Miguel Cabreras WAR And Batting Average: An Amazing Correlation And Misconceptions about BA One Picture Equals 1000

Words
Heres an amazing correlation that I discovered yesterday (6/3/2013) between the Batting BA (BA) and the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) for the Detroit Tigers Superstar, Miguel Cabrera, for his entire career (2003-2012). The higher Cabreras BA, the higher is his WAR figure.

Wins Above Replacement (WAR), y

10.0

Miguel Cabrera (2003-2013) WAR from ESPN

8.0

6.0

(xm , ym)
4.0

2.0

y = 82.812 21.745 With r2 = 0.9112

0.0 0.000

0.100

0.200

0.300

0.400

0.500

Season end Batting Average (BA), x

Data source http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/stats/_/id/5544/miguel-cabrera Figure 1: Graphical representation of the BA and WAR data Miguel Cabreras career (2003-2012) to date and the partial season 2013 (red diamond). The blue dot is the average (or mean) value for the 10 year period (2003-2012).
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Table of Contents No.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 5.

Topic
Summary Post on Nate Silvers Blog (FiveThirtyEight) The four-game stretch in May 2013 and the RBI record Why is BA Superior to SLG? The Baseball Work Function Many Algorithms for WAR for a single player Conclusion My Comments on Nate Silvers FiveThirty-Eight blog Reference List

Page No.
2 3 6 16 18 19 21

Courtesy: http://assets.espn.go.com/magazine/Insider/130304_cover_250x300.jpg

Once we understand the baseball work function WAR and the Batting Average are seen to be simply two sides of the same coin.

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My Summary Post on Nate Silvers Blog (FiveThirtyEight): Statistical Case Against Miguel Cabrera for MVP (June 5, 2013, about 8:30 AM)

I have shown, in the article just uploaded (see link given below), that a surprisingly simple and linear relation exists between Miguel Cabrera's career Batting Average (BA) and his Wins Above Replacement (WAR) figures, which were obtained from two sources: Fangraph and ESPN. The fundamental significance of this "old" and "traditional" baseball batting stat is also discussed in this context. The At Bats-Hits (AB-H) relation, which is also linear relation of the type y = hx + c, is shown to be a natural law, akin to other laws of nature. This also gives rise to the idea of a baseball work function (the nonzero c) which can be related to the number of missing hits. The AB-H law is exactly analogous to Einstein's photoelectric law and the baseball work function is exactly analogous to Einstein's work function, see link here for more details
http://www.scribd.com/doc/145839586/Miguel-Cabrera-s-Career-WinsAbove-Replacement-WAR-and-Batting-Average-BA-An-Amazing-Correlation

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1. The Four-game Stretch In May 2013 and RBI Record

Following up on my recent analysis of baseball stats, see Refs [1-10], my main purpose was to investigate if there is a simple correlation between WAR and the three primary measures of performance: the Batting Average (BA), Home Runs (HR) and Runs Batted In (RBI). These are now being scorned upon and also sadly being labeled as belonging to the traditional, or old school, thinking. WAR, on the other hand, was being promoted essentially as if it was the only number that matters, especially in 2012, by the proponents of the new Sabermetrics [11,12], when their favorite, Mike Trout, the AL rookie, lost the MVP vote in 2012 [13-27]. A player must lead the league in all the three categories, BA, HR, and RBI, in order to win the coveted Triple Crown. Miguel Cabrera, as we all know, won the Triple Crown for the first time, in 2012, after 45 years. The last Triple Crown winner was Carl Yazstremski in 1966. However, when Cabrera was also voted the AL MVP for 2012, all hell literally broke loose. The mostly younger proponents of the new age baseball stats simply dismissed Cabreras accomplishment as meaningless, to the point of finding flaws in BA, HR and RBI; see the reference list that I have complied [11-47], which includes discussion about a possible second Triple Crown for Cabrera, in consecutive seasons, and Cabrera being on pace to breaking the single-season RBI record set by Hack Wilson, a long time ago, back in 1930. As discussed in detail in Refs. [1, 2], my recent interest in this analysis was sparked mainly by what I observed was the inconsistent use of the ratios y/x and y/x in the analysis of baseball statistics to make even the simplest of predictions. The ratio y/x = RBI/Games was being used to predict Cabreras season-end RBI, especially after the incredible four-game stretch that Cabrera had between May 19 and May 23, 2013. In this four-game stretch, Cabrera hit six home runs, with 3 home runs in the first game of this stretch (4, 4, 3) and one home run in each of the subsequent games (4, 1, 1), (4, 2, 1), (3, 2, 1). The three number here at (At Bats, Hits, Home Runs). Cabrera had PERFECT game with a Batting Average BA = H/AB = 4/4 = 1.000 on May 19 with 3 HR. Over the four game stretch the number of Hits went up by y = 4 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 9 and
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the At Bats went up by x = 4 + 4 + 4 + 3 = 15 for an incredible batting average of BA = y/x = 9/15 = 0.600. Suddenly, every was using the ratio y/x, based the on the additional Hits and At Bats, not the ratio y/x, based on cumulative values of H and AB. The current value of y/x = H/AB = 83/216 = 0.367 (after game 55, June 2, 2013). Likewise, while discussing the RBI chase, the ratio being used to make the projection was again the y/x ratio with x now being the number of games played and y the total RBI. The RBI/G ratio is updated at the end of each game and compared to the target ratio of y/x = 192/162 needed to break the Wilson at season end, with a total of x = 162 games and final RBI = 192, one more than Wilsons record of 191. What is the difference between y/x and y/x? We all intuitively understand the difference, as evidenced by the examples just cited. When should one use these two ratios? Sabermetrics also uses various y/x ratios but with a complicated string of sums in the numerator and the denominator, to arrive at, for example, with new ratios like Slugging Percentage (SLG) and On-Base Percentage (OBP) and the On Base Plus Slugging Percentages, OPS = OBP + SLG, and so on (see baseball-reference and move cursor on each acronym in game by game stats, for any player, click here). These ratios, and their complicated numerators and denominators, are aimed at accounting for different elements of the games, as it progresses. With modern computational capabilities, it is very easy to compute zillions of such ratios, very quickly. And this is the whole attraction of Sabermetrics, for the new generation, versus the old generation, who still seem to be stuck with their H, AB, BA, HR, RBI and the Triple Crown, the latter being now dismissed as a worthless accomplishment. When asked about his momentous achievement with the synthesis of the theory of gravitation (click here), Newton is reported to have said, I feel like a small child playing on the seashore, gathering pebbles If I have seen farther, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants..
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Without the Sultan of Swat, and his booming homers across every ball park in America, without Hank Aaron, and Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds (never mind the scandals), and many great baseball players who I have not listed, and the excitement they created with each new home run record, no one will now be talking about baseball. Baseball is all about Hits and Home runs. Take a look at Babe Ruths game by game logs. You will see what I mean. I even saw one with the score (6, 5), an incredible 5 Hits with 6 At Bats, or a single game BA = 5/6 = 0.833. In the modern era, I have seen scores like (8, 1) and (9, 0). There are certain mathematical properties ratios, such as the ratios used in baseball that cannot be overlooked. And, there is an important, but largely overlooked, mathematical property of a straight line that I also want to call attention to. This was the purpose of my recent foray into baseball stats. These points have been discussed in Refs. [1-10] and I sincerely hope, Bill James and Nate Silver, two of the leading proponents of this new era in baseball stats, will pay attention, and also other enthusiastic sportswriters (Zach Rymer, Jeff Passan two name just two) who promote Sabermettrics unabashedly. Since, the goal of Sabermetrics is to use mathematical tools objectively, to understand what is going on in the baseball field, practitioners must also pay attention to these overlooked laws of mathematics. Having called attention to the incredible relation between BA and WAR, the main purpose of this article, let us conclude now with a brief discussion about why the BA, rather than newer ratios such as the SLG, OBP, or OPS, is the superior and mathematically elegant ratio. This was also discussed briefly in Ref. [1], but a brief discussion is provided here for those who missed that.

