#baseball stats

Anthony Castrovince at MLB.com:

Major League Baseball’s embrace of the Negro Leagues is now recognized in the record book, resulting in new-look leaderboards fronted in several prominent places by Hall of Famer Josh Gibson and an overdue appreciation of many other Black stars.

Following the 2020 announcement that seven different Negro Leagues from 1920-1948 would be recognized as Major Leagues, MLB announced Wednesday that it has followed the recommendations of the independent Negro League Statistical Review Committee in absorbing the available Negro Leagues numbers into the official historical record. "We are proud that the official historical record now includes the players of the Negro Leagues," Commissioner Rob Manfred said. "This initiative is focused on ensuring that future generations of fans have access to the statistics and milestones of all those who made the Negro Leagues possible. Their accomplishments on the field will be a gateway to broader learning about this triumph in American history and the path that led to Jackie Robinson’s 1947 Dodger debut."

Gibson, the legendary catcher and power hitter who played for the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords, is now MLB’s all-time leader in batting average, slugging percentage and OPS and holds the all-time single-season records in each of those categories. Gibson is one of more than 2,300 Negro Leagues players -- including three living players who played in the 1920-1948 era in Bill Greason, Ron Teasley and Hall of Famer Willie Mays -- included in a newly integrated database at MLB.com that combines the Negro Leagues numbers with the existing data from the American League, National League and other Major Leagues from history. “The Negro Leagues were a product of segregated America, created to give opportunity where opportunity did not exist,” said Negro Leagues expert and historian Larry Lester. “As Bart Giamatti, former Commissioner of Baseball, once said, ‘We must never lose sight of our history, insofar as it is ugly, never to repeat it, and insofar as it is glorious, to cherish it.’”

[...]

Why are the Negro Leagues being added to the historical record?

Essentially, to right a wrong. It certainly was not the fault of Black baseball stars such as Gibson, Cool Papa Bell and Oscar Charleston that they were forbidden from participating in the AL or NL, and recognizing the Negro Leagues as Major Leagues is in keeping with long-held beliefs that the quality of the segregation-era Negro Leagues circuits was comparable to the MLB product in that same time period.

[...]

Which Negro Leagues will be included in the official record?

There are seven, and they operated between 1920 and 1948. The reason for the starting point is that attempts to develop Negro Leagues prior to 1920 were ultimately unsuccessful and lacked a league structure. And 1948 was deemed to be a reasonable end point because it was the last year of the Negro National League and the segregated World Series. After that point, the Negro League teams and leagues that had endured were stripped of much of their talent.

The seven leagues are as follows:

• Negro National League (I) (1920–1931) • Eastern Colored League (1923–1928) • American Negro League (1929) • East-West League (1932) • Negro Southern League (1932) • Negro National League (II) (1933–1948) • Negro American League (1937–1948)

Major League Baseball is recognizing the stats of 7 different Negro Leagues between 1920 and 1948 into the record book. This comes almost four years after the league announced that the leagues would be classified as Major Leagues.

See Also:

-the NL east has a combined record of 237-207 and a combined run differential of +72 but if you removed Atlanta that run differential becomes -81

-every team in the AL east is at least 4 games over 500 and has a positive run differential for a combined run differential of +260

-every team in the NL central has a negative run differential except the Cubs who are +23 but are in 3rd, 8 games out of 1st place

-every team in the AL central has a negative run differential except the Twins who are in 2nd, they have a combined run differential of -273

-NL west combined run differential: +17, NL west combined run differential if you ignore Colorado: +163

~some number-crunching by your pal pitchburgh 💕

As we know, the World Series has been slipping in both ratings and viewership over the last couple decades. Wikipedia has detailed data on how each Series fared, dating back to 1984; so I made some graphs, babey*

*best viewed on mobile bc Tumblr is the Worst; click for a better view.

World Series Ratings, 1984-2019

The highest rated series was 28.6 in 1986. At present, the lowest is the current series, averaging a meager 6.78.

World Series Average Viewership (in Millions), 1984-2019

Not as dramatic, but still a downward trend. 1986 takes the crown again with 36.37 million average viewers; 2019 has only attracted an average of 11.59 million viewers per game.

Why the decline?

Well. Data points plotted in black are games broadcast by NBC, ABC, or CBS. Data points plotted in red are series broadcast by FOX (and called by Joe Buck).

The average rating for all non-FOX broadcasts is a respectable 21.2, with viewership averaging at 30.1 million.

The average rating for FOX broadcasts, on the other hand, is a measly 11.0, with viewership averaging 17.7 million.

Read it for yourself; it's fascinating. But if you don't have time right now, I'll hit on the three key points that most interested me:

The article doesn't rank all 89 umps in order, but rather offers a top ten and bottom ten for missed calls, both in 2018 and over the 11 seasons studied. Know who avoided in the bottom ten both times? Yup, Angel Hernandez. (The article even mentions this as a surprising finding, and goes on to point out that even though he isn't quite as bad as popular opinion makes him out to be, he's also not as good as he thinks he is.) Jerry Meals, the man who once made a call so terrible that MLB implemented video replay, also escaped the bottom ten ranking. On this chart, BCR stands for Bad Call Ratio and is a percentage of calls missed.

You might notice that the chart above includes age and years of service. The researchers also looked at these and found that umpiring success is inversely proportionate to age: the youngest and newest umps consistently get far better call rates

MLB surely has this data, even though they don't share it. (They have every piece of data imaginable; as a wise man said, "baseball is like chess at 90 miles per hour.") But here's the kicker: they continue to heavily prioritize veteran umpires for postseason assignments over newer, more accurate umps. MLB fields sub-par umps in the most critical games of the year. The article doesn't speculate on reasons for this but I'd guess the umpires' union has a lot to do with it.

This pitching analysis feature ranks the top ten contenders for the Cy Young Award in both the American and National Leagues as the 2026 season heats up. The summary evaluates the dominance of the league's aces, looking at traditional statistics like ERA and wins alongside advanced metrics such as FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) and strikeout-to-walk ratios. It profiles the established veterans defending their titles and the breakout young arms challenging the hierarchy.

The analysis discusses the different styles of dominance, contrasting the high-velocity strikeout artists with the command-oriented workhorses who induce weak contact. It examines the impact of team defense and ballpark factors on the perception of these pitchers' performances. The piece also looks at the narrative factors, such as comeback stories or record-breaking streaks, that could influence voters.

The piece concludes with predictions for the winners in both leagues. It sets the stage for the summer's premier pitching duels, identifying the arms that are currently unhittable and most likely to sustain their excellence through the dog days of August.