11/21/24
August 14, 2006
The Hardball Times Asks, "Does Size Matter?": in terms of bat handling and scoring, not in terms of getting to 3rd base.
Cool link. If I had nickle for everytime I heard size doesn't matter...Well lets just say I'd have a lot of nickles.
posted by HATER 187 at 10:23 AM on August 14, 2006
Strength does not necessarily translate to bat speed, but more leverage (ie: longer arms) and longer swings certainly help. I would guess that the size of the MLB HR leaders (say, the top 30) is larger than the league average. Just a guess....
posted by mjkredliner at 10:33 AM on August 14, 2006
Interesting, but I don't agree with the author that he his lanky and pudgy groups are large enough to show significant results. Big = 657 players; 644,886 PAs Lanky = 10 players; 3,011 PAs Pudgy = 7 players; 12,404 PAs Small = 462 players; 652,722 PAs He even admits that Kirby Puckett alone (an outlier in the pudgy group) brought the group's BA from .257 to .296. Instead of strict cutoffs for the categories (6'3", 170 pounds, etc.), he probably should use height/weight ratios or BMI. That said, the big vs small numbers are interesting.
posted by cl at 10:35 AM on August 14, 2006
Totally agreed on those tiny samples. Additionally, while he mentions it, there's no good way to say how much of this is inherent and how much is selection bias (e.g., how many scouts couldn't see a guy at shortstop over the years because he was too tall?).
posted by yerfatma at 11:56 AM on August 14, 2006
The stats are kinda funky, but its a cool article. I wonder how man people were involved in this study- he said that Puckett raised the batting average something like 50 pts. Anyhow- good informative article.
posted by Kendall at 02:09 PM on August 14, 2006
Nice post, yerfatma. It appears that small sample size in the "lanky" and "pudgy" categories inhibits any meaningful conclusions, but his findings about large vs small would seem to be valid. If this guy did this for a class credit, I'd probably give him a solid B. He did a lot of research and crunched a lot of numbers. His narrative presentation could have been better, but it presents all of the facts. Overall, a good effort.
posted by Howard_T at 02:35 PM on August 14, 2006
This again proves the point that baseball is possibly the greatest sport because it is infinitely subtle.Very nice,yerfatma.
posted by sickleguy at 05:35 PM on August 14, 2006
Looks like a follow-up is on the way.