sports – Page 9 – Coffee Spoons

Baseball Transaction Trees

Baseball’s Winter Meetings often provide fans with lots of trade news and free agent signings. As a Red Sox fan, one of the unfortunate signings was the Cubs picking up Jon Lester. For my friends back in Philly, Jimmy Rollins is headed to Los Angeles. But then for Boston, at the time of writing it appears a deal may be imminent for Arizona’s Wade Miley in exchange for Allen Webster and Rubby de la Rosa.

The reason I mention all those names is that they reminded me of a series of graphics from last month that looked at the longest transaction trees for each team. Put simply, how far back can one guy being traded for another guy being signed as compensation for another guy leaving get you back in history. The following graphic tracks a different Red Sox trade, of Anthony Ranaudo and Brandon Workman in 2014 back to the signing of Ken Ryan in 1986.

The transaction tree for Ranaudo and Workman

But what reminded me more specifically was the note that followed the above graphic that had Allen Webster as the longest trade-only tree for Boston. That starts because of the Hanley Ramirez signing in 2000—who returned to Boston only a few weeks in a free agent signing. Similarly, Jimmy Rollins was the longest transaction tree for the Phillies since his signing back in 1996. But that will now change once the players in exchange for Rollins are made clear.

Credit for the piece goes to Ben Lindbergh.

The 76ers Are a Terrible Basketball Team

The Philadelphia 76ers are a terrible basketball team. FiveThirtyEight details the deficiencies of the team in this small table. Icons represent characteristics that can be either positive or negative. They are then placed within the table to quickly show how awful the team is. My favourite is the icon for poor player.

Credit for the piece goes to the FiveThirtyEight graphics department.

American College Football Programme Loyalty

American college football. This is not a thing that Northeasters like myself understand. And it is not just because yours truly attended the University of the Arts whose only competitive sporting team was, I believe, fencing. Here in the Midwest, many things are strange and alien. One of them is their affinity for said sports that do not make sense. Thankfully the New York Times has attempted to explain specific programme affinities much like they did with their baseball map. (Which made infinitely more sense.)

Click the big map at the article's beginning to get to the interactive version — Click the big map at the article’s beginning to get to the interactive version

Credit for the piece goes to Tom Giratikanon, Josh Katz, David Leonhardt, Kevin Quealy, and Marc Tracy.

Some of the Best Baseball I’ve Ever Seen

Was ten years ago this time in October. Boston was on their way to winning their World Series in 86 years. But to get there, they had to go through the New York Yankees. And they did it in dramatic fashion, winning a riveting best-of-seven series. Why riveting? Because it had never been done before. (Nor since, actually, but that’s not included in the graphic.)

Hitting a Baseball

Tonight is Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. For those of you who do not follow baseball, this is the semi-finals for the national championship called the World Series. Anyway, hitting a baseball is hard because you have so little reaction time. The Wall Street Journal has an article about how some baseball teams are beginning to experiment with neuroscience. The idea is to better train hitters to recognise pitches earlier, in essence, giving them said reaction time. The article is accompanied by an illustration showing just how little time there is to hit a pitch.

Credit for the piece goes to Mike Sudal.

More World Cup Predictions

Earlier this week we looked at how Bloomberg was doing predictions and odds for the World Cup. Today we look at the Economist’s go. It uses something called the probability circle. It lacks the depth of Bloomberg’s piece, but from a design angle does play off the shape of the soccer ball and not in the cheesiest of fashions. Here it actually begins to work in lieu of our familiar bracket system (see every other sports final tournament series I have ever seen). To be fair, the Economist does not actually make any predictions in this, rather, it provides the odds that different teams will make different stages.

Economist's odds on each team — Economist’s odds on each team

Credit for the piece goes to A.Y., P.K., D.D.M., J.M.F., and K.N.C.

Predicting the World Cup Winners

The World Cup is starting soon and that means predictions are also on their way. And snazzy graphics. Today’s snazzy graphic with predictions comes from Bloomberg. They have host Brazil winning the overall tournament. And if you want to investigate the matches further, you can do that by clicking on the match.

Credit for the piece goes to the Bloomberg graphics department.

Tommy John Surgery

Time for some sports. Okay, I’m admittedly thinking of it because company softball started up again. And for some reason, the teams have a horrible habit of horrendous injuries. So what better way to commemorate (a week late, whatever) the start of the season than a nice illustration of Tommy John surgery. For those of you unfamiliar with it, in baseball the injury that requires the procedure typically befalls pitchers—though not always—and keeps them away from the game for at least a year.

Credit for the piece goes to Bonnie Berkowitz and Alberto Cuadra.

Baseball Nation

Baseball is back. And thankfully the New York Times has mapped out most of Major League Baseball’s fans. The glaring exception is, of course the omission of Canada/Ontario, home to the Toronto Blue Jays. The piece maps the data of Facebook likes down to the zip code and then offers details on a few border regions in particular.

And apparently back home, I am not the only person cheering for Boston.

I go for Boston, but most everyone else here is a Phillies phan

Credit for the piece goes to Kevin Quealy, Josh Katz, David Leonhardt, and Tom Giratikanon.

Baseball Windows

Spring training has begun for baseball fans. The glow from the Red Sox victory last October is fading as we now wonder if we can repeat. Fans of other teams now wonder if this is their year. Over at SB Nation, an article plotted 29 baseball teams—ignoring the Dodgers— and looked at their chances in the upcoming years. The article continues using the chart to explain which teams fall where.

And for the designers, note the type choice for “Nope”.

Credit for the piece goes to Grant Brisbee.