What is Baseball Exploder?

Hello there.

There are two interests in my life that have never wavered. Generally, I tend to find something I like and obsess over it for a few weeks. I go really deep. I read as much as I can. And then the interest fades away, and I’m back to business as usual.

And for me, business as usual is two things: music and baseball.

I’m not here to talk about music, but I did want to give a heads up on where the name Baseball Exploder comes from and give credit where it’s due. Song Exploder is the name of a podcast, and eventually, a Netflix series, where creator/host Hrishikesh Hirway would talk with an artist about how a song was made, peeling back the onion of all the individual tracks and instruments, demos, other versions, etc. It’s incredible, and one of my all-time favorite podcasts. As someone who really geeks out on audio engineering and production, it was like that podcast was made for me.

But like I said, I’m not here to talk about music. Baseball was the only sport I liked growing up. I played a ton; my poor parents drove me around every summer for double and triple-headers regularly. My Dad introduced me to Strat-O-Matic in the early 1990s. He had some old cards of even older teams; the 1927 Yankees, a New York Giants team from the 1940s, and others. A few days before my 8th or 9th birthday, I found my soon-to-be birthday present hidden underneath our living room couch. The full season set; nearly every player from every team from the prior year.

I carried around a stack of Strat-O-Matic cards wherever I went. I’d place the players out onto the floor; a fictional baseball team of my own, because I’d make trades between teams. I’d study the statistics on the bottom of each card, and after looking at the back of the card, which had a more advanced way to play that included handedness splits, realize that there was a trend regarding which side a batter hit from. Left-handed batters tended to do better against right-handed pitchers. It taught me about odds and the rarity of certain events. This changed my life.

In 2004, I was in college. My dad was a voracious reader, and he read Moneyball at some point that year and gave it to me when we saw each other. It blew my mind. This led me to read Baseball Between the Numbers a few years later. And then The Book. All of these books changed my life. They changed the way I think about this game.

So why Baseball Exploder? For the past twenty years, I have been searching for more information that changes the way I think about this game. There’s incredible work being done by so many people, and it’s a lot to unpack. I’m learning, and always will be learning, but the purpose of Baseball Exploder is to continue to unlock the inner workings of this game, to see deep within it, beyond the surface level, and share my findings with others in a way that is simple to understand.

If you’re a baseball fan looking to get deeper into the more advanced and analytical side of the game, I think you’ll love it. If you’re a fantasy player and looking for some interesting predictions on players and why, I think you’ll love it. If you are an analytical expert already, I hope you appreciate the depth here. But I’d also truly appreciate your feedback. The goal is to learn, while helping others learn along the way.

This is Baseball Exploder, and I can’t wait to get this going.