2. Why is Batting Average Superior to SLG? The Baseball Work Function

As I have noted already, no one can become a baseball fan or understand the game, without knowing the meaning of the basics like Hits, Home Runs (HR),
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RBI and the BA which is the ratio of Hits to At Bats; BA = H/AB. But, the proponents of the new stats felt that the old stats just do not capture what is going on in the ball park and that we (or is it they?) are now able to make careful, scientific, and objective measurements, on all elements of the game, entirely missed by these old simple-minded stats. This was not possible in the years gone by, wrote Nat Silver in his ThirtyFiveEight blog, see Ref. [12]. My interest in analyzing baseball stats, with x-y diagrams, with the BA-WAR diagram of Figure 1 being the latest example, goes back to 1998, the year of the Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chase of the single season HR record of 61 (set by Roger Maris in 1961, which bested the Babe Ruth single season record of 60 set in 1927). I also followed the Barry Bonds chase of the all-time career HR record of Babe Ruth (714) and Hank Aaron (733) and did not miss a single game that Bonds was playing until he hit No. 734 to surpass Hank Aaron. Although these latter records are now considered to be tainted by the steroid controversies hits and home runs is was what baseball is all about. It was Babe Ruths booming home runs across every ball park in America that transformed baseball and made it the all-American favorite sport that it now has becomes, with Sabermetrics being the latest addition. Somewhere along the way, the stat geeks seem to have forgotten what baseball is all about and what a Triple Crown is all about and why no one could win the Triple Crown after 1966. Favoring Mike Trout, whose baseball career has barely started, over Miguel Cabrera, and that too in the year of his winning the Triple Crown? Come guys, it was a no brainer! Get a little perspective and develop some humility. Since all of the young Sabermetricians claim to be practitioners of science and want to revel in the triumph of mathematics, I thought I should remind you of what Newton had to say about his own accomplishments. (I have also mentioned Lord Kelvin in Refs. [2.3], for a reason, and it has to do with the linear laws that we will talk about shortly.) Cabrera was the MVP and respect for tradition and elders and the accomplishments of the earlier generations is a good thing. Remember the time when you were sitting on your dads shoulder at the ball park, long before you learned to count and do Sabermetrics.
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Anyway, for a bit of a perspective, do take a look also at bar graph that I have prepared about where we are with WAR in 2013. This was also presented earlier in my analysis of the baseball stats, Ref. [1]. The WAR numbers for 2013 season (as of this writing on June 3, 2013) are compared with numbers for the 2012 season in the bar graph below, for the top five players leading this stat in 2012. The blue bars, with the data labels above, are the WAR values for the 2013 season, still in progress. The red bars are the corresponding value for the 2012 season. Trout, with 10.9 was leading Cabrera, with a 7.3, by a wide margin but the situation is quite different now in 2013 not only for Trout but also with each one of the other three players (Cano, Posey, and Verlander), who were leading Cabrera in the WAR numbers in the 2012 season.
12 10 8.5 8 6 4 2 0 Cabrera Cano Posey Trout Verlander 3.3 2.1 2.1 1.8 1.5 7.3 7.4 7.7 10.9

Data source: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/poseybu01.shtml

Returning to Figure 1, only one single data point, represented by the red diamond, falls off the best-fit line totally. This is the data for the partial 2013 season, through BA = 0.367 and WAR = 3.3. These numbers were obtained from the ESPN website and have been compiled, for convenience, in Table 1.

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Everyone who is a baseball fan, with even a rudimentary understanding of the game knows about the BA. It is one of the most widely used, and understood, of all baseball stats and the most fundamental measure of performance in baseball. It is also a very mathematically elegant stat, as I have explained using the game-by-game logs of the legendary Babe Ruth [8,9] and contemporary players like Miguel Cabrera [3,4] and Josh Hamilton [10]. The number of Hits (H) can never exceed the number of At Bats (AB). Hence the theoretical maximum value of the BA = H/AB = 1.000. The BA can never exceed this maximum value of 1.000.

Table 1: Miguel Cabreras Career Stats in the three Triple Crown Categories and WAR
Year Batting Home Runs Wins Above Average Runs Batted Replacement (BA) (HR) In (RBI) (WAR) 2003 314 84 0.268 12 62 0.5 2004 603 177 0.294 33 112 3.2 2005 613 198 0.323 33 116 4.9 2006 576 195 0.339 26 114 5.5 2007 588 188 0.320 34 119 3.0 2008 616 180 0.292 37 127 2.3 2009 611 198 0.324 34 103 4.7 2010 548 180 0.328 38 126 6.1 2011 572 197 0.344 30 105 7.3 2012 622 205 0.330 44 130 6.9 2013 226 83 0.367 17 65 3.3 The data for 2013, through June 2, 2013 and were obtained from ESPN. Daily updates are not available for WAR at either Fangraph of ESPN to study the progress of WAR and how it changes with the changing BA during the season. Some of the information about WAR is not publicly available. According to Sam Miller (click here), even the original developer of the algorithm for WAR (used by Baseball-Reference) cannot calculate WAR like you and I can calculate BA. To quote, from Sam Miller, And the parts of WAR that are available -- each site's
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At Bats (AB)

Hits (H)

