Back to the Basics

How does a baseball team beat another baseball team?

Put more runs up of course.   So now the big question is if I wanted to predict if Team A was going to beat Team B what would I look for in their past games to see which team would put up more runs.   There are many, many, many statistics and or logical thoughts to use.  Trying to find which stat, or stats to use can be quite troublesome.  They seem to all make sense to use, and actually many just make "common" sense.  Well lets say Team A has put up above average runs for the season, and maybe they are in the top 5 in runs scored, this would mean that we would definitely choose Team A, right?  Well there are so many other factors to factor in.  What if Team A is putting out their 5th pitcher in the rotation who has struggled in every start so far this season, and  Team B is putting their ace pitcher on the mound with an ERA around 2.0.   Now we have painted a whole new picture of our ball game.  What if we find out that starting pitching doesn't really even matter in a game, and that actually Team A has nothing to worry about because their offense will nullify any pitchers past performances.

Of course we can go on and on and many statistically inclined sports fans have.  What I am more interested in is just breaking it down to the basics.  Picking out a few stats that actually matter and running with them.  This might sound nonacademic of me, but honestly I don't care.  If I wanted to prove my intelligence I wouldn't be trying to pick baseball games.   I might unknowingly throw in some wrong stats and leave out some pertinent stats, but I am not going to let the thought of this bother me while I make my picks.  I want my equation to be like George W. Bush, confident and decisive.   When you add 30 factors into an equation you end up more like John Kerry, less confident results and outcomes that like to ride the fence and not really tell us anything.

I'm getting closer every time I open up my laptop, and my brain, to picking the factors I will start with.  After reading more into other peoples equation building process when it comes to sports I am realizing it is going to take some years of experience under my belt before I feel confident in my product.  My main goal this first season is going to be to soak it all in.  Yes, I might fail and not put as many wins as losses, but in failing I will learn more than I ever would succeeding.