Posted by Dave Studeman
This being the first day of continental major league baseball in 2008, the New York Times is running an analysis of Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak in its editorial section. The two writers—a math professor and graduate student at Cornell—ran 10,000 simulations of major league history, using actual season totals, to calculate the most likely record for longest hitting streak. The results are pretty interesting, but I don't find the methodology that compelling. The level of pitching competition batters face day-to-day varies tremendously, a factor that apparently wasn't captured in their analysis.
Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
