Schrödinger's Bat

My first column on Baseball Prospectus is now live on the site. The subject is Wily Mo Pena and taking a closer look at the projections for his career.

The column name, "Schrödinger's Bat" (suggested by Will Carroll), is a play on the thought experiment devised by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 that attempted to illustrate the incompleteness of one of the popular interpretations of quantum mechanics. The relation to baseball is that through the column I hope to pose questions, look for answers, and challenge both conventional and sabermetric wisdom. At least that's the plan.

And for your entertainment pleasure here's a list of candidate column names that didn't quite make the list - some of which are very good however and others, well...

• Diamond Derivatives


• In the Wheelhouse


• Caught Looking


• Outliers


• Diamonod Numeracy


• The Diamond Out-Foxed


• Regressing to the Mean


• Playing the Carom


• Tools of Ignorance


• Painting the Corners


• Deep in the Count


• Gorks, Bleeders, and Ducksnorts


• Seamscape


• The Yakker


• Creasing the Bean (hitting a batter in the head)


• Number Crunch


• Two Run Balk


• Numerology


• Numbers Shmumbers


• The Official Scorer


• Keeping Score


• Guarding the Line(s)


• Uncle Charlie


• Trending Upward


• Batterplot


• My Spreadhsheet is Bigger Than Your Spreadsheet


• Diagnosis: Fun


• Gladys the Groovy Mule


• Measuring the Bases


• Stealing Signs


• Open Foxhole


• Diamond Punditry


• Flipping Deuces


• Popping the Hood: Inside the Diamond


• The Purpose Pitch


• Baseballometry


• Working The Corners


• Double-Switches: Stats, the Game, and the Stats


• Gleaming the Diamond


• The Rundown


• Dying Quail