metrics on hitting performance, pitching performance, park factors, strength of opponent and league baselines for baserunning and double plays -- are too advanced and/or unwieldy for most fans to realistically figure out on their own. I'm not a mathematician and I'm not a scientist. I'm a guy who tries to understand baseball with common sense. In this era, that means embracing advanced metrics that I don't really understand. That should make me a little uncomfortable, and it does. WAR is a crisscrossed mess of routes leading toward something that, basically, I have to take on faith. Alas, this is NOT the scientific method. Even Reinhart-Rogoff made their Microsoft Excel code available to the graduate student who found errors in their work and published them triggering a great debate among economists about the Debt/GDP ratio; see some references cited. Furthermore, a remarkably simple linear law y = hx + c, which is like a law of nature, as I will explain shortly, relates the number of At Bats x, and the number of Hits y. This law can be deduced by considering baseball stats at its most elementary and fundamental level the game-by-game logs of a baseball player. It is these game by game stats that we aggregate and present as monthly stats which are in turn aggregated and presented as season stats and then as career stats. Of course, this law can only be derived by considering the best of baseball players, not any baseball player. Why? Why not, any player? Let us digress briefly. When a young Einstein put forward his photoelectric law, relating the energy K of an electron and the energy of the photon , which is written as K = 0 = W =hf W = h(f f0), some scientists, notably Robert Millikan, who later got the Nobel Prize in 1924 (for confirming this exact equation), paid attention. Einstein had revived the old discredited idea of light being made of particles, proposed by none other than Newton. Instead of momentum of the particles, like Newton did, Einstein talked about the energy of each particle = hf where h is the universal constant called the Planck constant and f is the frequency of light. When a stream of photons strikes the metal surface, electrons are ejected. The maximum energy K of the electron must be less than the photon energy because some work W must be done to get the electron out of the metal and overcome the forces binding the
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electron to the metal. To keep things simple, Einstein decided to call it W, the work function, which will depend on the nature of the metal. Hence, the law relating K and f becomes a simple linear. No electrons are observed unless the frequency of light exceeds value f0 which is related to the work function W = hf0 = 0 thus a simple linear law. This explains the cut-off frequency f0 which had been observed by Lenard, who was the first to study photoelectricity. (Lenard got the Nobel Prize later in 1905, the same year Einstein published the explanation for the cut-off frequency f0.) Einstein also said that the universal constant h can be measured accurately only if we measure the maximum kinetic energy of the electron K in such an experiment (where a metal is exposed to light radiation of known frequency and electrons are collected and made to flow in an external circuit). Millikan discusses this point in great detail and also reviews the difficulties of earlier researchers in this regard before describing his own experiments with photoelectricity which fetched him the Nobel Prize. (Einstein was also awarded the Nobel Prize for his photoelectric law, not the theory of relativity.) In the same way, we must consider the best of baseball players, if we wish to observe the law relating Hits and At Bats. If we consider the best among the players (I have already discussed the stats for Babe Ruth [8,9, Cabrera [3,4], and Hamilton [10]), we will find scores like (4, 4), (3, 3), (2, 2), (1, 1) for individual games. Here the first number x is the At Bats and the second number y is the Hits. For just these few games, the player has the PERFECT BA = y/x = 4/4 = 1.000 = 3/3 = 2/2 = 1/1. In other words, y = x for these games. If we study more games, we will also find scores like (5,4), (4, 3), (3, 2), (2, 1) and (1, 0). With Babe Ruth, we also find (6, 5). For these games, y = x + c = x 1 where c = - 1 is related to the one missing hit. The BA y/x = 1 (1/x) deviates from the PERFECT BA = 1 and increases to the maximum value of BA = 1.000, if this continues for very large x. Thus, if a player can achieves a score of (9,8) the BA = 8/9 = 0.889, which is an incredible BA, especially if it includes 3 or 4 homers, like we saw Cabrera on May 19, 2013 with a score of (4, 4, 3) where the last number is the home runs. I have seen At Bats = 9 but only a score of (9, 1) in the data, or score of (8, 1),
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in the data for some contemporary hitters that I have examined. One should be able to observe a score (9, 3) or (9, 5). The MLB record is 9 hits in 11 AB (in an 18 innings game) set on July 10, 1932 by Johnny Burnett, which still stands today (click here). The main point here is the missing hits in modern games, even with so many At Bats, which is clearly related to the skill of the baseball player, or the difficulty of producing Hits due to a wide variety of complex factors, including factors beyond the hitter alone such as the pitcher, pitching speed, wind speed, and the stadium size and location, to name just a few.
10 8

y=x y=x-2
(5, 4)

Single Game Hits, y

6 4 2

y=x-4

(8, 1)
0 -2 -4 -6

10

Single Game At Bats, x

Mike Trout, ESPN Game-by-game stats, http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/gamelog/_/id/30836/mike-trout Figure 2: The At Bats-Hits diagram for Mike Trout, for the 2013 season (through June 2, 2013. The data follows a series of parallels with the general equation y =
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hx + c with the slope h = 1 and the intercept c being the missing hits. This is the baseball work function. If we aggregate the game-by-game, the law changes to h < 1 and positive of negative c depending on the skill of the baseball player.

Joey Votto had a (6,4) game on April 20, 2013 and followed it with a (5,3) game the day after for a (11, 6) record and BA = 0.636 in two consecutive games. But, no one was paying attention to this in the WAR era. With only one homer in each of these games, it is kind of difficult to get the attention of baseball fans. The At Bats-Hits diagram for Mike Trout, in the 2013 season (through June 2, 2013), see Figure 2, illustrates the baseball work function and the movement along parallels. If we study more games, continue, we will find scores like (2, 0), (3, 1), (4, 2), (5, 3) or y = x + c = x 2 where the nonzero intercept c = -2, the number of missing hits. Now the BA = y/x = 1 (2/x) is again less than one and approaches the limit of 1.000 for very large x. Thus, the x-y (At Bats-Hits) graph is a series of parallel lines all having a fixed slope h = 1 and the nonzero intercept c is related to the missing hits, or the skill of the baseball player. This is just like the K-f parallels of photoelectricity. If we start aggregating the data into monthly and season data, we will observe the more general law y = hx + c = h(x x0) where x0 = -c/h. This baseball law is exactly similar to the photoelectric law and nonzero c, which, as shown, is related to the missing hits, is exactly similar to the work function W in Einsteins law. Thus, we can think of the nonzero c in the At Bats-Hits diagram as the baseball work function, which is related to the skill of the baseball player. I have shown that for Babe Ruth, in the historic 1927 season, the constant c was negative (c < 0) but for his Yankee team-mate, Lou Gehrig, the constant was positive (c > 0). If c < 0, the ratio y/x = BA = h + (c/x) This is the mathematical beauty and the elegance of the fundamental baseball stat, the batting average. It is not a simple-minded stat, like modern stat geeks seem to think. The law, as described, if properly used is the best measure of the skill of the baseball player.
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We can extend the same analysis to At Bats-Hits and At Bats-RBI. In each case we find a linear law. However, like the At Bats-Hits law, there is no maximum slope h = 1 that we can conceive. Of course, we can always think of a dream player who always hits only home runs with every single At Bat. Players like Babe Ruth and Cabrera, with his (4, 4, 3) came close. So, to all those stat geeks who pride their intellectual superiority, it is a mockery of the very science that you promote if you think that the BA is inferior to SLG, or OBP, or OPS. The SLG can reach ugly levels, far greater than 1.000, when nothing much is happening (see Cabreras April 2013 games with SLG > 1.000.) And, as discussed in Ref. [1], it can show no signs of anything happening when the baseball park is roaring and cheering the three homeruns in a single game by a single player! (See Cabreras four-game stretch in May 2013.) (Some among this younger Sabermetric group have actually bemoaned the lack of intellectual progress among the traditionalists. Hence, these remarks here. One has even called those who disagree with WAR as stupid outright. I shall not name these authors and it is up to the readers to figure it from the references cited. My intention is NOT to call anyone names. I only want ALL to see the mathematical beauty of what the BA really is. I was really saddened to read such an uninformed outburst by several from the Sabermetrics crowd. Let me say now, on behalf of all traditionalists and the old stats folks, I bemoan their lack of maturity, and we are all EVEN now! .) Take a look again at Mike Trouts 2013 game-by-game At Bats-Hits diagram and tell me how WAR should be recalculated. Do the missing hits mean nothing? Did they not cost the team any wins or runs?
As Sam Miller states, WAR demands faith. To quote, I'm not a mathematician and I'm not a scientist. I'm a guy who tries to understand baseball with common sense. In this era, that means embracing advanced metrics that I don't really understand. That should make me a little uncomfortable, and it does. WAR is a crisscrossed mess of routes leading toward something that, basically, I have to take on faith. And faith is irrational and anti-intellectual, right? Faith is for rain dances and sun gods, for spirituality but not science. Actually, no. Faith is how we organize a complicated modern world. Faith is what you have when your doctor walks in with a syringe filled
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with something that could be anything and tells you that it'll keep you from getting the measles. Unless you're a doctor or a medical scientist, you don't really understand vaccines, and you certainly can't brew one up at home. You have outsourced the intellectual side of your health to people who, your faith reassures you, are smarter than you. Maybe in one way of looking at it you're not as smart as your great-great-great-grandparents were, because they had to take responsibility for cooking their own medicine. But you'll live longer. The complicated nature of WAR, your inability to touch the guts of it, isn't an argument against it. That's just what human advancement looks like in the 21st century. And if you can accept that you can walk into a tube built out of 100 tons of aluminum, fly seven miles off the ground and land safely thousands of miles away, you can accept WAR.

