Part 1 of the survey can be found here
We’re back, this time to learn about why and how we consume our baseball, if we have ever watched a game in person and lastly who our favourite and least favourite players are.
First of all we will look at why people choose to watch baseball. The available answers were:
- Own team are playing
- Pitching matchups
- Hot team (Think Indians in 2017)
- Player approaching milestone
- It’s a game on at a UK friendly time
- It’s a game on at a UK friendly time (Even if it’s basement dwellers)
- Specific player (eg. Trout)
- Other (Write in option)
The results were as follows:
Ok, because Google Sheets can be annoying at times, I’ll just have to clarify the double “It’s a game on at a UK friendly” shown on the chart. The first result (382 responses) is “It’s a game on at a UK friendly time”, the second one (242 responses) is “It’s a game on at a UK friendly time (Even if it’s basement dwellers)”.
So what is interesting about the data? Well those watching their own team had the most responses. That’s not interesting. It is interesting (and great to see) that just under half of the responders will watch any game, even if it’s basement dwellers. Pitching matchups could be linked in with specific players, so those numbers could be bundled together as if you’re watching for a pitching matchup, then by default you’re watching specific players. Bad questioning technique on my part.
If I’m honest, the results were as I imagined. The write in results were some obvious options and there were some not-so-obvious options. However, none of them were exclusive and the only option the responder entered, it generally was tied in with “own team playing” or “UK friendly”.
Next, how do you consume baseball:
Again an unsurprising response, MLB.tv dominating the results. Not just live broadcasts, but also for recaps. It’s great to see blogs/news sites and podcasts having a strong return as well, I just hope Bat Flips and Nerds is in that response…
Next:
LOVE that nearly three-quarters of our responders have been to an MLB game. Even better is the 3.6% of responders that plan to visit a game in 2018, which will bump our 73.6% attenders OVER the 75% mark. I (as you may know) have yet to attend an MLB game, I came so close in 2017 thanks to the Detroit Tigers, but it just wasn’t meant to be (full story was on a podcast last year, look it up).
Next up:
If you weren’t sure, Noah is Noah Syndergaard, Giancarlo is Giancarlo Stanton and Madison is Madison Bumgarner. If a player received less that 5 votes, they don’t appear on this chart. There were so many single vote entries for this one, I had to raise the minimum to fit them all in.
So what about the data? Well, the clear winners are the Red Sox players of Dustin Pedroia and Mookie Betts. This isn’t a definite answer of who is the UK & Irelands number one player, as we saw in part 1, there were a significant larger number of Red Sox fans than other fans. So it’s not a surprise to see their players dominating.
Any big shocks from the results? Didi Gregorious is actually someones favourite player? Really? Also, Mets fans seriously, let David Wright go.
And finally, the big one for part 2 of the survey, the most disliked player in MLB:
Again, I reduced the data to ignore any player below 3 votes. Otherwise this chart would be giant.
This category was great to filter, some cracking single votes thrown out there. Some folk decided to leave it blank, we also got some stick about the question being a little below them. That’s fine, that’s why we made it a write in option and also made sure no question in the survey was required to be filled to finish the survey.
Well, here come the hate. There were a bunch of unsurprising responses to this question. A-Rod, Harper, Jeter, Pedroia, Bautista, Odor, etc.
There were also a big collection of very surprising responses to the question. Rizzo and Kershaw were a head scratcher, but most surprising of all was Mike Trout. Four votes, really? Where did this come from? He’s the best player in baseball and very bland. Why do people dislike him? Maybe this is a completely different blog post all together.
The majority of Yasiel Puig votes came from one age group. I’ll let you use your imagination and guess.
My favourite one vote answer out of all 400+ responses?
Jose Lopez – Wessex Bears
Poor Jose, great bantz though.
Part 3 will come once I get a chance to filter through the rest of the incredibly detailed and interesting data. Thanks again to everyone who has taken part, commented on and retweeted/shared part 1. If you could continue to show such enthusiasm with this part and the next two parts, we would really appreciate it.
Until next time, keep supporting the podcast, the website, the twitter account. We love you all. Except you, yes you.
Part 3 of the survey is here
Make sure you get your copy of Baseball Prospectus 2018 hot off the press – order from Amazon by clicking this link!
