Futility Infielder, commenting on an Aaron Gleeman post, points to a course offered at Tufts entitled "The Analysis of Baseball: Statistics and Sabermetrics." That's just way cool.

From that site, however, I found a link to A Graphical History of Baseball. One of my favorite charts is this one, showing the improvement in fielding averages over time. I believe the increase in fielding percentage is the most compelling reason for believing players are always getting better; the players of today have always been better than the players of yesteryear. Batting and pitching tend to even each other out; it's hard to see improvement in one over time when both are improving, keeping the averages about the same. But nothing works against fielding. Yes, part of it is better equipment and better grounds. But the constant rise indicates that baseball players are just getting better with time.

Update: Fixed broken link.

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