20 October 1999

Carnegie Mellon Software Program Reveals Unique Aspects Of Every Major League Baseball Team Since Game's Inception

Baseball has been America's game since 1876. There are hundreds of statistics differentiating the more than 2,000 teams that have played major league baseball since the sport's inception. Now, Carnegie Mellon computer scientist Raul Valdes-Perez has developed a software program that can pinpoint exactly what makes each of those teams good or bad- unique by sifting through the data in a new way. His system works by comparing the selected team against every other team in the database and finding the most concise statement of differences. The database covers everything from 1876 through 1998.

Below are examples of the kinds of questions that can be asked. You get your answers in 10 seconds or less.

What was different about the 1972 Pittsburgh Pirates?
Answer: They had the most All Stars (5) of 116 teams that did not win the World Series and played in Pittsburgh.

How about the 1998 New York Yankees?
Answer: That team had the most wins (114) of 1,914 teams that did not have a team earned run average (ERA) less than 3.00.

Or how about the memorably bad 1965 New York Mets?
Answer: They had the most losses (112) of 897 teams that had a million in attendance.

You can see more examples by checking the Web site http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sci-disc/baseball.html. Or, email the software's developer at baseball@cs.cmu.edu with a team and a year.

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