Baseball by the numbers

Knobler, now based in New York, has covered professional baseball for most of his adult life, including 18 years as a sportswriter for Booth Newspapers. He knows what he is talking about when he says, “Baseball has always been about numbers. From the start of the game, people have always looked at the numbers.”

What’s different now is what he calls “access.”

“When I started, I carried around a lot of stuff to look up stats. Each team had huge bags filled with a collection of old media guides they called ‘the franchise’ to consult,” he said. “Today all you need is Wi-Fi. You can now look at any game in Tigers history and search for statistics within seconds.”

To prove the point, Knobler looked up — in less than a minute — the number of times that Tigers great Al Kaline faced certain pitchers, such as Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer, in his career.

If the online statistics are nearly inexhaustible, I asked Knobler, why would someone need his book?

“It’s really a simple answer,” he said. “You wouldn’t know what to look up.”

For example, how many people know that statistics are kept for each player’s batting averages in day games versus night games?

Bloggers, he said, who are using statistics to analyze everything from bat speed to spray charts, have made Major League Baseball look at the game in a different way. 

As an example, he cited the relatively new term called “pitch framing,” which essentially rates a catcher on how well he helps the umpire get a good look at the pitch.

“There was really no way of quantifying that skill,” he said. “That was before cameras were put in every major league park to evaluate the pitcher. Not only did the video show the pitcher, it showed how the catcher received the pitch, and some bloggers discovered that some catchers were better at it than others.”

“Numbers have not only made the game better, but also more enjoyable for fans at the stadium,” said Knobler, who in his heyday attended and wrote about 130 games a year.

If you are a baseball fan, you’ve likely seen or heard many of these numbers. Every time the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera comes to bat, fans both at home and in the stadium are inundated with numbers, from how he hits against right hand versus left hand pitchers, down to his average against a specific pitcher.

Knobler says his book can be broken into eras, and some fans are lucky enough (and old enough) to have watched three distinct eras: the 1968 World Series, the 1984 World Series and the recent Cabrera-Verlander era.

There is no surfeit of number in Knobler’s book, and readers can turn to any page and easily find decipherable statistics, from Ty Cobb’s lifetime batting average (.367) to the numbers on Al Kaline, who has been with the Tigers organization for 62 years and won the American League batting title at 20.

Not all of the stats are worthy of celebration. Some, like when Aloysius Travers allowed 24 runs in a 1912 game, will make you cringe.

Knobler started covering the Tigers in 1990, during one of their ebbs, but he said there were some amazing statistics that year, including Cecil Fielder hitting 51 home runs.

“Cecil had come from Japan, and there were tons of Japanese writers. It was almost as if he was going for the record ( of Maris’ 61 home runs),” he said. “In May, Cecil hit three home runs in a game and one month later he hit another three home runs in a game. At that point it became a big deal.”

The 1990 season, he said, started differently, since it was the year of the spring training lockout.

“I went to Lakeland (where the Tigers hold spring training) and there were no players and no replacement players,” he said. “Spring training started late, waiting for the lockout to end. The players had no idea who I was and I didn’t know who they were.”

Today, Knobler has trimmed back the number of games he watches in person to about 40, mostly in New York. He can watch teams from both leagues play at home.

For the avid Detroit Tiger fan — and even the casual fan — “Numbers Don’t Lie” will sharpen how they watch the game while also providing strong dose of nostalgia.

Knobler still believes, even with the public’s unprecedented access to numbers, reporters have a leg up on the average fan or blogger.

“We have the experience and knowledge to find the statistics, along with access behind the game to discover what happened,” he said.

Danny Knobler Talks Tigers Stats

Author talk 7 p.m. Thursday, June 4 Schuler Books (Meridian Mall) 1982 W Grand River Ave, Okemos (517) 349-8840, schulerbooks.com