Complete baseball stats, with player and team rankings.
XERA-Baseball.com
Mathematics in Baseball:
The Science of the Art
Featuring:
XERA - Baseball's statistical scouting report
. . . and standard stats, too. XERA measures the productivity of any player or
team by calculating a
normal distribution of traditional baseball numbers. It's backed up by
more than 100 league-seasons of data, optimized through linear programming
analysis.
The latest XERA team ratings, through the
games of May 17, have the top teams in MLB (in order) as the Cardinals,
Nationals, Rangers, Marlins, Dodgers, Phillies, Orioles, Indians, Yankees, Rays, and
Braves. The
Angels (so far), Rockies, D'Backs, Padres,
Astros, Mets, Mariners, Pirates, and Twins, are at the bottom of that list. Check out the
2012MLB tab at
Various
XERA Stat Sheets, for details.
We hope to have the same level of success, in
2012, as we did last season (check it out at the bottom of this page).
The AL leads the NL by 4 games, and 32
runs, after one day, in 2012 inter-league competition.
☼
If you're not yet familiar with XERA, we suggest clicking this link
►►►
XERA Objectives to learn more.
☼
How accurate is XERA, compared to any other sabermetric baseball stat? A comparison to actual data,
would be a great way to find out if it works. So . . . check out this link
►►►
XERA History
to see how well XERA has worked every year, for more than half a century - always using the SAME
formulas.
Feel free to compare XERA to actual data - no other sabermetric system
evaluates the production of (offensive AND defensive) earned runs more
accurately.
☼
Now, this site shows
year-by-year graphic samples, on that
XERA History
page. Note how precisely the
hitter's XERA equates to the actual (pitcher's) ERA, every season. The graphics
also show how closely the pitching stats "estimate" the batting average,
slugging average, on-base average, and OPS, of the hitters! We've included a tab to compare XERA to
a well-established standard . . . Bill
James, Runs Created figures, as well.
Quick Click Links===>
Various
XERA Stat Sheets
Standings
and Ranks
Baseball trivia page Easy
Money
The Easy Money
Quick Click Link,
after 7 straight years of being "only" 7 for 10, was 9 for 10 in 2011!
Contact us at
xerastats@gmail.com. and, yes,
we're happy to answer your baseball or mathematics questions!
Updated daily:
Standings and Ranks
This page shows detailed 2012 MLB standings, runs scored, opponents runs
scored, and Runs2
standings. We also show runs scored/allowed on a per-game basis. We have
magic numbers
for each division leader, and mathematically projected full-season wins
for each team (this time of the year, many "projections" are humorous), from the beginning of the season. The
Runs2 tab has been moved
to the Standings and Ranks workbook. See why
runs2 reflects so well on a team's record.
Updated daily: We currently have complete 2012 XERA and standard stats on
all active non-pitchers with 18 or more Plate Appearances, and all active pitchers with
6 or more IP -
through May 17,
2012 (822 players). Click
this (the
Various XERA Stat Sheets
Quick Click Link), and then just click the
Hitters12
tab or the Pitchers12 tab.
The complete stats involve extracting information from 3 databases. That
information is then correlated to formulas that were pre-positioned into Excel
spreadsheets, and sorted. The reports include the Scouting Report
"Grades" for each player listed.
♦Updated
weekly: Be sure to check out the
2012MLB
tab in the
Various XERA Stat Sheets
section, as well, for XERA Rankings of each team,
based on the collective XERAs of each team's players.
Last update: All games through 5/17/2012.
This feature now includes XERA grade
ratings. Generally, speaking the grade ratings will be fairly consistent with
the grade ratings in the
Standings and Ranks
section. Because XERA ratings are based on a normal distribution of
accumulated player stats, not just actual runs and runs-allowed per game, it
takes on additional meaning. When there is a significant difference between the
two grades, look for the rankings to mutate toward the XERA grade over time.
We use, and highly recommend, Lee Sinins'
Complete Baseball Encyclopedia
(an unsolicited endorsement of my favorite source of baseball stats) as our
reference for traditional baseball stats.
The Computer Annex of Sarasota
has honored us (GillXL, LLC) with its “Excellence in Excel” award, again in
2011 - our fourth consecutive year of that honor. New applications used in
this XERA website, along with binomial and hypergeometric distribution
worksheets, were cited as some the reasons for that honor. THANK YOU!
The same (Linear Programming) techniques that developed XERA and its related
formulas, can be used very effectively in business, for cost analysis,
quality control, estimating, etc. If you'd like to optimize formulas or
data for your application, GillXL, LLC can do it for you, as well as
translate and reformat virtually any database file (even text-based) into a
sortable Excel application. Please contact us at
xerastats@gmail.com. This website and all its associated formulas and
stats, are by GillXL, LLC personnel.
Scroll down to the list
with the light-blue background (like this) to find more details about the
various baseball stats reports on this website.
THIS
symbol (throughout the text) will link to a variety of unique sabermetric
material. These pages should provide a good overview of XERA and other
useful baseball stats.
