Advanced Baseball Statistics: The Snowball Effect

Nolan Sandrock

Department of English, Appalachian State University

RC1000: Expository Writing

Professor Madeline Scott

October 25, 2023

Advanced Baseball Statistics: The Snowball Effect

Advanced Statistics: What are they?

The game of Baseball has been around since the 1800s however, the game we watch

today is far different than what it was back then. This isn’t to say that it is in any way a bad thing

that it has changed as change is ultimately inevitable. It is rather how we as prospects of the

game interpret the changes and utilize them for the betterment of the sport. Advanced Statistics

are a byproduct of the aforementioned change and have become a major catalyst for baseball.

Without them, we would watch baseball in a completely different way, valuing players on a

completely different scale. Stats like batting average, Home Runs, and ERA(earned run average)

are all examples of stats that have been around since the dawn of the sport. They still serve a

purpose in the sport however, coaches and players do not harp on them the same way they used

to. This is due to the revolution that has been, Advanced Statistics. They first burst onto the

scene in the 1980s when “fan and aspiring writer Bill James attempted to expand the thought

process beyond the numbers on the back of a baseball card and into what he called the

‘ever-expanding line of numerical analysis.’” James’ view of the game was not widely accepted

at first by fans of the game, but that all changed in 2001 when the Oakland Athletics

revolutionized baseball. Their influx of immense success, with what was viewed as a relatively

rag-tag group of players, led people to question whether advanced statistics were in fact good for

the game. It wasn’t until 2003 when the best-selling book Moneyball was written that advanced

statistics finally started to turn some heads. These advanced statistics were still relatively

rudimentary at the time however, that doesn’t take away from the impact it had on the league. A

shift in philosophy was starting and we were just scratching the surface of the possibilities.
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A Better Product

In the year 2023, we are seeing players produce stats that were unheard of just 40 years

ago. This can be attributed to advanced statistics, specifically how we use them to develop

players. Back before advanced statistics, scouting was much more of an eye test than anything

else, judging players off of their raw numbers, and how they look as a ballplayer. Nowadays

players are being evaluated on a much deeper basis. Scouts take into account build, exit velocity,

and spin rate, all with a much more thorough understanding of how mechanics can be used to

maximize production from a player. This has culminated in players oozing with talent mixed

with perfectly sound mechanics and raw tools being utilized to their fullest potential. Players like

Ronald Acuna Jr. and Shohei Ohtani are some of these physical freaks that we see in today’s

game and a big part of their success(not to mention they excel in advanced stat categories such as

WHIP and OPS). In fact, Ronald Acuna plays a large part in the next major effect of advanced

stats.

Pushing for Change

The 2023 MLB season saw many, big rule changes in the sport, mostly adapting to the

league’s new play style because of the revolution of advanced stats and analytics. The first

change was to increase base sizes by 3 square inches because stolen base attempts have

decreased steadily each season since 2013. This is due to teams pursuing more efficient numbers

and sacrificing attempts to do so. Plus stolen bases have become less valuable since teams have

started focusing more on launch angle, an advanced statistic, which has led to an increase in

home run rate, hence making it more pointless to steal. This change in base size catapulted steal

attempts back to numbers we hadn’t seen since the early 2000s. The aforementioned Ronald

Acuna Jr had the first ever 40/70 season in MLB history(40 homeruns and 70 steals), and he
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owes a good bit of credit to the rules changes. The next rule change enforced was the ban of the

infield shift which, in my opinion, was becoming a problem in the MLB. Teams were shifting

more and more each year as more and more advanced analytics proved it to be beneficial against

a majority of hitters. It effectively gave ground balls/balls in play a much lower chance of

resulting in a hit, taking out one of the most exciting components of baseball. This ban of the

shift created a much higher league wide BABIP(Batting Average On Balls In Play) and

effectively reintroduced an aspect that had been lost to the evolution of baseball. In other words

with these advanced analytics, the league was able to catch these problems in the game and find

adequate solutions to better the game as a whole.

