Cereal and Statistics

I tend to spend my mornings with four things: a bowl of cereal, a cup of tea at hand, my MLB At Bat app and a folded over copy of The Economist magazine.


As I gorge on both carbs and information, I'm happy to know that the Twins have room to grow and that seemingly every night someone out does themselves (even if someone else does worse). But I'm also happy to balance the Twins in one corner of my mind and world events (like Greek debt defaults and Indian corruption trials) are squarely in another.

So it's a little startling when those two worlds actually do collide.

At the start of this month The Economist published an article entitled "Every step they take" about the ease with which advanced statistics have permeated the sports world, in particular the plethora of statistics that the MLB Network can show on an average broadcast. From pitch speed and curvature to fielder reactions, speed and routes.

None of what they covered will be terribly groundbreaking to the most hardcore of Twins fans. The folks who analyze the team and read amateur blogs know about such statistics already, there's little that I (or a bunch of International foreign affairs nerds) can add to it.

Not the cover of this article,
but appropriate.

But what I can say is that when the world of statistical analysis collides with the world of my breakfast table, we've crossed a threshold. This isn't references to Moneyball or "advanced statistics" that make oblique allusions to the wider world of baseball knowledge. This is detail. This is substance. This is specific and detailed analysis smack dab in the middle of mainstream media.

The Twins may be using more advanced metrics under Paul Molitor, they may not. Terry Ryan may have turned a corner in his evaluation systems, he may not. But when statistical analysis is offered openly to students in Sri Lanka and professors in Peru and bureaucrats in Burundi and shopkeepers in Slovakia, then you are past the "wait and see" stage. You're past the "consider all aspects" phase. Statistical analysis isn't advanced knowledge, it's mainstream, and if evaluations and judgement aren't made on those metrics...well...

Put it this way,  I'd like the front office of my favorite baseball team to be as well informed about recent advances in baseball statistics as people half-way around the world who've never seen a game, but who love to read.

I hope they are, I hope Ryan and Molitor talk about such topics, I hope I'm underestimating them. And if not...they can always come over to my house for breakfast.

Graphs are the Sunshine of My Life

Whenever I'm down, I try to brighten up my day with a few fail-proof pick-me-ups. I think about my friends and loved ones; I go through a solid yoga flow; I put inappropriate tags in facebook photos of my brother; I destroy a feeble USA Today Crossword puzzle and I cheer the Twins.

Lately, cheering the Twins has not exactly brought joy into the Mudville of my heart. But as good fortune would have it there's a cure for that too! GRAPHS! The fine folks at fangraphs.com will break down pitch velocity, BABIP/inning with Runners on 1st and 2nd and the whole baseball genome. Meanwhile, here at Peanuts From Heaven, we break down much more irrelevant/irreverant things--here now, two graphs that encapsulate our season thus far.

First! Let's look at Runs/Game. Both the "runs" that count as points and help to win the games, and the "runs" people make to the refrigerator to get Ben & Jerry's ice cream to help dull the pain of a poor offense.

Clearly the Twins trail behind the MLB avg., they also trail behind the runs/game that Twins fans believe they would score if given the same opportunity. And while Twins fans have a very high "runs to Ben & Jerry's/game rate" (R2B&J/G), Prince Fielder has gamely contributed as much as possible to the R2B&J/G rate for MLB as a whole.

Next, let's look at the pitching, by measuring both the staff ERA in given innings and how that relates to the percent increase in Ron Gardenhire's blood pressure, and the cumulative amount of tears shed by Twins fans (measured in oz) over the same span of time.

I know it's early yet, but clearly when our pitchers' 4th innings average out to an ERA of 9...that's not good. Nor are plus 7 ERAs in the 9th and Extra innings. It's also interesting to note that while Gardy's blood pressure rises and falls with the team's pitching performance, fans seem to be all cried out by about the 7th inning. (Until we lose in extras when tears of sadness and tears of fury commingle in a bucket o' weepy).

Now, this might make our situation seem dire, but c'mon...if you spend a few minutes trying to graph Ice-cream consumed or Gardy's blood pressure then you realize that baseball is baseball, and however long you look at stats, it might as well be entertaining. Still we look forward to bringing graphs of happiness back just as soon as the team obliges. If you have ideas for graphs feel free to leave them in the comments below or tweet them at us (@heavenlypeanuts)...more will come...wether you want them or not.