Yes, this is a unique baseball site. We also recommend
www.baseball-reference.com,
www.retrosheet.org, and the aforementioned Lee Sinins' Complete
Baseball Encyclopedia
(CBE) as outstanding baseball references. The CBE web address is
www.baseball-encyclopedia.com.

We offer updated information that was originally published in
Mathematics in Baseball : The Science of the Art, by statistician Dwight
Gill (a member of American Mensa) and sports writer Tad Reeve, just before the
spring of 1989 and updated years later (XERA formulas are occasionally given
small revisions to accommodate new information) by Dwight Gill. XERA (eXpected
Earned Run Average) is baseball's statistical scouting report. We have one-hundred
four league-seasons of data (1960-2011 AL
and NL data) to verify XERA's accuracy and comprehensive nature. All the
formulas were developed by Dwight Gill. Ron Shandler uses the original
copyrighted formula in his annual
Fantasy Baseball book. The original XERA book is no longer in print (because
of its season-specific nature), but many of its concepts have been assimilated
by major league teams - especially to statistically evaluate players. The
New York Mets
used then-updated XERA formulas during the 2004 season and after. The newest
formulas (post-2010) are the most precise, yet, and are easier to calculate than
the originals. The stats throughout this website have been updated to relate to
the current formulas. No "normalizing factor" is used in the current XERA
formulas, the
same
equations are used every year. XERA invites comparisons to any other systems, or
actual data. Click
THIS
to see why. Click
THIS to go to the page that introduces XERA -
Baseball's Statistical Scouting Report:
The key to XERA: XERA (eXpected Earned Run Average)
itself, is a provably accurate mathematical technique that measures all players
(including hitters) on a scale that is familiar to every baseball fan - ERA or
Earned Run Average. XERA not only measures the productivity of a player,
much like Bill James's and Pete Palmer's methodologies,
it also breaks down
standard baseball stats into a "scouting report" that clearly demonstrates
specific strengths and weaknesses of each player and team.
The actual mathematical technique
used to optimize the XERA-related formulas is Linear Programming. In this
application, Linear programming was used to find the relative influence
(weight) of standard baseball stats on Earned Runs.We'll also be showing a number of other
baseball-related statistics, in addition to XERA. Our baseball statistics
are based on the science that deals with the analysis and interpretation of
numerical data, that uses proven mathematical calculations of probability, not
merely the data itself.
The
Various XERA Stat Sheets
Quick Link, and then the appropriate tab will lead to various XERA
baseball reports . . .
1)
2012 MLB
tab to see XERA, and plenty of conventional stats, for every 2011 major
league team.
The
XERA History page has the same information for
2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.
2)
Hitters12
tab to see XERA, and plenty of conventional stats, for the hitters of
2012.
The
XERA History page has the same information for
2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.
3)
Pitchers12
tab to see XERA, and plenty of conventional stats, for the pitchers of
2012.
The
XERA History page has the same information for
2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.
4)
Grt Hitters tab to see
XERA
demonstrate the skills of 259 of baseball's greatest hitters (career, all time)
. . .
5)
Grt Pitchers tab to see
XERA
demonstrate the skills of 263 of baseball's greatest pitchers (all pitchers with
150 wins or saves, career, all time) . . .
6) 20W
Seasons
tab to see detailed XERA
data, and standard stats, for all 805 20-game winners since the 1900
season.
7) H
Seasons
tab to see how detailed
XERA
data, and standard stats, for 600 of the best hitting seasons in
baseball history.
8) LeftRight tab
to see how XERA
makes it possible to determine the true (run-scoring) effects of the
lefty/righty theory with final 2007, and 2006 stats.
9) BarryB
tab to see a detailed
year-by-year XERA breakdown of Barry Bonds' incredible career -
before 2000 and after . . . This guy got dramatically BETTER after he
turned 35 . . . or was it the steroids? In response to a number of requests,
we've added tabs for the the careers of Hank
Aaron, Babe
Ruth,
and the late Harmon
Killebrew. We've also added
Mariano Rivera, perhaps
the finest relief pitcher in baseball history.
10) Changes
tab to see, by the numbers,
how the game has changed over the years. Easily find the eras when pitching
dominated the game, when power entered the game, when high batting averages were
the norm . . .
Got questions (or suggestions, or comments)? Check it out on one of the pages
of this website, or contact us at
xerastats@gmail.com. We want to provide baseball fans, and professionals,
with useful, interesting and unique information.
Click
THIS
to check out the answers to your early questions.
2011, in review: Seven of the eight postseason teams finished
in the top nine positions in our XERA rankings (the Red Sox and Giants were the
other two - the Diamondbacks were #13). Check out the
2011MLB tab at the
Various
XERA Stat Sheets Quick
Click Link
for final 2011 ratings of every major league team.
It's more evidence that XERA is the best statistical evaluator of baseball
talent.
We correctly picked all six division winners
in early September. We, also, incorrectly, picked the two Wild
Cards. Our picks, the Braves (9-18) and the Red Sox (7-20) had incredibly bad
September performances. That, combined with fine records by the Cardinals (18-8)
and Rays (17-10) contributed to an exciting September race.