Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Tell Your Statistics to Shut Up

1999 Sports Illustrated Greats of the Game Autograph Jim Bouton (nno)


I am not sure which character says it but "Tell Your Statistics to Shut Up" is a memorable line from "Ball Four" -  The Jim Bouton chronical of his 1969 season. 

With that explanation, I would like to add another feature to Phungo - Looking at some Stats, mostly with the help of the incredible Baseball-Reference.com.  For Practical purposes I think I will refer to this feature as SUS for Shut Up Stats.

Today I want to look at 2 of the big Off-Seasons signings and the impacts on those two Teams Attendace.  Specifically I am talking about Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols.



RankTeamUp/DownHome Att DifAvg Dif
1MIAUP387,47911,742
2DETUP271,9039,376
3WSNUP204,4497,302
4TEXUP177,3516,821
5TORUP172,4735,947
6STLUP149,2405,527
7KCRUP134,3914,800
8ARIUP147,1784,748
9BALUP131,7884,393
10ATLUP110,6564,098
11CINUP122,0504,068
12PITUP87,9472,932
13LADUP88,4602,854
14CHCUP58,0962,152
15TBRUP46,5111,550
16MILUP50,3661,526
17SEAUP32,7641,311
18OAKUP12,270423
19COLUP7,582230
20SDPUP4,322127
21BOSUP2,73583
22SFGDOWN-5,987-187
23PHIDOWN-17,489-564
24NYMDOWN-32,556-1,050
25NYYDOWN-45,250-1,460
26CLEDOWN-55,446-1,733
27CHWDOWN-61,361-1,805
28HOUDOWN-87,129-2,723
29LAADOWN-101,318-3,377
30MINDOWN-125,593-4,331
totalUP1,867,8822,064

Interesting stuff on the movement of our two sluggers.  Both Detroit and the Angels have had mediocre seasons - with the Angels surging a bit recently.  However it is Prince Fielder's team that had the Attendance jump while Pujols team has had one of the worst attendence declines in the league. 

The Angels have had 30 Home dates so far this season.  If you prorate Albert Pujols $12MM 2012 salary for those 30 games that means the Angels are paying him roughly 75K a game to draw 3377 less fans. 

Of course there are lots of other factors in attendance - Tean Play, Weather, Weekend/Weeknight games, The Dodgers Success, as well as the Stanley Cup Champs, Lakers and even Clippers.

Other Observations
- ChiTown - Cubs stink attendance up, ChiSox in First Place attendance down
- Least Coast Bias - Both Mets and Yankees down 1000+/Game - Phils also down, Boston up slightly.  ChesBay area O's and Nats both Up Though.
- The Spurned - The two teams that lost Pujols and Fielder both are Up - impressive for the Brew Crew who also went thru the Braun PR Hit Of course the Cardinals are coming off a World Championship.  The other World Series Participant Texas is up as well.

Source: Baseball-Reference.com - Year to Year Attendance Page
Stats Captured on 2012 06 12 for games played through 2012 06 11

3 comments:

Hackenbush said...

Interesting. As a Cubs fan I've noticed one thing over the past few years regarding attendance. While in the past the reported attendance matched what you saw in the ballpark, often these days, the empty seats tell the real story. There are a lot more no shows.

Anthony Hughes said...

Orange County residents are fickle. Angels slide in the standings a bit and attendance follows with it.

Luckily Ticketmaster sees to it that "normal" supply-demand equilibrium doesn't work!
Demand decrease, Supply stay steady should mean lower ticket prices.
But, no! Better an empty seat than sell those tickets for face value to walkups on game-day, lest the world know that they could actually *wait* til gameday to get a cheap ticket!

JediJeff said...

Wrigley - the world's biggest bar.

a thousand words

a thousand words
2008 World Champions