Enjoy the game and remember happiness is just a silly graph away.

Season in review: How do you graph a feeling?

Leaves are turning, rain is freezing and channels are flipping to football in much of the country. But for we fans of the Twins, there's still a little slice of summer to savor as we enter the post-season for the sixth time in the past decade.

Of course, it was never a foregone conclusion, and to prove that I've tried to chart how I felt about this season. Focusing on three main emotions as a fan: Confidence (that we are on the right track and everything will be okay), Concern (that we're deader than dodos, discos and d'alliteration) and Nauseous Confusion (for the plain ol' WTF moments that come up in every season). Below the graph is an explanation of the highs and lows I felt personally...if you didn't that's fine...you probably don't suffer from queasiness the way I do...and there's no drammamine for baseball.

April

Confidence: signing Mauer, opening Target Field, generally playing like badasses

Concern: Why can't we get a sweep?

Confusion: "Why does the ethics board need 90 billion copies of my research proposal?"

May

Confidence: Continued excellence, Kubel's walk off in New York

Concern: We can't seem to win bupkus on the Eastern seaboard

Confusion: "It's nice to feel weather again, but baseball players need to toughen up and play in the snow gol' darn it!"

June

Confidence: We're winning more than we're losing (barely)

Concern: Interleague is hard.

Confusion: "Why won't these African tv execs show baseball from the upper midwest?!?!? And why is everyone listening to that damn Waka Waka song!?!?!? AND DEAR GOD, YOU'RE A BUS DRIVER, DON'T IMPERIL YOUR RIDERS!!"

July

Confidence: We're still in the race, and no longer have to be distracted by the world cup

Concern: Bad build up to the all-star game, decline in pitching, and: "Justin, get up Justin, please oh please oh please get up Justin"

Confusion: "Who is this kid at third and what has he done with Nick Punto? And should I care?"

August

Confidence: Learning to love Danny V., feeling quite pleased with our bullpen

Concern: White Sox are still lurking...and...oh god...they got Manny.

Confusion: "Will MLB.tv's blackout policy allow me to watch ANY games?"

September

Confidence: We're close...we're close...we're close...WE WON!!

Concern: ...Uhhh...guys...shouldn't we win a few against the worst teams in the division?

Confusion: Seriously...they're the Royals! How can they score that many?

October

Confidence: Home field, and a good campaign by all...well done fellas

Concern: Yankees...but...meh...

Confusion: "What am I going to do after the season ends?"

Credit Supraction with the Assist

For those new to the blog, you may have noticed various crazy random happenstances that helped the Twins during this series, a phenomenon we have defined as: "Surpraction". A tactic which combines the sudden shock of "surprise" with the perpetual discombobulation of "distraction" (Surpr-action). We at PFH have lovingly chronicled moments of supraction* pretty much since our inception and have long credited two masters of the art: Michael "Magic" Cuddyer, and Delmon "Holy-Crap-I-Can't-Believe-That-Worked" Young. (See image below)

And while most of this season has depended on more traditional skills such as "playing well," and "being talented", from time to time Supraction rears its head and deserves a shout at, as was the case this series when not once BUT TWICE! we managed to drive in runs with balls which caromed off third base leaving various Pale Hoser Third Basemen Surprised, Distracted...SUPRACTED YO! So congrats to Jason Repko and Danny Valencia for learning this fine art, if they didn't Delmon and Cuddy might sic their albino tiger on them.

*Note: I realize that "Supraction" might be better spelled with another "r" before the "p", but we rule this blog and we rule that spelling is for sukers.

Finally, while there is much to celebrate with this sweep, we feel obliged to acknowledge the good people of Chicago, and in an effort to promote cultural understanding at the end of this long season, we provide the following chart so that we can all communicate more effectively. Please refer to this chart whenever you want to find common ground with the White Sox fan in your life.

Fun...or something like it

Looking back through some of our best blogs I decided to pay homage to Stinky before she goes to the game tonight by recreating one of her best ideas (right up there with an army led by Attack Zebras, and a desert that combines cake WITH pie). So, time for FUN WITH CHARTS!

(only...being me, I had to Apple-software it up)

First, a chart chronicling joy v. anxiety at crucial points in last night's game

And second, a little chart that should explain how I'm trying to divide my time back at school

WHEEEEE!!! DATA ANALYSIS!!!! Now that I'm having fun, I hope that those of you who can actually watch/go to the games are doing the same.