Today’s Major League Baseball batters all hit below average
Posted by mark in sports, Uncategorized on October 24, 2025
This headline gets your attention if you like statistics. It makes no sense without the context: See Baseball Reference’s report on batting average (BA) by year. In 2000 MLB batters averaged .270 (expressed as “two seventy”), but after years of decline they bottomed out at .245 (two forty-five) or so. This reflects a more analytical approach to hitting that disrespects batting average as a metric, it being likened to counting the number of bills in your wallet but not amount of money.
Nowadays MLB teams value players who excel at on-base-plus-slugging (OPS). This mashup of stats creates percentages over well over 100 (“one thousand” in baseball terms) for the utmost elite players—in 2025 only Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees and Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers. MLB adopted OPS in 1984 after Pete Palmer introduced it in the pioneering book (co-authored by John Thorn) The Hidden Game of Baseball, A Revolutionary Approach to Baseball and Statistics.
OPS combines simplicity with reasonable accuracy and I think that is why it is popular.
– Jim Thorn, Why OPS Works, Fall 2019 Baseball Research Journal, Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)
I’ve been a fan of baseball since 1961 when the Washington Senators moved to the Twin Cities to become the Minnesota Twins. I was 8 years old then. My grandpa had been following the Minneapolis Millers since the late 19th century as a young boy. He turned 8 in 1896 when his home team won their first Western League pennant.
Grandpa was an accountant, so, naturally he collected statistics on every Twins game—carefully ruling out rows and columns for the 9 batters and 9 innings and noting each players batting average. Because of that I am a holdout for appreciating players with high batting averages. I would rather see more hits and the strikeouts that come along with trying to hit a home run at every at bat.
On the other hand, I do not doubt that a lot of people will tune in tonight for Game 1 of the World Series to see if Shohei Ohtani lives up to his “Shotime” nickname by blasting at least one home run, if not several as he did in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. American League fans like me will be rooting for George Springer (3rd in MLB for 2025 OPS at .959) of the Toronto Blue Jays to hit another dramatic home run like he did for in Game 7 of the AL Championship Series.
Baseball is the greatest game!
Experiment creates a reversal in time
When your boss applies maximum time-pressure by saying “I want your results yesterday,” consider lining up a couple of lasers to get the job done. Next, as demonstrated by scientists at the University of Toronto, gather up rubidium atoms and chill them to near absolute zero. Then take some shots with your lasers and take your time from the subsequent reversal. It’s all laid out by experimental evidence that a photon can spend a negative amount of time in an atom cloud.
“It took a positive amount of time, but our experiment observing that photons can make atoms seem to spend a *negative* amount of time in the excited state is up!”
– Aephraim Steinberg, a physicist at the University of Toronto
For an easier 5-minute readout from Scientific American, see this 9/30/24 post: Evidence of ‘Negative Time’ Found in Quantum Physics Experiment.
Next on the agenda for making your work easier is to capture some negative energy. Soon, thanks to advancements in physics, you will be getting jobs done yesterday with no effort whatsoever!
Optimal airline boarding strategy will never get off the ground
Posted by mark in Consumer behavior, Uncategorized on August 19, 2025
As I waited at the end of a line last week to board the Mount Washington Cog Train with my assigned-seat ticket in hand, it occurred to me that only needing a small backpack made the process far simpler than for a flight burdened with carry-on baggage. A random free-for-all process, providing priority by willingness to wait in line, served well for the 45-minute ride up and down the mountain.
It’s not nearly as simple getting luggage-laden people on board a flight. But there is a solution. In 2008, astrophysicist Jason Steffen came up with “perfect airplane boarding method.” It starts by seating window-seat passengers every other row from back to front along one side and then the same on the other side. Then repeat the process with middle seats and, finally, the aisle.
For a fun ‘Pac Man’ illustration, see this interview of Steffen by News Nation:
An experimental test of airplane boarding methods using a mock Boeing 757 airplane showed that Steffen method cuts the time in half from traditional methods going by zones. But though it would certainly save airlines a great deal of time and thus money to switch their boarding to this innovative method, none are likely to make the change due to its precise control of passenger being impractical. Elite flyers accustomed to priority boarding would be very unhappy. Furthermore, families must be broken up in the Steffen-method lineup—not good.
