My Best Writing of 2018

Another year has come and gone, which means it’s time to reflect on the best content I put out this year. Read on for some nerdy goodness:

  1. Comparing Rookies’ Hitting Prowess to Veterans’ — Not the best headline, I’ll admit, but I was thrilled when The Hardball Times invites me to contribute to the 2018 Hardball Times Annual. This piece uses a new (to me) statistical technique to show how you can glean information about a player’s hitting prowess from just a couple of plate appearances, instead of waiting until they hit a certain PA threshold.
  2. Hall of Fame Chances for all Players (and some Inactive Ones) — In this article I used a version of the same technique to see which active players have the highest Hall of Fame chances.
  3. Predicting the 2018 MVP Award Winners — In the summer I began teaching myself machine learning for the purpose of predictive analysis. This article is the first time I applied that knowledge; I was pleased to see that its predictions about the 2018 MVP winners were accurate.
  4. Cleveland Controls the Most Surplus Value in Baseball — In the second installment of what I hope will be an annual activity, I showed how the Cleveland Indians had amassed the most controlled surplus value in the sport, overtaking the Chicago Cubs for the top spot.
  5. Chris Davis is Circling the Drain — In 2018 Chris Davis had one of the worst seasons on record. It gave me no pleasure to explore the depths of his misery, but I did so here for Beyond the Box Score.

I’ve got some good stuff in the works for 2019, so stay tuned! In the meantime, read more of my best work.

(Image credit: xkcd)