If this is the best argument for WAR, I like my faith in the x-y diagrams and the law of nature as I see revealed by the mathematically beautiful At BatsHits diagram that each one of you can touch and feel and enjoy and create using Microsoft Excel programs for your favorite teams and favorite players. Here it is, the whole truth revealed to all of you. No secret algorithms. This will live as long as baseball is played in any part of the world. Hey, we old traditionalists can also write and be just as grandiloquent. Cheers to Mr. Miller for being so honest about what WAR is all about. . Now, we know for sure. Just take my word for it (or my algorithm for it), will NOT cut, it, should NOT be allowed to cut it, in any future MVP debate. Just, explain to me why Trouts WAR numbers have collapsed in this season? Why is Cabreras WAR number, with about two-thirds of the games still to be played, not fall on the straight line in Figure 1 when all the rest of the data, for his entire career follows the best-fit line so well? I would like answer this question myself, but as Miller has explained, it is all too complicated and no one can touch or feel it. (I have sent an email to Fangraph requesting game-by-game data for WAR for Cabrera and Trout for the 2012 season and also the 2013 season. Lets see if and how they respond.) So, What is WAR? As explained by Baseball-Reference, the Sabermetric called WAR represents the number of wins added by a player to a team above what a replacement player would add (think AAA or AAAAA).
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 3. The Many Algorithms for WAR for A Player

As explained by Miller in the article cited, and also by Fangraph (click here) and let me use a direct quote, WAR basically looks at a player and asks the question, If this player got injured and their team had to replace them with a minor leaguer or someone from their bench, how much value would the team be losing? This value is expressed in a wins format, so we could say that Player X is worth +6.3 wins to their team while Player Y is only worth +3.5 wins. Also, later in the same article, WAR is available in two places: FanGraphs (fWAR) and Baseball-Reference (rWAR). Both statistics use the same framework, but are calculated slightly differently and therefore sometimes show different results. Table 2: The Career WAR numbers for Miguel Cabrera from Fangraph Home RBI WAR Runs (HR) 2003 314 84 0.268 1.0 12 62 2004 603 177 0.294 2.5 33 112 2005 613 198 0.323 5.2 33 116 2006 576 195 0.339 6.4 26 114 2007 588 188 0.320 5.1 34 119 2008 616 180 0.292 2.6 37 127 2009 611 198 0.324 5.2 34 103 2010 548 180 0.328 6.2 38 126 2011 572 197 0.344 6.8 30 105 2012 622 205 0.330 6.9 44 130 2013 226 83 0.367 3.4 17 65 Data source: Fangraph, The WAR numbers are in the very last column at this link, http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1744&position=1B/3B It is not clear if the above means that we can get contradictory results for the same player in the different WAR calculations. What if Cabrera leads the fWAR number for the 2013 season but some other player leads the rWAR number? Will a new war (lower case, not upper case) erupt among the intellectual
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Year

At Bats, AB (x)

Hits, H (y)

BA (y/x) H/AB

giants of baseball since their player was getting screwed, to use a favorite line used for Trouts loss in the 2012 MVP race. As we see from Table 2 here, the WAR number for 2003 season is 1.0 for Cabreras 0.50 in the baseballreference WAR calculations. There are also differences for the other seasons. But, for the 2013 season, to date, both numbers are quite close.

Wins Above Replacement (WAR), y

10.00

Miguel Cabrera (2003-2013) WAR from Fangraph

8.00

6.00

(xm , ym)

4.00

2.00

y = 83.959h 21.76 With r2 = 0.9999

0.00 0.000

0.100

0.200

0.300

0.400

0.500

Season end Batting Average (BA), x

Data source http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1744&position=1B/3B Figure 3: Graphical representation of the BA and WAR data Miguel Cabreras career (2003-2012) to date and the partial season 2013 (red diamond). The blue dot is the average (or mean) value for the 10 year period (2003-2012). It is also of interest to note that the slope h and the intercept c in the linear relation y = hx + c is virtually identical. The linear regression coefficient r2 (now called coefficient of determination, I learned it as correlation coefficient) has increased to the linearly PERFECT value of +1.000 with the Fangraph data.
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This Sabermetric thing was really scary at first, but just decided to plunge in and try to find simple correlations between the old stats and the new stats. The results that we see here in Figures 1 and 3, in this preliminary study of Sabermetrics, are truly amazing and also give room for comfort. More importantly, they tell us that notwithstanding all the computerized juggling the results agree with the age old stats of the traditionalists. Just look at it this way. You can get online and try to input a gazillion matching parameters into the computer for your dream date. And, then you chat online with this person and finally meet him or her and you find out that it was all a BIG BIG mistake and a total disaster! Then, you walk down the street the next day and meet the love of your dreams. But, sometimes, the computer can do the trick too. It did it here for Cabrera. Does the same apply for all players? Well, I did check that too and found the WAR numbers for the Top 10 who were leading in the batting average in 2012 and in the top 10 in the WAR category. The results exactly identical. Instead of multi-year data for a single player, the graph is about multi-player data for a single year. There is some scatter in the data, but this can be understood, by invoking the idea of the baseball work function which has been discussed here in detail for the Batting Average. The same idea of a work function also applies for other correlations. We will discuss this in other article. And, there is one more piece of good news. The WAR figures for different players also correlates well Hits and Home Runs, once we understand the idea of the work function in baseball. The values for 2013 can be obtained from both ESPN and Baseball-Reference. I used the latter one for this purpose. In summary, there is no need to go to war (lower case) about WAR (upper case). The new generation better stay paying attention to what is old stat geek
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has found with the correlations described here. And, I look forward to more openness in the sharing and dissemination of the various algorithms used to calculate WAR. Or better yet, we should be able to agree on one single methodology. My faith in the old-fashioned way of analyzing data, using simple x-y diagrams to find correlation such as those revealed here, has now been confirmed. Instead of being baffled by WAR, I am dazzled by these correlations. And so, when it is time to determine the 2013 MVP, I look forward to being invited to abstain from voting! Cheers again! .

