sabermetrics

Colby Cosh explains why he’s started to cheer for hitters to break up perfect games

The Globe reported late Tuesday, on the basis of six home games, that “Rogers Centre has become a home run haven”, claiming that extra-long gophers are being hit under the don’t-call-it-Skydome at “a record-setting rate”.

Colby Cosh on how the shootout has changed the NHL’s regular season — for the crazier

Nate Silver’s attackers don’t know what they’re talking about. (Nor do his defenders)

Can an anonymous stats guru turn the Blue Jays around?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCaWBFAJL44#t=4m58

“Never tell me the odds”, Han Solo said. Must’ve been a hockey fan.

As much as I loved cheering for Andre Dawson, my response to his election to the baseball Hall of Fame is entirely contingent on how it may affect the cause of Tim Raines. I don’t see a clear answer to that question, but I am worried. There is a chance that the attention paid to Dawson may help his old teammate, who reached a level of 30% support on this year’s ballot (up from 23% last year). Since Raines has a stronger statistical case than Dawson, whose on-base percentage is twenty points behind that of every other outfielder in the Hall, the Hawk could now conceivably be used as a stepping stone to Raines’ argument. “If so-and-so is in, what about the better player who was standing right next to him all those years?” (I’m not suggesting that Raines was better every year. But unlike Dawson, he was, at his best, in an elite small group of the very best offensive players in the game.)