Lahman Baseball Database Exercise

• this data has been made available online by Sean Lahman
• you can find a data dictionary here

Use SQL queries to find answers to the Initial Questions. If time permits, choose one (or more) of the Open-Ended Questions. Toward the end of the bootcamp, we will revisit this data if time allows to combine SQL, Excel Power Pivot, and/or Python to answer more of the Open-Ended Questions.

Markus's note: This was part of a team project. I answered questions 1, 5, 6, 7 and 13. Those questions are included below as well as the sql script files. The powerpoint presentation was designed and assembled by William Prunty.

Content warning: Mariners fans might find some of the answers traumatic.

1. What range of years for baseball games played does the provided database cover?

2. Find the average number of strikeouts per game by decade since 1920. Round the numbers you report to 2 decimal places. Do the same for home runs per game. Do you see any trends?

3. Find the player who had the most success stealing bases in 2016, where success is measured as the percentage of stolen base attempts which are successful. (A stolen base attempt results either in a stolen base or being caught stealing.) Consider only players who attempted at least 20 stolen bases.

4. From 1970 – 2016, what is the largest number of wins for a team that did not win the world series? What is the smallest number of wins for a team that did win the world series? Doing this will probably result in an unusually small number of wins for a world series champion – determine why this is the case. Then redo your query, excluding the problem year. How often from 1970 – 2016 was it the case that a team with the most wins also won the world series? What percentage of the time?

5. It is thought that since left-handed pitchers are more rare, causing batters to face them less often, that they are more effective. Investigate this claim and present evidence to either support or dispute this claim. First, determine just how rare left-handed pitchers are compared with right-handed pitchers. Are left-handed pitchers more likely to win the Cy Young Award? Are they more likely to make it into the hall of fame?