INTRODUCTION
For those of you who don't know, I am a retired Internet Librarian with a passion for team bat and ball sports (mostly baseball, cricket, and Pessapallo--Finnish baseball). Last year my MLB project was to watch highlights of every MLB regular and post season game (about 8-10 minutes per highlight, 2,471 games). It added to about 300-350 hours over the course of 6 months. I was able to achieve that goal, and got an impression of MLB from a very high above the ground view (much easier to do if you have no rooting interest in any of the teams).
However, it was exhausting work, and rather than repeat the exercise, I decided this year, that I would watch 1 freely available game per day, either from MLB.com (which provides a "free game of the day" on most days), which anyone who has registered (free registration) can watch either live or on demand (these games are available on demand for the entire season, even if the attempt to watch them live is blocked by blackout restrictions), or a game provided by ESPN+ (which is a fee based service, but since I bought the service for cricket, the baseball is a freebie for me).
I am doing this in order to better see the flow of individual games, how they are played and managed, the strategies employed, etc. With MLB.com providing a 30 second fast forward and ESPN+ a 10 second ff, most baseball games can be watched in much less time than the actual game time. And by my calculations, I will spend much less actual time watching this year than last.
Which gives me more time for a diary style blog. The blog will provide the basic links for you to use to watch the game, analyze the statistics, and view selected excellent or terrible defensive plays. Links to Home Runs and strike outs are easily accessible from the game links I will provide. I will also give a short list of what I think are the most important variables by which to evaluate the action in a game (True Outcome variables--the number of outcome pitches where fielders are not involved in the action, and ratios of total pitches to balls in play outcomes. Home Plate Umpire ball/strike performance data will be linked for each game, along with a link to further explanation about the nature of the Umpire data.
Below the game data, you will find a quick synopsis of total MLB statistics (for the day and cumulative, day by day) for 17 batting variables, 11 pitching variables, and 6 fielding variables. Simply divide any variable by the number of games, and you will obtain a basic idea of what happens, on average, in each game. I use the "game" as the denominator because of ease of access and understanding, not exact accuracy. My basic sources are MLB.com, MLB Baseball Savant, Baseball Reference (for cumulative daily statistics), and Umpire Scorecards.
All stats are per game, rather than per team, again a bit of a different way of analysis, and will hopefully give you some entertainment, and perhaps enlightenment with regard to what is happening on the diamond in 2024.
Enjoy
