Math Midterm Percentages and Averages

Sabermetrics and Statcast are tools that are commonly used in many of our modern day sports and activities. These tools have been used in past years and have really made their way into the everyday lives of athletes today. Baseball is the sport that uses these tools the most in the professional sport world. With today's new technology and advancements sports analysis have been able to observe closely on the players game. But where did it all begin you may ask? Sabermetrics originated from the idea of wanting the know the objective search for more knowledge about Baseball. Bill James first introduced the idea of sabermetrics in 1980 where he began to study more about the players and learn about how they play the game. His goal was to find a way to closely examine statistics of the players and see how their game matches with their statistics.

Bill James begin with his publication of the Bill James Baseball Abstract. This provided Statistical analysis on the game and the players during the first year he has studied it. Before Bill james Henry Chadwick created the first box score for baseball in 1858. The box score was the first statistical way to look at the game. The box score allowed you to see what each player did and how they played throughout the game. It allowed researchers to look more into the individual players during the games. After Bill James David Smith created the Retrosheet, which was the first computerized way of the box score. Each major league team began to track the stats of their players to get a better reading of them. The system of Sabermetrics allowed the players and coaches to electronically track each players at bats with the number of hits they get and also the other basic components of baseball that can be written into a stat book. This is where players are now allowed to find out all their averages.

Statcast is also a huge part of the game of baseball today. It has came into the picture more recently in the baseball world because of its higher use of technology of and advancements that can only be done with modern day society. Statcast originated in the 2006 MLB postseason. StatCast uses many of common math theorems to operate. It is a system used with cameras to track velocities, spin rates, break, locations and angles in the games. Each game now uses Statcast to operate and gives players feedback on their game. StatCast was first seen at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytic Conference. People at the conference were able to see the usage and effectiveness that it may have on the game of baseball. Professionals and players were able to determine if it would be beneficial to them.

In 2015 it was tested and put into three of the 30 Mlb stadiums to test out the usage. After that it began to make its way into every stadium across the league and its technology was now more advanced and beneficial. The technology uses doppler radars and high definition video to measure speeds, accelerations and other components a player may need. In 2016 The league introduced “MLB Plus” to the MLB Network. This allowed viewers to see the statcast data of the players. It compared players statistics and measurements that the viewer can track over time.The system that was first used was the PITCHf/x system. It was highly effective for the league. In 2017 the Track man became the new system that was able to process the official measurements of bitch speed. These tools has advanced the game of Baseball and used math theorems to provide a better understanding and analysis of the game. The front offices of the major league teams can now better understand players when it comes to picking players to start. They can see up close data on the true athletic ability and power.

When it comes to Sabermetrics this is the most important theory that we use to calculate the averages of the players and their stats. We use mean, median, mode and range to calculate these percentages. Each players stats are recorded into books or in the computer throughout the season. The computer then uses mean to add up all the at bats to the hits the player has gotten over the year. This will then determine the average of the player and show the percentage of balls he hit compared to missing throughout the season. Mode is the number that appears the most in a series or set of numbers. This can be used to see what type of hit the player had the most of throughout the season. Median is the middle number in a sequence and this is used to see what kind of hits the player was getting toward the middle of his at bats. Each major league team incorporates these ideas into their game and uses them to see how the best players on their teams are.

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