My Comments on Nate Silvers Blog Posted on June 5, 2013

I have continued my analysis and posted the following to explain further the contradictory use of the y/x ratio (to predict the season RBI for Cabrera, based on the current RBI/Games ratio) and the slope of the graph (to discuss the four-game stretch that Cabrera had from May 19 to May 23, 2013). http://www.scribd.com/doc/145626322/What-is-the-Big-Difference-Between-theWilson-and-the-Cabrera-Eras-in-Baseball It is also of concern to me that some of the advanced Sabermetrics data is NOT available for public scrutiny (like I am doing with the old stats). I have read that they are NOT published and only results of various simulations are presented, as deemed fit. I can hardly call this science. Mr. Silver and Sabermetric gurus should reflect on this and put an end to this unscientific method and crass commercialism. Having said that, in my discussion of the old stats, I have also discussed, for example, what Galileo did and amazingly we do the same thing with baseball stats too (Cabrera's four game stretch). I also called attention to Einstein's photoelectric law (here theory was required to explain observations) and Charles law (where
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observation-theory-more observations) and Lord Kelvins conclusion, where Charles observation led to the Kelvin theory. And, as with Einstein's law, it also led to a new and profound understanding of the Universe. The old stats, such as the BA have a mathematical beauty to them, and the At Bats-Hits relation, is like a law of nature. Sabermetrics would greatly benefit from such an understanding. For Sabermetrics to progress, first the secrecy and the withholding of information must end. Second, we must STOP the mindless use of zillions of y/x ratios without understanding the nature of the underlying x-y relations. Sorry, I don't write like the articles. In the comments here I have done so but it also crystallizes the message, I hope, concisely, with plain speak. In my next article, I will show that there is an amazingly simple linear relation between, you guessed it, the BA and the WAR! Thanks for allowing me this opportunity to comment here and share my thoughts. Ultimately, from a study of baseball stats, we can also arrive at a better understanding of many other (x, y) observations on other complex systems - such as the financial world, economics, social, political, cultural, and environmental trends. The advocates of Sabermetrics (at least some) must move from the condescending, overly aggressive and insulting treatment of the so-called old stats and 'traditionalist' views. There is no baseball without the old stats; let's not forget that.

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Reference List
1. What is the Big Difference Between the Wilson and Cabrera Eras? Published June 3, 2013, http://www.scribd.com/doc/145626322/What-isthe-Big-Difference-Between-the-Wilson-and-the-Cabrera-Eras-in-Baseball What is Wrong with Ratio Analysis? Baseball Offers an Interesting Example with Wide Applications, Published May 31, 2013. http://www.scribd.com/doc/144798463/What-is-Wrong-With-RatioAnalysis-Baseball-Offers-an-Interesting-Example-with-Wider-Applications Is Miguel Cabrera on Pace to Break Hack Wilsons Single-Season RBI Record?, Published May 28, 2013, http://www.scribd.com/doc/144083838/Is-Miguel-Cabrera-on-Pace-toBreak-Hack-Wilson-s-Single-Season-RBI-Record-YES-Can-I-Changed-MyMind-on-This-Read-On-Now Trust Me, the Financial World will Change Forever if Wall Street Starts Analyzing Financial Data like we do Baseball Stats, Published May 26, 2013, http://www.scribd.com/doc/143781795/Trust-Me-the-FinancialWorld-will-change-forever-if-Wall-Street-starts-analyzing-financial-datalike-we-do-baseball-stats-Miguel-Cabrera Instablog at Seeking Alpha, Trust Me, The Financial World will Change forever if Wall Street Starts Analyzing Financial Data Like we do Baseball Statistics: Miguel Cabrera, Posted May 26, 2013, http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/958073-vlaxmanan/1894301-trustme-the-financial-world-will-change-forever-if-wall-street-starts-analyzingfinancial-data-like-we-do-baseball-statistics-miguel-cabrera Instablog at Seeking Alpha: What is Wrong with Ratio Analysis? Baseball Again Offers an Interesting Example, Published on May 31, 2013,
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/958073-vlaxmanan/1910731-what-iswrong-with-ratio-analysis-used-by-wall-street-baseball-again-offers-aninteresting-example

2.

3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

8.

Babe Ruths 1923 Batting Statistics and Einsteins Work Function, Published April 17, 2013, http://www.scribd.com/doc/136489156/BabeRuth-s-1923-Batting-Statistics-and-Einstein-s-Work-Function

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9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

Babe Ruth Batting Statistics and Einsteins Work Function, To be Published April 17, 2013, http://www.scribd.com/doc/136556738/BabeRuth-Batting-Statistics-and-Einstein-s-Work-Function The Method of Least Squares: Predicting the Batting Average of a Baseball Player (Hamilton in 2013), Published May 7, 2013, http://www.scribd.com/doc/139924317/The-Method-of-Least-SquaresPredicting-the-Batting-Average-of-a-Baseball-Player-Hamilton-in-2013 MLB Statistics Glossary, http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?page=stats/glossary Sabermetrics Glossary, http://baseball.about.com/od/termstatglossar1/a/sabermetrics.htm Statistical Case Against Miguel Cabrera for MVP, by Nate Silver, November 14, 2012, http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/the-statisticalcase-against-cabrera-for-m-v-p/ A very nice discussion about new stats versus old stats and the Trout for MVP debate in 2012. WAR is the answer, by Sam Miller, ESPN The Magazine, February 19, 2013, http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8959581/why-winsreplacement-mlb-next-big-all-encompassing-stat-espn-magazine Baseball Therapy, A Sabermetric case for Miguel Cabreras MVP Candidacy, by Russell A. Carleton, September 28, 2012, http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=18493 What Is Sabermetrics? And Which Teams Use It? By Bradley Woodrum, February 9, 2012, http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/what-issabermetrics-and-which-teams-use-it/ Stats Revolution does not have enough political muscle to reward ALs true MVP: Mike Trout, by Jeff Passan, November 15, 2012, http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mlb-s-stats-revolution-doesn-t-haveenough-political-muscle-to-reward-al-s-true-mvp--mike-trout-.html Like
those who ignore the truths of climate science and evolution of fact the people who dismiss Nate Silver allow their preconceptions and egos to get in the way of the ultimate goal: the truth. If the best path to that is subjective observation, may our eyes be forever honest. Should we find otherwise, however, may our pride step aside to let the greater authority guide us. My colleagues in the BBWAA failed to do that, and when Cabrera wins I'm guessing he gets at least 20 of the 28 first-place votes it will not be a travesty, a sham, a mockery or a traveshamockery. It will just be wrong. A fight 15 years in the making will continue until not just the electorate but the public beyond accepts that when it comes to appreciating baseball, math is not some scary android trying to take away our game. It's here, more than anything, to help us understand it and love it even more.
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18. AL MVP Award 2012 Voting Results: Why Mike Trout Got Totally Screwed, November 15, 2012, by Zachary Rymer, http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1410684-al-mvp-award-2012-voting-resultswhy-mike-trout-got-totally-screwed 19. Overrated Stats Could Give Miguel Cabrera an MVP He Doesnt Deserve, by Zachary Rymer, October 15, 2012 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1372296-overrated-stats-could-givemiguel-cabrera-an-mvp-he-doesnt-deserve Traditionalists love Cabrera because
he just had the league's first Triple Crown seasonhitting .330 with 44 homers and 139 RBIin 45 years while leading the Tigers to the playoffs. With these accomplishments on his resume, he's surely a slam dunk for the MVP. The new-age crowd loves Trout because he led baseball in WAR and seemingly every other sabermetric stat, and the new-age crowd will gladly tell you that these stats measure a player's value far better than the old-school stats can. If you've been following along with the situation, you'll know what happens as soon as everyone puts their cards on the table. Typically, loud yelling ensues. Trout supporters argue that Cabrera isn't all that great, and Cabrera supporters argue that the advanced stats are nothing but a bunch of mumbo jumbo.

