Saturday, December 05, 2009
Visual Baseball: Relative rankings of the 2009 World Series Teams
Posted by Kevin DameMy last post explored ways to use typeface (word clouds) to illustrate differences in performance and salary. Continuing the theme of comparisons, I've been experimenting with lists as a visual way to rank players and teams. Here are some graphics from the World Series, showing how the Yankees and Phillies ranked across a range of measures, relative to the other teams in their leagues. The goal was to communicate at a glance the relative strengths (and balance) these teams had. Are these 5 measures the right ones? Probably not. For example, we all know errors aren't a great way to measure defensive prowess. But I'm not trying to explore new statistical measures - I'm trying to take ones that people already understand and share them visually.
"The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of seeing and showing." - Edward Tufte.
Feel free to send comments, questions, and suggestions to Kevin via email.
Very cool. It would be interesting to see this type of graph over ten years or so, maybe even some sort of combined average along those categories. It might just confirm what many already know, but by this snapshot it sure seems to indicate that power is king.