I came across a post on the Data is Beautiful subreddit showing NFL home game attendance over the last 20 years and wondered how it has looked in Major League Baseball. So I grabbed team schedules and results, and playoff appearances and successes (i.e., winning...
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The Juiced Ball Comes to the EPL [Updated]
This year, more than ever before I have committed to watching and following the English Premier League (EPL). The EPL has always been relevant in my family but just hasn’t ever been a focus for me. I would name “my team” if asked (Tottenham, Wolverhampton...
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Predictions for the 60-Game 2020 MLB Season
Somehow there might be a baseball season in 2020. For many reasons I think the powers-that-be should have canceled it, but they didn’t because money. While I am glad to have baseball back in my life, the shortened season is going to be weird and...
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Comparing Canadian City Street Orientations
When I stumbled across Geoff Boeing’s street network orientation visualizations for 25 major cities in the United States and 100 cities around the World I made a note for myself to figure out how to (1) create something similar in R, and (2) do it...
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Simulating a Deal with Monty Hall in R
The Monty Hall Problem is a counter-intuitive statistical puzzle stemming from one of the situations presented to contestants on Let’s Make a Deal. I was first exposed to the problem in an introductory Bayesian statistics course. Many months ago, I wrote code to simulate the...
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A Second Canadian gets Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame
The 2020 National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees were announced yesterday. Derek Jeter fell one vote shy of becoming the second player to be voted in unanimously and Larry Walker became the second Canadian-born player to earn a spot in Cooperstown. Jeter’s first-ballot election was...
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The Rapid Collapse of Carl Crawford's Career
As the end of the decade approaches, recap and best-of articles abound. One such article that stuck out to me was a review of the decisions that shaped the Boston Red Sox over the last decade. The 2010s were a successful decade for the franchise....
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An Extra-Flighty Ball Lifted More Batters
Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire’s home run chase in 1998 is often credited with bringing fans back to major league baseball after the 1994 strike. Cy Young award winners were not thrilled, but fans loved it. These guys (and many others) were launching and the...
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Another MLB team in Florida? For whom?
Last Wednesday it was reported that the co-owner of the Orlando Magic, Pat Williams, has dreams of bringing a major league baseball team to Orlando. Williams even came prepared with a photoshopped Little League logo for his Dreamers. Rich people are going to do rich...
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Reviewing My 2019 Predictions
Baseball, like much of the rest of society, seems to be in a bad spot right now. Just look at this list of ongoing issues:
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