However, there is hope for a better way on to an airplane. As noted in the News Nation video, United Airlines adopted a simplified Steffen method called “WILMA” that boards passengers first by window, then middle and, finally, aisle. However, as laid out in this June 24, 2025 post by CNBC the airline exempts many passengers from WILMA, including those with United credit cards. Perhaps that’s why they only save 2 minutes per flight with their new boarding process. But at an estimated cost of $100 per minute the savings of $200 per flight times nearly 5,000 flights per day by United adds up to $1 million in daily savings.
Based on my experience boarding the Mount Washington Cog Train and numerous studies, a random process serves well by it being fair and fast. When American Airlines tried it in 2011 on all but those passengers with elite status, the random process shaved 20 to 25 minutes off average times. However, according to their flight attendants, it created “complete chaos in the cabin.” As you can see in this April 26 press release, American now goes by a 9-group process. Evidently saving time via free-for-all boarding cannot provide payback for the pandemonium.
Will ‘Mexican’ cane-sugared Coke prevail over corn syrupy Pepsi?
Posted by mark in food science, pop on August 5, 2025
My parents never let me drink pop (as we referred to ‘soda’ in Minnesota). But my grandma treated us to Royal Crown (RC) Cola. Sweet! RC Cola is now mostly forgotten, which narrows the choice down to Coca Cola (Coke) versus Pepsi.
I’ve been trying to work out scientifically which cola tastes better for many years without success. At age 15, my daughter Katie presented me with a blind tasting test but she went awry by confounding input factors, as I laid out in [this May 2004 Stat-Teaser article]. Since then, I’ve vacillated between Coke and Pepsi. When vacationing in Mexico, I observed that their Coke featured cane sugar versus corn syrup for the USA-bottled beverage. Being born and raised in the Corn Belt, that appealed to me—it being very exotic. So, when President Trump announced he’d gotten agreement from Coca Cola to use “REAL” cane sugar, I wondered if that would make Coke the clear winner of the cola war.
Based on a blind tasting by The New York Times’s wine critic, Eric Asimov—reported by the newspaper in early August, Pepsi prevails over USA and Mexican (cane) Coke, despite being made with high-fructose corn syrup. Unfortunately, it’s likely that Coke will ultimately win out due to consumer perceptions that create the Pepsi Paradox.
Though I am a master in business administration (MBA) and thus a proponent for good marketing, my engineering and statistical sensibilities cause me to oppose this triumph by Coke of branding over taste. If you drink colas, enlist someone to present the options—Coke (cane versus corn) versus Pepsi—in a blind taste test with the drinks provided in the same receptacles (avoiding the Katie confounding).
Let me know what you prefer.
Diverging diamond interchanges speed up traffic, but they feel weird
Posted by mark in engineering on July 3, 2025
Sarasota County, like all coastal areas in South Florida, gets jammed up by ‘snowbirds’ like my wife and I, who migrate there every winter to escape Minnesota’s painfully cold weather.
To alleviate traffic at its heaviest near the city of Sarasota, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) converted the junction of Interstate-75 at University Parkway to a diverging diamond interchange (DDI)—the largest in the world at the time it was implemented in 2017. This development increased capacity by 33 percent to 80,000 vehicles per day and reduced the intersection delays by 50 percent. These improvements stem from a large reduction—over 50 percent—in the conflict points.
Soon the I-75 at Fruitville Road interchange will also be converted to a DDI by FDOT. Hundreds more are either already built or under construction across the USA. If you haven’t experienced a DDI, get ready for being disconcerted from the temporary reversal of lanes.
I hate DDI’s so much, that when forced to drive down University to pick visitors up at the Sarasota Bradenton Internation Airport, I exit I75 at Fruitville Road. But this resistance is fruitless (pun intended) due to the upcoming project by FDOT.
I also dislike roundabouts when traffic gets to the point where it becomes very difficult to break in on the flow. Sarasota County features a great number of traffic circles like this. The mix of slow senior snowbirds and aggressive Florida men aggravates the free-for-all.
All this makes route planning and timing essential when driving during Florida’s peak season. Fortunately, I enjoy challenges like this that involve multiple constraints. As the guru Sivananda Saraswati said, “the harder the struggle, the more glorious the triumph.”
