post a Comment