20. Sabermetrics Doesnt Have A Monopoly on Not-stupid: Mike Trout is the AL MVP, by EJ Fagan, October 4, 2012, in General Musings, http://www.yankeeanalysts.com/2012/10/sabermetrics-doesnt-have-amonopoly-on-not-stupid-mike-trout-is-the-al-mvp-45618#comment766301 Mike Trout is the most valuable player in the American League. Miguel Cabrera is not.
This is as clear as it could possibly be, and is not a matter of opinion, but rather an objective, verifiable, mathematical fact. Another who argues otherwise either is a) defining most valuable player in an illogical, arbitrary way b) has not seen the math or c) is stupid. Lets start with the pure arithmetic: Without even considering position, Mike Trout was the best hitter in the American League. His .324/.397/.561 was good for 170 OPS+, .421 wOBP and 174 wRC+, all tops in the league. His 57.2 batting runs contributed edges out Miguel Cabreras 56.1 batting runs contributed, despite playing 22 fewer games. Add in the production of a replacement player filling in for those 22 games and purely on hitting Trout is the clear MVP by a significant margin. Of course, thats not everything. Miguel Cabrera plays third base, poorly. Mike Trout plays center and left field, incredibly well. How well? We dont really know. If UZR is your choice metric, . You get the idea by now, if not you are stupid, as EJ would put it.

21.

Revenge Against Baseball Nerds, by David Roth, November 16, 2012, http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2012/11/16/revenge-against-baseballsnerds/ Heres the most fascinating part of the great Mike Trout-Miguel Cabrera MVP debate:
The zealots on both sides cant even believe theres an argument, the Seattle Post-Intelligencers Larry Stone writes. Its a little too clichd to paint this Most Valuable Player vote as another battle in the war between the saber-nerds and the traditionalists the staid Luddites of the Baseball Page | 23

Writers Association of America vs. the WAR-loving eggheaded sons of Bill James. In the Detroit Free Press, Mitch Albom delivered an equally heartfelt Take That, Nerds column. Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports decried the slow pace of intellectual change in the game.

22. Mitch Albom: Miguel Cabreras award a win for fans, defeat for stats geeks, November 16, 2012,
http://www.freep.com/article/20121116/COL01/311160108/Miggy-s-award-a-win-for-fansdefeat-for-stats-geeks In a battle of computer analysis versus people who still watch baseball as, you know, a sport, what we saw with our Detroit vision was what most voters saw as well: Statistics geeks insisted Cabrera was less worthy than Angels rookie centerfielder Mike Trout. Not because Trout's traditional baseball numbers were better. They weren't. Cabrera had more home runs (44), more runs batted in (139) and a better batting average (.330) than Trout and everyone else in the American League. It gave him the sport's first Triple Crown in 45 years. But Trout excelled in the kind of numbers that weren't even considered a few years ago, mostly because A) They were impossible to measure, and B) Nobody gave a hoot.

23. Miguel Cabrera: Sabermetrics Dont Help True MVP, by Ryan Masters, http://www.rantsports.com/clubhouse/2012/10/03/miguel-cabrerasabermetrics-dont-help-true-mvp/ Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers should
be the AL MVP this season. Many people think that Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels deserves it more because his sabermetric statistics are better. I question how accurate these numbers even are and what they really mean. They have not been around for that long so it is still plausible that corrections need to be made in some of the formulas. The newest statistic that everyone is focusing on is Wins Above Replacement. Trout is leading the league in WAR by a substantial margin. This number seems to be inaccurate right off the bat. I would like to see people vote for Miguel Cabrera. He is accomplishing one of the most remarkable feats in sports but could get overlooked by a rookie due to some mathematical formulas that dont belong in baseball.

24. Miguel Cabrera Worthy MVP, despite complaints, by Nicke Cafardo, The Globe Staff, November 18, 2012, http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2012/11/18/miguel-cabrera-worthymvp-despite-complaints-sabermetriclobby/0FpCnczaRU9bv2tLbOXQdL/story.html Some of the rhetoric got downright
nasty. This is getting like Republicans vs. Democrats, Fox News vs. MSNBC. Cant we all get along? From Aug. 1 to Oct. 3, Trout hit .287 for the Angels with 12 homers, 28 RBIs, 49 runs, 18 stolen bases, and 67 strikeouts, while Cabrera hit .344 for the Tigers with 19 homers, 54 RBIs, 42 runs, no steals, and just 39 strikeouts. Do these numbers mean anything to those who are so adamant that Trout should have won the MVP race? This was framed as a close race before the voting, but in fact, it was not a close vote. It was like Obama-Romney. If you listened to Fox News, Mitt Romney was going to win in a landslide, but the election turned out overwhelmingly in Barack Obamas favor. Nate Silver, who has correctly predicted the results of the last two presidential races, presented a strong case for Trout in his FiveThirty-Eight blog last Sunday, pointing out that Trout added 12 runs with his base running while Cabrera cost his team three runs, and Trout saved 11 runs

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defensively while Cabrera cost his team 10. And when Silver speaks, we listen, because hes usually right. Its very interesting, and you can make a strong case with the numbers he presented. But you cant ignore the fact that Cabreras team made the playoffs and Trouts team didnt.

25. Jacoby Jones, Mike Jones, Sabermetrics, and You, By Poseur, March 12, 2013, http://www.andthevalleyshook.com/2013/3/12/4093856/jacobyjones-mike-trout-sabermetrics-and-you 26. On WAR, Trout, Cabrera, Leyland, sabermetrics, and the MVP, by Kurt Mensching, Sep 21, 2012, http://www.blessyouboys.com/2012/9/21/3369482/on-war-troutcabrera-sabermetrics-and-the-mvp 27. Cabrera Increasing His Value Even More with Situational Hitting, May 26, 2013, Posted by Lee Panas, http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/beyondbattingaverage 28. Has Miguel Cabrera Passed Albert Pujols? Published by Doc, Paul Goode, May 23, 2013, http://basebook.socialgo.com/magazine/read/has-miguelcabrera-passed-albert-pujols_574.html First is Cabrera. The Detroit TIgers' star is
30 years old and in his 11th year of MLB service. A native of Venezuela, Cabrera is a righthanded batter with 335 home runs,1,178 RBI, 399 doubles, 14 triples and 1,874 hits (in 1,557 career games). Cabrera, who was originally drafted by the Florida Marlins, is most famous now for his Triple Crown Achievement last season. Cabrera was the first Triple Crown winner in baseball since Carl Yazstremski won it in 1966 (Baseball-Reference). This season, Cabrera is well ahead of his Triple Crown numbers at this point last year. According to ESPN statistics, Cabrera was batting .306 with eight home runs and 35 RBI through 45 games in 2012. This compared to his gaudy numbers through the same number of games in '13 (.391/14 HR/55 RBI).

29. How Much is a Triple Crown worth for Miguel Cabrera, by Kurt Badenhausen, Forbes October 4, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/10/04/how-muchis-a-triple-crown-worth-for-miguel-cabrera/ 30. Incredible GIF Shows Miguel Cabrera Hitting Six Home Runs at Once, by Cork Gaines, May 28, 2013, http://www.businessinsider.com/incredible-gif-shows-miguel-cabrerahitting-6-home-runs-at-once-2013-5 Cabrera is making a run for his second straight
triple crown, currently leading the American League with a .377 average, 26 points higher than anybody else in baseball. His 14 home runs are two behind the league leader. And Cabrera's 57 RBI has him on pace for 188 RBI, which would be the second-highest total ever.

