baseball statistics Baseball statistics include a variety of metrics used to evaluate player and team performance in the sport of baseball. Because the flow of a baseball game has natural breaks to it, and player activity is characteristically distinguishable ind ...

, NERD is a quantitative measure of expected aesthetic value. NERD was originally created by Carson Cistulli and is part of his project of exploring the "art" of sabermetric research. The original NERD formula only took into account the

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("Pitch (baseball), pitches") the Baseball (ball), baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of out (baseball), retiring a batter (baseball), batter, ...

's expected performance while a later model factors in the entire team's performance.

History

The premise for NERD was developed in Cistulli's piece "Why We Watch" in which he establishes the five reasons that baseball continues to captivate the American imagination from game to game: "Pitching Matchups," "Statistically Notable (or Otherwise Compelling) Players," "Rookies (and Debuts)," "Seasonal Context," and "Quality of Broadcast". Fellow sabermatrician Rob Neyer, who had collaborated with Cistulli on this piece, wrote "the only thing missing ..is a points system that would let us put a number on each game" and on June 2, 2010, Cistulli unveiled the Pitcher NERD formula.

Pitcher NERD

Pitcher NERD tries to determine which pitchers will be the most aesthetically appealing to watch for a baseball fan and is both a historical and a predictive statistic. The formula uses a player's standard deviations from the mean (a weighted z-score) of the DIPS statistic xFIP (expected Fielding Independent Pitching), swinging strike percentage, overall strike percentage, and the differential between the pitcher's ERA and xFIP to determine a quantitative value for each pitcher.

p\text = (x \textz \times 2) + (\text\%z/2) + (\text\%z / 2) + \text + 4.69

The factor of 4.69 is added to make the number fit on a 0 to 10 scale. While there has been some disagreement on the calculation of Cistulli's luck component, the general consensus among sports writers seems to be that a player with a below-average ERA and an above-average xFIP has been "unlucky".

Team NERD

Following the model of his Pitching NERD, Team NERD tries to give a quantitative value to the aesthetic value of each of the 30 baseball teams. For factors it accounts for "Age," "Park-Adjusted weighted Runs Above Average (wRAA)," "Park-Adjusted Home Run per Fly Ball (HR/FB)," "Team Speed," "Bullpen Strength," "Team Defense," "Luck" (Base Runs – Actual Runs Scored), and "Payroll".

t\text = \textz \times 2 + \textz + \text/\textz + (\textz + \textz + \textz)\times .33 + \textz + \textz + \textz + \text

In an interview, Cistulli admitted that there is a disconnect between the

Tampa Bay Rays The Tampa Bay Rays are an American professional baseball team based in the Tampa Bay area. The Rays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. They are one of two major ...

high tNERD rating and low attendance saying that he is considered adding a "park-adjustment" to his formula which would reflect either the stadium itself or "attendance relative to the stadium's capacity" but overall reception of this statistic has been positive and Fangraphs started reporting Team NERD in Cistulli's "One Night Only" columns beginning August 23, 2010.

Notes

References

{{Baseball statistics Baseball statistics