Separating the Good from the Great: Predicting Votes for the Cy Young Award

Speculating about which pitcher will win the Cy Young Award has long been a pastime of baseball fans. In this paper, we identify which metrics affect a pitcher’s chances of winning the Cy Young Award, and the marginal effect of each metric. Our results were found using an ordinary least squares regression with a data set containing all pitchers in the American league who received at least one vote for the Cy Young award between 1970 - 2009. Our results show that voters favor pitchers with a high number of wins and a strong strikeout rate. Starting pitchers are also heavily favored over relieving pitchers

Separating the Good from the Great: Predicting Votes for the Cy Young Award

Speculating about which pitcher will win the Cy Young Award has long been a pastime of baseball fans. In this paper, we identify which metrics affect a pitcher’s chances of winning the Cy Young Award, and the marginal effect of each metric. Our results were found using an ordinary least squares regression with a data set containing all pitchers in the American league who received at least one vote for the Cy Young award between 1970 - 2009. Our results show that voters favor pitchers with a high number of wins and a strong strikeout rate. Starting pitchers are also heavily favored over relieving pitchers

Emotions as Reasons in Public Arguments

If ethos is the word for our previous issue of Poroi (3, 2, December, 2004), pathos is the word for this one. Pathos appeals to passions; it stirs sentiments; it mobilizes emotions. All the essays in this sixth issue analyze public forms and personal capacities of pathos. Together they argue powerfully for greater attention to political aesthetics, particularly in coming to terms with public arguments. These reach from cultures to technologies and from campaigns to sciences