Weinstein: Exploring the battery effect in baseball
From Max Weinstein at FanGraphs on August 19, 2013:
Today’s article will concern the “battery effect” and its far reaching influences on passed balls and wild pitches. However, before we delve in, I will fill you in on the details of my previous research as a reference point for today’s research.
The “Battery Effect”
The “battery effect” is most easily explained as the relationship between the pitcher and the catcher and how they affect each other. The effect is often subtle, but still significant in the big picture.
Let’s dive into the details. My previous study on battery combinations included investigating which of the two battery mates — the pitcher or the catcher — deserved the credit for catching a runner. The basic take away from this research was, surprisingly, that the pitcher had more of a profound effect on the caught stealing percent of the battery. To measure this effect I ran a regression of the pitcher’s CS% — caught stealing percentage — on the battery’s CS%, and vice versa for catchers.
Now, I will kindly spare you the guts and gore of the math involved, but in the end, the analysis yielded that a pitcher’s CS% correlates about 80% with how the battery performed — opposed to a 40% correlation for catchers.
Read the full article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/exploring-the-battery-effect/
Originally published: August 21, 2013. Last Updated: August 21, 2013.