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31. Rare Improvement After a Triple Crown, by Benjamin Hoffman, May 28, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/sports/baseball/miguelcabrera-on-pace-to-improve-on-his-triple-crown-season.html?_r=0 32. 10 Degrees: Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera giving encore in what could be a season for the ages, by Jeff Passan, the http://sports.yahoo.com/news/10-degrees--mike-trout--miguel-cabreragiving-tremendous-encore-in-what-could-be-a-season-for-ages051834690.html 33. Miguel Cabrera: Tigers Superstar on Track to Smash Untouchable MLB Record, by James Morsiette, May 25, 2013, http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1651288-miguel-cabrera-tigerssuperstar-on-track-to-smash-untouchable-mlb-record On Friday, Basebook
Baseball Magazine writer Paul Goode wrote a solid post that raised the question: Has Miguel Cabrera surpassed Albert Pujols as the premier all-round hitter in baseball?

34.

While reading Goodes feature, I could not help but notice one of Cabreras gaudy stats. Through 46 games, Cabrera is batting .388 with 14 homers and a whopping 1.154 OPS. More striking is Cabrera's 57 RBI. Per ESPN, Cabrera is on pace for 201 RBI this year.

35. What they are saying: Miguel Cabrera on pace to break Hack Wilsons single season RBI record, by James Schmehl, May 6, 2013, http://www.mlive.com/tigers/index.ssf/2013/05/what_theyre_saying_mi guel_cabr.html#comments Much of that talk centers around Tigers third baseman Miguel
Cabrera, who is on pace to drive in 194 RBIs. That puts him in line to top Hack Wilson's all-time record of 191 RBIs.

36. Miguel Cabrera: Tigers Superstar on Track to Smash Untouchable MLB Record, by James Morsiette, May 25, 2013. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1651288-miguel-cabrera-tigerssuperstar-on-track-to-smash-untouchable-mlb-record Paul Goode Basebook Baseball Magazine writer called attention to the possibility of breaking the single-season Wilson record. 37. Despite zero RBI Saturday, Miguel Cabrera on pace to break record, by Matt Snyder, May 25, 2013, http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/blog/eye-onbaseball/22302415/despite-zero-rbi-saturday-miguel-cabrera-on-pace-tobreak-record He took a zero in the RBI category on Saturday after knocking in 15 in the
previous five games. Cabrera's pace for the season is a whopping 196. The major-league record for RBI in a season is 191, held by Hack Wilson (Cubs, 1930). The American League record is held by Lou Gehrig (Yankees, 1931), as he drove home 184 in 1931. Page | 26

38. Runs Batted In (RBI) http://www.sportingcharts.com/dictionary/mlb/runs-batted-in-rbi.aspx

While RBI is generally tracked as an individual statistic and gives an indication as to the ability of a player to generate offense for a team, there are some critics of the metric that suggest that the quality of the team is also a significant input into the number of RBIs a player is able to generate.

39. Why the RBI is Obsolete and Why We Can Do Better? By Zachary D Rymer, November 19, 2012, http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1414978why-the-rbi-is-obsolete-and-how-we-can-do-better 40. What back-to-back Triple Crown Awards could mean for Cabreras Legacy, by Zachary Rymer, May 13, 2013, http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1637983-what-back-to-back-triplecrown-awards-would-mean-for-miguel-cabreras-legacy Last year, the Detroit
Tigers third baseman did something that hadn't been done in 45 years by capturing the triple crown with a .330 average, 44 homers and 139 RBI. And there was much rejoicing. A second straight triple crown would be quite the game-changer, right? We'll get to that, but first we must answer another question: Can he do it? I don't see why not. Heading into Monday's action, Cabrera is leading MLB with a .379 average and 40 RBI. We know based on his .320 career average and two straight batting titles that he can maintain a high batting average, and we're also talking about a guy who has picked up two RBI titles in a string of nine straight 100-RBI seasons. He has two of the three parts of the triple crown covered. What Cabrera must do from here on out is ramp up his home run production, as his seven homers put him four off the American League lead. That's not a small deficit.

41. Why Hack Wilsons RBI Record is Impossible to Break in Todays MLB, by Zachary D. Rymer, May 20, 2013, http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1645610-why-hack-wilsons-rbirecord-is-impossible-to-break-in-todays-mlb 42. Whispers: Cabrera in Pursuit of Wilson, May 25, 2013, by Phil Rogers, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-25/sports/sc-spt-0526whispers-rogers-baseball-20130526_1_musial-kevin-gausman-samueldeduno Hack Wilson's record 191 RBI has stood since 1930 but Miguel Cabrera entered the
weekend on track to break it, hitting .391 and on pace to produce 50 homers and 198 RBIs. Scoff at your own risk. Cabrera is trying to become the first player to repeat a Triple Crown season.

No one has come closer than Ty Cobb, who finished second in average, homers and RBIs in 1910 after leading in all categories in 1909. Ted Williams should get special credit for winning the Triple Crown in 1942 and then finishing second in all three categories in '46 after missing three seasons to military service.
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43. Already a Triple Crown winner, Cabrera may only be getting started, Associated Press, May 25, 2013, ww.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/sports/baseball/miguel-cabrera-picks-upwhere-his-triple-crown-season-left-off.html?_r=0 44. Miguel Cabrera on pace for RBI record, possible Triple Crown, by Kurt Mensching, May 24, 2013, Temporary lead in all three Triple Crown categories, http://www.blessyouboys.com/2013/5/24/4362446/miguelcabrera-triple-crown-rbi-record-tigers 45. Single Season Leaders for Runs Batted In (RBI), Baseball Almanac, http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting/hirbi2.shtml 46. Can Anyone Stop Miguel Cabrera from Winning another Triple Crown, http://www.bloguin.com/theoutsidecorner/2013-articles/may/cananyone-stop-miguel-cabrera-from-winning-another-triple-crown.html 47. A New Low for Miguel Cabrera, by Jeff Sullivan, May 20, 2013, http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/a-new-low-for-miguel-cabrera/
According to the ESPN Home Run Tracker, there were 22 homers on Sunday. The longest was hit by Miguel Cabrera. The second-longest was hit by Miguel Cabrera. The third-longest was hit by Miguel Cabrera. The fourth-longest wasnt hit by Miguel Cabrera, but now youre being greedy. All of the homers were similar, and all of the homers were significantly different.

