Monthly Archives: January 2012

Random Thought: The Number 18, an exercise in Small Sample Sizes

Posted by on 29 January 2012 Comments Off on Random Thought: The Number 18, an exercise in Small Sample Sizes

The tip of the iceberg?

I noticed something interesting the other day while sorting through scans for this site: I have a lot of cards numbered 18/25.  I rarely notice any particular number, even the ones that idiot sellers on eBay proclaim to be “Like a 1/1!!!” (jersey numbers, first/last numbered, etc.).  Once I got that in my head, I started noticing more of them on a regular basis.  While interesting anecdotally, I wondered how significant the population of 18/25s would turn out to be when studied more closely.  And so today’s random diversion was born.

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Making the Cut: Eligibility requirements for this collection

Posted by on 17 January 2012 Comments Off on Making the Cut: Eligibility requirements for this collection

Note: One of the challenges of this project has been dealing with a lack of appropriate terminology and notation.  What I’ve come up with seems complex on the surface, so I’ll be explaining things as I go.  This week, it’s a detailed listing of requirements for inclusion in the collection for this site.  If requirements documents are your thing, you’ll enjoy this.  If not, well, your brain is going to hurt.

What is the most important component of any collection?  Money?  Storage space?  A Holy Grail?  An understanding significant other?  No, the most important component is the line that determines whether something belongs in the collection or doesn’t.  Without that line, a collection can grow like a cancer, burning through all available storage space and your significant other’s patience.  Having clear requirements may seem a bit overly pedantic, but it is essential for any large collection.

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Understanding GUAR: The hot new sports statistic that nobody is using

Posted by on 10 January 2012 Comments Off on Understanding GUAR: The hot new sports statistic that nobody is using

Note: One of the challenges of this project has been dealing with a lack of appropriate terminology and notation.  What I’ve come up with seems complex on the surface (often because it is), so I’ll be explaining things as I go.  Some of the details won’t completely make sense until everything has been posted; please bear with me.  This week, I’ll be taking a look at GUAR, my measure of the variety of a player’s game-used offerings.

I’ve always wanted to get in on the invented statistics racket, but I find myself more interested in the psychology of baseball minutiae than the mathematics.  Looking at game-used cards for this project highlighted an opportunity – how do you quantify how much clout a player has in the hobby?  You could add up the total number of cards, but that would be an exercise in insanity.  You could add up just game-used cards, but that suffers from the same problem.  Maybe if you add up the different TYPES of game-used in cards…

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