In early 2009 I published a series of articles offering between-season comparisons of batters, pitchers, league quality, and league health in the British top tier, looking backwards from the 2008 season. Subsequently, I updated this for the 2009 season and for the 2010 season, and here I do the same for the season just gone. Among other things, it will be  interesting to examine the impact that the second straight expansion of the National Baseball League (this time from eight teams to ten) has had on the quality of play and the health of the circuit.
Batting dominance
For the methods, read the full article.
Despite Edwin Alcantara achieving the triple crown, he did not trouble the all-time top 10 of most dominant seasons, and neither did any other hitter in 2011.
Pitching dominance
For the methods, read the full article.
Michael Osborn collected the most wins of any pitcher in the NBL this season (seven) and also posted the most dominant season, based on rate statistics, but, once again, the top 10 was not touched.
League quality
For the methods, as well as a comparison between European leagues, read the full article.
In short, the method gives a score between 20 and 100 for the standard of baseball on the whole in the top tier each year. Since the seasons are compared on a relative scale, the addition of stats for 2011 requires a full update of the results. Data from 2006 and 2007 are not included since the stats for those seasons include a large chunk of games between top-tier and second-tier teams. The updated quality scores out of 100 are ranked as follows: 2003 – 98.3; 2004 – 80.8; 2008 – 77.9; 2005 – 54.2; 2010 – 46.6; 2009 – 39.1; 2011 – 24.3. So the season just gone, according to this assessment, was of the lowest quality since records began in 2003. In part this was down to a lot of errors being made (fielding average dipped below .900 for the first time), but with a walk being issued in almost one in every seven plate appearances, the pitching component of the quality score also took a hit. One important thing to note is that although the score for 2003 was about four times that for 2011, this does not mean that the season was of a four times higher quality. Scores are forced to sit on a scale between 20 and 100 in each category, so small differences can be magnified.
League health
For the methods, read the full article.
League health is calculated on a scale from 0 to 100, where forfeits, blowouts, and generally high run differences in games all subtract from the maximum possible score. These factors are all things likely to put players off staying in the league, and to detract from the interest of any spectators the sport might attract in Britain. Despite Mildenhall folding during the season, with 12 forfeits to their name, the 2011 season scored reasonably well on the league health score, with the 76.3 value putting it ahead of all seasons back to and including 2005. This is because games were generally quite tight, with a good number of 1-run contests and relatively few blowouts. One interested follower of the league health score made the suggestion that I should also calculate the value but without taking any Mildenhall data into account. This pushes the value just over 80, and only 2003 (with a score of 90.3) fared better over the past nine seasons.
1 comment
Great stuff again, Joe.
I have enjoyed seeing such close games this year as it adds a lot of excitement to proceedings – no one team ever really dominated so to speak, although a few did start to pull away in terms of league-standings towards the end, but the fact that any of three teams still could have qualified for the playoffs in the final week made for great fun (and difficulty in compiling preview articles!)
Mike