Dumb statistics

[Tom]

I"m watching baseball. They describe the pitch in units of miles per hour. It's not going a mile. It's going 60 feet. Wouldn't feet per second be more descriptive?

[SlowPokePete]

I"m watching baseball. They describe the pitch in units of miles per hour. It's not going a mile. It's going 60 feet. Wouldn't feet per second be more descriptive?

Less relatable, nobody can relate to FPS.

PS...I don't watch baseball.

SPP

[robin3mj]

[Mabouya]

Here you go, Tom:

1 mph = 1.46667 fps

Just keep a calculator handy during the game you'll be all set. Or, if you're willing to round up a bit, multiplying by 1.5 in your head is pretty simple.

Final option: create a conversion table, and leave it near the TV or radio.

Here's a start

MPH FPS

0 0
100 146.6667

; )

[j44ke]

Baseball is the king of meaningless statistics because there is enough time between pitches to do math. A lot of math.

[spopepro]

[spopepro]

But for real… this does remind me of one of the best “what if” posts Randall has done. https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

Relativistic baseball, or what would happen if you threw a baseball at near speed of light velocity?

[robin3mj]

Baseball is the king of meaningless statistics because there is enough time between pitches to do math. A lot of math.

One of the reasons I have loved the sport since I was knee high to a freckle.

Although last night’s Yankee game was shown on Apple TV and the probabilistic stats shown for each batter without any context was annoying. Gleyber Torres at bat with a .212 BA shown to have a 25% chance of making a base hit. Seriously, who cares, just show his current BA/OBP/Slugging.

[72gmc]

Probability stats are silly eye candy and distract from the meaningful info. If a team goes up by 2 runs I already know their win probability is on the rise in that moment, but the stat doesn’t tell me about body language or bullpen strength.

[bigbill]

My kid was a high school pitcher who never threw over 75 mph, most of the time he worked his changeup and curve. His strength was keeping batters off balance so they could never hit the ball hard. Very few strikeouts but lots of ground balls and pop-ups. He could pitch 5 innings with under 60 pitches. Colleges or MLB farm systems looked at speed assuming they could take a kid who could throw low 90s and teach them additional pitches. To contrast, Bob Gibson could break your ribs with a fastball, Jamie Moyer rarely broke 80 mph but spent 25 years in MLB.