How will they continue to impact the game moving forward?

Love them or hate them Advanced Stats are going to be apart of baseball til the end of

time. The lasting impact they have made since their introduction is resounding, and we are

constantly seeing new statistics be developed every year. While there are always going to be

aspects of advanced stats and changes to the game it is safe to say, in my personal opinion, that

advanced statistics, and the changes they have influenced in the MLB are ultimately beneficial to

the game of baseball. Players are only going to get bigger, faster, and smarter and with that will

come more new statistics and analytics to combat that and even out the playing field once more.

However the core game that is baseball will never change, no matter how much some people

think it will. There will always be those who despise the sport and those who love it with all their

heart. At least that’s what the advanced statistics say.

Advanced Baseball Statistics: The Snowball Effect

Annotated Bibliography

Bechtold, T. (2021, April 8). State of Analytics: How the movement has forever changed

baseball – for better or worse. Stats Perform.

https://www.statsperform.com/resource/state-of-analytics-how-the-movement-has-forever-chang

ed-baseball-for-better-or-worse/
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This article discusses the complete history of advanced analytics in baseball from start to

current day. It briefly mentions Branch Rickey as kind of the first person to look at baseball

differently however, It immediately goes into talking about Bill James, The Godfather of

Sabermetrics. The author goes in depth about James’ immediate impact on the game of baseball,

specifically mentioning stats like game score, range factor, and secondary average. It then goes

on to talk about how the game’s philosophy has changed due to the new outlook on analytics. It

goes over the sharp decline in bunting, and stolen bases, as well as the exponential increase in

the shift and home runs. The author also briefly mentions the influx of pitch framing, and how

analytics have proved it to be more valuable than ever, and how it can prove catchers, who were

previously thought to be great defenders, as relatively poor defenders. It never takes an official

stance on either side of the argument however it spends the entire article weighing both sides.

Kraske, S. (n.d.). How the rise of Baseball Analytics Forever Altered America’s pastime - and the

Kansas City Royals. KCUR.

https://www.kcur.org/podcast/up-to-date/2023-06-13/how-the-rise-of-baseball-analytics-forever-

altered-americas-pastime-and-the-kansas-city-royals

This article talks about how advanced sabermetrics and analytics in general have changed

the game out on the field today. It talks about how teams with smaller payrolls, like the Royals,

have used advanced stats to their advantage. It’s a much shorter article however it is much more

focused on the Royal’s organization themselves. Each team employs statisticians to crunch

numbers on players, opposing teams, and payrolls. It then talks about the 2023 rule changes and

how they were used to fix problems, that analytics departments had inadvertently caused. They
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talk about how banning the shift was a result of statisticians and analytics departments finding

players' hitting tendencies and exploiting them. It also mentions the other rule changes enforced

in 2023 such as increasing the size of bases and implementing a pitch clock to speed up game

time and influence more steals to combat the problems mentioned in the previous articles.

Scott, S. (2015, October 26). Savior or villain: The impact of advanced analytics on baseball.

Samford University.

https://www.samford.edu/sports-analytics/fans/2015/savior-or-villain-the-impact-of-advanced-an

alytics-on-baseball

This article dives a little deeper into the scouting side of the statistical revolution in

Major League Baseball. It talks about how it can be utilized to search for talent in different ways

and a more advanced way to evaluate young players that aren’t fully developed. It also discusses

the concept of turning players into a number on a spreadsheet rather than physical human beings,

despite how harsh that may seem. However, it counters this idea with the point that an approach

like that takes out the natural instincts and talent a player possesses that cannot simply show up

on paper. At the end of the day, however, players in the MLB are essentially just numbers and

names on paper with a paycheck attached to it. It also notes the steady recent decrease in batting

average due to the change in hitting philosophy brought about by these new-age statistics.

Sacrificing average for slugging is the new name of the game.