48. Theoretical concepts in physics, by M. S. Longair, Cambridge University Press (1984). http://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Concepts-PhysicsAlternative-Reasoning/dp/052152878X Chapters 9 to 15 (case studies IV and V) and also chapters under Case Study II (Maxwell equations and electromagnetism) are highly recommended and cover the Planck and Einstein laws which are actually founded upon Maxwells work. 49. On a heuristic point of view about the creation and conversion of light, by A. Einstein, 1905, Einsteins original paper which showed light can be viewed as particles with fixed energy quanta,
http://www.ffn.ub.es/luisnavarro/nuevo_maletin/Einstein_1905_heuristic.pdf

50. On a heuristic point of view concerning the production and transformation of light, Paper 5, in Einsteins Miraculous Year: Five Papers that changed the face of physics, Princeton Univ. Press (1998). http://press.princeton.edu/einstein/materials/light_quanta.pdf 51. Einsteins Quanta, Entropy, and the Photoelectric Effect, by Dwight E. Neuenschwander, Excellent discussion about how Einstein arrives at his
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conception of light quanta from the property called entropy possessed by radiation in the form light,
http://www.sigmapisigma.org/radiations/2004/elegant_connections_f04.pdf

52. The electron and light quant from experimental point of view, May 23, 1924, Nobel Lecture, by Robert Millikan, see Figure 4 on page 63, for experiments with sodium. The straight line graph for photoelectric experiments confirms Einsteins law. The slope of the graph gives the universal Planck constant h, one of the fundamental constants of nature. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1923/millika n-lecture.pdf 53. Einsteins Photoelectric Equation and Contact Electromotive Force, by R. A. Millikan (click here), Phys. Rev., Vol. VII, No. 1 (1916), Second Series, pp. 18-32. In this first paper, published in 1916, Millikan provides only two data points (V0 and f values) for the experiments with lithium metal. 54. A Direct Photoelectric determination of the Plancks h, by Robert A Millikan, (click here) Phys. Rev. Vol. VII No. 3 (1916), Second Series, pp. 355-390 http://mapageweb.umontreal.ca/leonelli/PHY3320/millikan.pdf More detailed experiments with lithium (5 data points) and sodium (6 data points) are presented in this second paper, also published in 1916. 55. The Photoelectric Effect, by M. Brandl, Project PhysNet, http://www.ifsc.usp.br/~lavfis/BancoApostilasImagens/ApEfFotoeletrico /The%20Photoelectric%20Effect%20-%20m213.pdf See sketch on page 5 showing parallel lines (K-f graph) for sodium and potassium. 56. On Cathode Rays, Nobel Lecture, May 28, 1906, by Philip Lenard, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1905/lenardlecture.pdf 57. Focus: Centennial Focus, Millikans Measurement of the Planck constant, Phys. Rev. Focus 3, 23 (1999), April 22, 1999, by Gerald Holton, http://physics.aps.org/story/v3/st23 58. The Millikan experiment to verify the Photoelectric relationship, http://tap.iop.org/atoms/quantum/502/file_47016.pdf 59. Photoelectric Effect, http://physics.tutorvista.com/modernphysics/photoelectric-effect.html

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60. Bibliography, Articles on Extension of Plancks Ideas and Einsteins Ideas beyond physics, Compiled on April 16, 2013, http://www.scribd.com/doc/136492067/Bibliography-Articles-on-theExtension-of-Planck-s-Ideas-and-Einstein-s-Ideas-on-Energy-Quantum-totopics-Outside-Physics-by-V-Laxmanan 61. Money in Economics is Just like Energy in Physics: Extending Plancks Law Beyond Physics, Published Jan 14, 2013, Introduction to the generalized statement of Plancks radiation law and application to describe the maximum point on the profits-revenues graph of a company (the old, GM, Ford, Yahoo), http://www.scribd.com/doc/120324960/Money-inEconomics-is-Just-like-Energy-in-Physics-Extending-Planck-s-law-beyondPhysics 62. Analysis: US companies add to wall of worry then may smash it, Reuters, April 14, 2013, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/analysis-ucompanies-add-wall-210419663.html?l=1 S&P 500 earnings were expected to
increase just 1.5 percent for the first quarter when earnings season began and the latest estimate stands at 1.1 percent. But investors and strategists say that earnings will more than likely look substantially better when the season comes to a close. "The companies are doing a very good job of guiding the analysts lower to pave the way for what I call 'manufactured earnings surprises,'" said Nick Raich, chief executive of The Earnings Scout, an independent research firm specializing in earnings trends, in Cleveland, Ohio. "That's the way the earnings game is played."

63. The Real Problem with Reinhart-Rogoff, http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/real-problem-reinhartrogoff-211303013.html The coding error appears, however, to be inconsequential to the
Reinhart-Rogoff finding that periods of low growth coincide with periods of high official government debt. Unfortunately, there is a much deeper and uncorrectable problem with the debt figures used in Reinhart-Rogoff's paper. This problem is not that some of the data on official government debt were inadvertently omitted from the analysis. The problem is that, in fact, none of Reinhart-Rogoff's official debt series provide a meaningful, as in theoretically well-defined, measure of a country's indebtedness. Its easy to get queasy about using official debt numbers to capture true government obligations. Just find a retiree receiving periodic payments from Uncle Sam, some of which are called interest and principal on U.S. Treasury bonds and some of which are called Social Security benefits. Next ask why Reinhart-Rogoff include in their debt measure only the present value of the future bond payments and ignore completely the present value of the Social Security payments?

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About the author V. Laxmanan, Sc. D.

The author obtained his Bachelors degree (B. E.) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Poona and his Masters degree (M. E.), also in Mechanical Engineering, from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, followed by a Masters (S. M.) and Doctoral (Sc. D.) degrees in Materials Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. He then spent his entire professional career at leading US research institutions (MIT, Allied Chemical Corporate R & D, now part of Honeywell, NASA, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), and General Motors Research and Development Center in Warren, MI). He holds four patents in materials processing, has co-authored two books and published several scientific papers in leading peer-reviewed international journals. His expertise includes developing simple mathematical models to explain the behavior of complex systems. While at NASA and CWRU, he was responsible for developing material processing experiments to be performed aboard the space shuttle and developed a simple mathematical model to explain the growth Christmas-tree, or snowflake, like structures (called dendrites) widely observed in many types of liquid-to-solid phase transformations (e.g., freezing of all commercial metals and alloys, freezing of water, and, yes, production of snowflakes!). This led to a simple model to explain the growth of dendritic structures in both the groundbased experiments and in the space shuttle experiments. More recently, he has been interested in the analysis of the large volumes of data from financial and economic systems and has developed what may be called the Quantum Business Model (QBM). This extends (to financial and economic systems) the mathematical arguments used by Max Planck to develop quantum physics using the analogy Energy = Money, i.e., energy in physics is like money in economics. Einstein applied Plancks ideas to describe the photoelectric effect (by treating light as being composed of particles called photons, each with the fixed quantum of energy conceived by Planck). The mathematical law deduced by Planck, referred to here as the generalized power-exponential law, might
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actually have many applications far beyond blackbody radiation studies where it was first conceived. Einsteins photoelectric law is a simple linear law and was deduced from Plancks non-linear law for describing blackbody radiation. It appears that financial and economic systems can be modeled using a similar approach. Finance, business, economics and management sciences now essentially seem to operate like astronomy and physics before the advent of Kepler and Newton. Finally, during my professional career, I also twice had the opportunity and great honor to make presentations to two Nobel laureates: first at NASA to Prof. Robert Schrieffer (1972 Physics Nobel Prize), who was the Chairman of the Schrieffer Committee appointed to review NASAs space flight experiments (following the loss of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986) and second at GM Research Labs to Prof. Robert Solow (1987 Nobel Prize in economics), who was Chairman of Corporate Research Review Committee, appointed by GM corporate management.

Cover page of AirTran 2000 Annual Report

Can you see that plane flying above the tall tree tops that make a nearly perfect circle? It requires a great deal of imagination to see and to photograph it.

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