Analyzing Baseball Data with R

8Career Trajectories

Contents

1. 8.1 Introduction
2. 8.2 Mickey Mantle's Batting Trajectory
3. 8.3 Comparing Trajectories
   1. 8.3.1 Some preliminary work
   2. 8.3.2 Computing career statistics
   3. 8.3.3 Computing similarity scores
   4. 8.3.4 Defining age, OBP, SLG, and OPS variables
   5. 8.3.5 Fitting and plotting trajectories
4. 8.4 General Patterns of Peak Ages
   1. 8.4.1 Computing all fitted trajectories
   2. 8.4.2 Patterns of peak age over time
   3. 8.4.3 Peak age and career at-bats
5. 8.5 Trajectories and Fielding Position
6. 8.6 Further Reading
7. 8.7 Exercises

8.1 Introduction

The R system is well-suited for fitting statistical models to data. One popular topic in sabermetrics is the rise and fall of a player's season batting, fielding, or pitching statistics from his MLB debut to retirement. Generally, it ...