1 minute read

Major League Baseball Most Efficient Batters

About Makeover Monday

MakeoverMonday is a social data project: “Each week we post a link to a chart, and its data, and then you rework the chart. Maybe you retell the story more effectively, or find a new story in the data. We’re curious to see the different approaches you all take. Whether it’s a simple bar chart or an elaborate infographic, we encourage everyone of all skills to partake. Together we can have broader conversations about and with data.”

Starting from Jan 08, 2018, I decided to put aside one hour on Monday weekly to create some visualization and find some insights from the data.

The datasets are published each week at: MakeoverMonday Datasets.

Makeover Monday 20190506

This week’s data is around MLB player stats since 1985. Sadly I have very limited knowledge on Baseball, but there are some stats I can understand – weight, height, and salary :) The original viz can be found here. It use salary per stat metrics to measure which player got paid most and which team paied most. It’s actually interesting to learn how stats are applied in the Baseball game, not only for post-game analysis, but also for strategizing and choosing players.

My Visualization

I followed the same metrics as the original viz (to avoid coming up with something weird without enough domain knowledge…). But I used scatter plot + line plot to better indicate where each team stands regarding salary and all salary related metrics.


Please notice that all the visualizations are designed for desktop view, so it is recommended to view them on a desktop device.

Insights

  • The variation of player salary has increased a lot since 1985 (but of course, to be more rigorous here, I should consider inflation as well);
  • New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers are the two teams that are most generous in season 2016 regarding almost all the metrics, but when it comes to the metrics ‘salary per home run’, SF Giants pay highest.

Follow this link to find more weekly vizzes :)