The Futility Infielder

Allan Roth & Branch Rickey

I was a preteen baseball stat-head. I actually read the backs of baseball cards, and learned to calculate batting averages before the concepts of fractions or long division were introduced in school. I scored the games I watched on TV, and God help me, I kept stats on simulation games that I played, from a dice game I invented to a computer game into which I programmed entire leagues.

My obsession with baseball statistics was encouraged by my father, who taught me how to decipher the morning box scores. His own active interest didn't go much beyond that, but several times, he mentioned the name of Allan Roth, the Dodgers team statistician (a definition of dream job which still falls just a notch below "major league ballplayer"). I didn't know much beyond the name, though.

As it turns out, Roth is credited with being the first modern baseball analyst. Roth was hired by Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Dodgers, in 1947. Rickey, always a good step ahead of the curve, had already invented the modern farm system and signed the ballplayer who broke the color barrier, Jackie Robinson. Rickey and Roth broke the ground for the analysis of baseball statistics. They invented the On Base Percentage and devised systems of rating ballplayers. Rickey used those findings to build his next team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, who won a championship with the foundation he laid.

But back to Roth. He kept meticulous pitch logs. He tracked individual hitters against each pitcher—a recent book recounts how Roth just shook his head sadly when asked, as Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca entered the game, about his matchup against the Giants'next batter, Bobby Thomson, one fateful October day. He presented his data to ballplayers as a means of improving the team. Roth is credited with helping Sandy Koufax change his style of pitching to left-handers by altering his curve ball.

Here is a great piece by Branch Rickey, reprinted from Life Magazine in 1954, which demonstrates the findings of Rickey and Roth, including their formulas for On Base Average, Extra Base Power (slugging percentage minus batting average), a clutch factor (percentage of runners scored) and a good look at pitching stats on a per-nine-inning basis. Rickey outlines his blueprint for building his Pittsburgh team; concluding their ability to get on base is sufficient, he pledges to focus on raising their clutch factor through power hitting. The results may seem elementary, in light of what the world of baseball statistics has taught us, But in a day when baseball executives such as Oakland's Billy Beane are celebrated for coming around to a new way of thinking based upon the analysis of baseball stats, it is illuminating to find one of the game's all-time trailblazers led the way once again. [A good analysis of the Rickey article, written by Baseball Prospectus's Keith Woolner a few years back, is here.]

Here is a great glossary on the definitions of baseball statistics. I'll add this to my links page when I get a chance.