Making the most from every coffee bean and doing so tastefully
Posted by mark in food science on June 19, 2025
Yesterday Andrew MacPherson from our UK affiliate PrismTC presented a great talk on deploying design of experiments (DOE) via Stat-Ease® 360 software for Developing Optimal Espressos. He worked out a clever way to tailor the grinding and brewing conditions to his taste for specific coffee beans based on where they are grown. Brilliant!
Our team at Stat-Ease did something similar, focusing on light, medium and dark roasts with blends of all three bean types; then grinding them to a range particle sizes in varying amounts. Read all about this mixture-process DOE in the September 2016 Stat-Teaser article on Brewing the Perfect Pot of Office Coffee.
Of course, taste is of paramount importance for coffee. However, with the cost of beans skyrocketing over the past 6 months (and likely to increase more as tariffs imposed by the US government on April 5th take effect), it is also good to use less coffee when brewing. First off, going from espresso to a regular coffee machine will be a step forward by allowing a reduction in the ratio of coffee to water. Even better, if you are willing to forego automation, make your coffee via the pour over method—invented in 1908 by Melitta Bentz.
Recently a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania created an optimal pour-over process using a goose-neck kettle that achieved an avalanche in the ground coffee, which resulted in the maximum flavor extracted from the minimum amount of beans.* See photos, graphs and figures illustrating their findings at this ResearchGate post. For a translation from physics and fluid dynamics terms, see this April 8th USA Today article by Elizabeth Weise: Scientists release instructions for how to make a perfect cup of coffee.
It would be great to try reproducing these earth shaking (more accurately—coffee shaking) results via a DOE on flow rate, pour height, and amount of coffee. Mainly I would like an excuse to buy a goose-neck kettle like this Coffee Gator.
It hits a lot of hot buttons for feature freaks like me—a surgical-grade stainless steel body, “cool-touch ergonomic handle, brewing ‘golden-zone’ thermometer [I like that a lot!], precision pour spout and triple-layer induction-friendly base” (the hyperbolic bits quoted from their sales site on Amazon).
Hmmm…induction-friendly…so to take advantage of the base I need to upgrade our stove. More gadgetry—hooray! No worries convincing my wife, the expense will be made up by the savings in coffee (ha ha).
Maori manu dive bombers making a big splash
Posted by mark in sports, Uncategorized on June 3, 2025
My daughter Emily and her husband Ryan (pictured) will soon be enjoying a massive upgrade to their above-ground pool.
I am hoping to see him jump off the roof of the house and perform a Maori manu (meaning “bird”) dive like these World Champ bombers in Auckland, New Zealand.
A team of fluid dynamic and biomechanics experts at Georgia Tech ingeniously deployed a quarter-pound, 7-inch high ‘manubot’ to work out how these daredevil divers create splashes exceeding a height of 30 feet. See Mastering the Manu—how humans create large splashes (published May 19 by Interface Focus) for their findings. Figure 1a tells the story: By contorting their body into a V shape, the Manu masters create an air cavity that creates a ‘Worthington’ jet-splash—named after the discover who delivered this discourse on the physics phenomenon in 1894.
“It’s very difficult to master, it can be quite dangerous, and it requires millisecond control.”
– Pankaj Rohilla, co-author of Mastering the Manu
On second thought, I will back off on my son-in-law going dive bombing—best this be done by Maoris or manubots.
Going bananas!
Posted by mark in Basic stats & math, pop, Uncategorized on April 24, 2025
Monkeys are a lot of fun except when they get on the loose, as I experienced once while eating at an outdoor restaurant at a Costa Rican resort (as seen pictured). Unfortunately, another tourist started feeding them, despite numerous warnings posted throughout the patio. This last fall 43 monkeys escaped a South Carolina breeding compound—the last 4 of which ran free for two months. Not good.
On a lighter note, consider the Infinite Monkey Theorem, which states that a monkey hitting keys independently and at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, including the complete works of William Shakespeare. Mathematicians from the University of Technology Sydney did some calculations on this that say no to Shakespeare but provide small consolation by allowing for a 5% chance that a monkey can type “bananas” in its own lifetime. See the stats and math in their December 2024 publication of A numerical evaluation of the Finite Monkeys Theorem.
“It is not plausible that, even with improved typing speeds or an increase in chimpanzee populations, monkey labour will ever be a viable tool for developing non-trivial written works.”
— Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falletta
So no monkeying around will be allowed by mathematicians and/or statisticians.
PS: On the topic of bananas, I plan to blow my entire $2 State of Minnesota 2024 property tax refund (just got word on this windfall from my CPA), to purchase this banana-flavored Laffy Taffy. It’s not easy to find something good like this for $2 or less!
Artificial intelligence (AI) enters the “age of inference”
Oxford Languages defines “inference” as “a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning.” Achieving accurate inferences with a minimum amount of work is of utmost importance in my field of design and analysis of experiments for industrial R&D. So, Amin Vahdat, Google’s Vice President and General Manager of ML, Systems, and Cloud AI, got my full attention by promoting their latest developments in AI as the beginning of the “age of inference” in his April 9th blog on Ironwood —their 7th-generation TPU (tensor processing unit). The blog announces that by “combining the best of Google DeepMind and Google Research with Google Cloud” will “further accelerate scientific breakthroughs, with a mission to become the most capable platform for global research and scientific discovery.”
An April 9 report by VentureBeat offers up an impressive array of statistics on Ironwood with much hyberbolic, high-tech jargon such as “when scaled to 9,216 chips per pod, Ironwood delivers 42.5 exaflops of computing power — dwarfing El Capitan‘s 1.7 exaflops, currently the world’s fastest supercomputer.”
I don’t grasp the units of measure, but it sure sounds great! Perhaps AI will fill in for the ongoing cuts in USA’s funding for institutional research and ripple effects on industrial R&D. I hope so!
However, despite the rapid development of AI, it may be a long while before it gets embraced by researchers. For example, Aidan Toner-Rodgers, an MIT economist, published a paper on Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery and Product Innovation last November that reported 82% of R&D scientists (over 1000 surveyed) being dissatisfied with AI due to it decreasing their creativity and skill utilization.
On a positive note, Toner-Rodgers asserts that the output of “top” researchers nearly doubles due to how they “leverage their domain knowledge to prioritize AI suggestions.” That is the best of both worlds—human intelligence (HI) combined with artificial intelligence (AI).
PS: An April Nature News article summarizes results from a survey of 4,000 researchers that addressed broader questions about AI, not the “what’s in it for me” focus of the Toner-Rodgers’ poll. For example, scientists viewed the glass slightly more than half full for AI whereas nearly all the general public feel it creates more risk than benefit. Interesting!
Bulbous bats hit the sweet spot for bashing baseballs
Posted by mark in sports, Uncategorized on April 4, 2025
According to the lore of Major League Baseball (MLB), in 1919 Babe Ruth hit the longest homer run ever recorded—purportedly 575 feet, but probably closer to 540 feet. See the bat he used, which sold in 2003 for over $56 thousand, at this auction site. Notice the clean lines.
In the early days of baseball, batters preferred bats made from hickory and oak due to their durability. But when Babe Ruth played, ash became the preferred choice for its lighter weight, allowing for increased bat speed and power. In 1998, the MLB approved maple, which despite its heaviness and propensity to shatter catastrophically, is now used by nearly all players, in part due to ash becoming very scarce due to invasive insects.*
Now attention to bats has shifted to their shape. The New York Yankees set the baseball world on fire by using “torpedo bats” in game 2 of their 2025 season to hit 9 home runs—a notable exception being Aaron Judge (AJ) who hit 3 of the home runs with a conventional Chandler model AJ99 (aka the “gavel”, ha ha).
Developed by an MIT PhD physicist—Aaron Leanhardt, torpedo bats push their barrel closer to the player’s hands, thus providing a better chance of hitting the ball on the sweet spot. They look like an elongated bowling pin, not elegant like the bats I saw being turned out at the Louisville Slugger factory a few years ago.
So far as I’m concerned the ‘jury remains out’ on torpedo bats, especially given the counteracting results by the Judge (see my pun there?). I will be watching for statistical evidence based on a representative and sufficiently sized sample.
Stay tuned!
PS: By the way, baseball bats, specifically their shapes, cannot be patented because they fall within the rules of the game, making them ineligible for protection. That opens up the market for bat-makers to feed the frenzy for torpedo bats, for example Louisville Slugger’s Pro Prime Pink model TPD1. Wow!