After watching a few frustrating games over the past few days i have needed an alternate source of White Sox entertainment. And yes, i know i am a dork for finding stats fun/interesting. Figure i would give you all a random sampling of the things i looked at and the results.

First I wanted to look at some things concerning ozzie-ball. I wanted to see what things improve or hurt each batter's game time and if these supported what ozzie claims to value. Here is what i found based on a selection process where only values that are significant to a model to predict game appearances are used. Only four statistics were significant: r, 2b, 3b, and ops+ (obp+slg). Every triple increases the number of game appearances by a little over 9 games and a double gets them an extra 1.5 games. Each run scored also scores them an extra game appearance. The only factor that subtracts from game appearances is OPS+, although not by much. This seems to confirm that Ozzie does in fact favor players who play ozzie ball by hitting extra base hits (excluding hr's) and those players that score runs (although not the people who get the rbi's). He value hits and speed more than power hitting or patience.

Next I wanted to look at what makes Ozzie go to the bullpen. I found the pitching stats for each game and built a model of numbers of pitchers used. There are many more statistics that are significant in this model compared to batting. Besides the obvious stats that would effect number of pitchers used such as pitch count and number of batters faced, the significant stats were(in order of significance): inherited runners, HR's, doubles allowed, opponent stolen bases, GIDP, and K's. The effect of each of these stats on number of pitchers used is where I was surprised. Number of pitches, K's, batters faced, inherited runners, stolen bases and GIDP all increased the chance of seeing extra pitchers. The only two statistics the decreased the chance of seeing additional pitchers were hr's allowed and doubles allowed. One could go as far as thinking that hr's and 2b's would lead to a high score for the opponent, which usually means a loss, so why waste the bullpen? But as a rule of statistics, if you have to go that far to explain something it usually is not the real reason. As for what the reason is, you will have to ask Ozzie, replay his answer 10 times to translate it, and then post it here.

That is all for now, i will continue to look at other things as they come up. just thought this would be a good starting point, as the concept of ozzie-ball has been a hot topic on SSS.