Happy Valley Hardball with a sabermetrics twist

PSU rebounded from the first game pounding that Illinois laid on them, to sweep the Illini this afternoon. The 2-1 start to the weekend moves the Nits into a tie with the Illini for fourth place a half game behind Ohio State who also started the weekend 2-1 over Northwestern.

Baseball – Penn State University Official Athletic Site via kwout

Double plays in the bottom of each of the first three innings quieted the Illini bats while Cory Wine and Scott Kelley each hit a pair of homers to lead the Nits to a 16-5 win in the first game of today’s scheduled doubleheader. Mike Wanamaker picked up the win with a 7 inning complete [...]

Baseball – Penn State University Official Athletic Site via kwout

Things weren’t much different this afternoon as last night suspended game was resumed. The Illini scored four more in the eighth then shut PSU down in the ninth to win 20-11.

Since we have now broken down every play and have ranked it’s potential contribution, it seems only logical to sum those contributions up across the players. This will give us a sense of how well a player performed during the course of the entire game. For PSU, here’s the sum totals of all the players [...]

53 year old outfielder John Wilson makes his first start on Senior Day for the Penn State Altoona baseball squad. ESPN College Sports ESPN – College Sports Photo Wire via kwout Some more stories on the PSA senior: The Associated Press 53-year-old outfielder penciled in for first career start – International Herald Tribune via kwout [...]

In Part I of my Youngstown State analysis, I broke the game down into its 114 discrete plays and attached a measurement to each play. That measurement is the win expectancy for one of the teams following the play (note the win expectancy of the two teams always adds up to 100% so when I [...]

FIGHTINGILLINI.COM // THE OFFICIAL SITE OF UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS ATHLETICS via kwout UncleLar Take: The wind was blowing out big time in Champaign last night. Unfortunately, the conditions aren’t likely to be the same when the game is resumed tomorrow at 2 PM so making up a five run deficit in one inning will be [...]