Having recently built a Sports Payrolls data viz comparing payrolls across the major U.S. sports, I decided to drill down on a specific sport. Being a big baseball fan, I decided to pull in 2012 baseball salary and payroll data. I also pulled in the last ten years of payroll data by team to compare total payroll, average, median, and standard deviation.
One of the things that surprised me the most is just how difficult it is to get all this data. I was going to different sports sites like ESPN, USA Today, and CBS Sports to get everything that I needed. Each site had the data displayed a bit differently with more or less detail depending on the site.
I ended up using data from both CBS Sports and USA Today; however, I was really surprised that CBS Sports didn't give me the position of each player with the baseball salary information by team. I needed to merge it with another data set from the same website!
It's just too bad that Sports websites don't offer a download data feature. I ended up copying and pasting data from all 30 MLB teams into Excel, cleaning up the data, then joining the data in Access to bring in one dataset that would give me player details, 2012 salary, and position. It was quite an exhaustive process! And it took much longer than I thought it would.
I really wanted to display all of the Major League Baseball teams on a map. Only one baseball team is not in the United States, that is, the Toronto Blue Jays. It was neat to be able to see all 2012 payrolls by team plotted on a map. Not surprisingly, the New York Yankees have the highest payroll at $198M. And if you look at the top five paid baseball players, they make up three of the top five!
One tricky thing with the data is that it was very incomplete. Many baseball players, about fifty-eight in my list did not have any salary data. In the salary field, it said "Not Available" on CBS Sports' website. I ended up excluding them from the viz since it didn't really make sense to show that they had a zero salary which is not true. Some have been called up from the minors, others are in arbitration and others just do not have any salary data released.
What I found really interesting is that the difference between the highest paid player and the lowest paid player is huge! The highest paid player is Alex Rodriguez at $30M/year with the lowest salary at $480K. That seems to be the default salary for many baseball players.
I added in additional drill-downs to be able to filter by player, position, age, batting (left, right or switch hitter), and throwing (left or right). With batting and throwing, there were some players that didn't have any data listed, hence, the N/A in the drop-down box. Even that data wasn't fully populated!
Being able to see the top paid players by these filters was quite surprising! Here's what I found:
Highest youngest paid player with a listed 2012 salary is Yoenis Cespedes making $9M at the ripe age of 20! There's another player at age 19, but he didn't have any salary information so he does not appear in my viz.
Oldest paid player is Omar Vizquel at age 45 making $750K this year.
Highest paid pitcher is Johan Santana making a little over $23M this year with CC Sabathia close behind.
Highest paid relief pitcher is Mariano Rivera at close to $15M this year. Too bad he's injured and out for the season!
Joe Mauer is the highest paid catcher this year at $23M. Buster Posey is a steal at $615K. Had to call out a Giants player!
Highest paid DH is Michael Young of the Texas Rangers making $16M at the age of 35. Nice!
Who's the highest paid switch hitter? It's another Yankee, Mark Teixeira, making over $23M this year.
Highest paid thirty-year old is Adrian Gonzalez of the Boston Red Sox at close to $22M.
Barry Zito is the highest paid San Francisco Giant at $19M this year. Wow ...
Texas Rangers have the highest median payroll this year at $3.44M. Colorado Rockies are the lowest at $0.48M.
New York Yankees had a total payroll less than $100M back in 2000 at $92M. Every year after has been over $100M!!
Feel free to check out the visualization and interact with the data. Check out your favorite team to see how their payroll has stacked up against other teams in the last ten years.
Probably the best part about constructing this viz was being able to show the data visually. It becomes so much easier to explore and it's so much more interesting than just looking at a bunch of numbers.
Hope you enjoy this visualization and please feel free to leave any comments. Thanks!
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - Marianne Williamson
Here's another attempt at data visualization using Tableau.
This is looking at the time required for businesses in the private sector (using data from World Bank). Specifically, I'm only looking at the 31 countries which comprise the High Income (OECD) group.
For a better view of my visualization, click here.
* You can filter on the list of countries to compare country by country.
All of us have a story to tell. The question isn't whether or not we have a story ... the question is do we have a story that is worth telling? Life can often seem mundane and meaningless, but we were meant for so much more.
We were meant to be a part of a grand Epic.
This book really challenged me to think about the bigger Story. I definitely recommend it! Check it out ... you won't be disappointed ... in fact, you'll probably be inspired to live a better story.
I know I was ... and still am striving to live a story that is worth telling.
I'm really excited that one of my favorite artists is releasing a new CD next Tuesday (11/16). I think what makes me even more excited about a new CD is just the potential of what a collection of songs can do.
Having traveled recently, I have seen that there is a huge need for HOPE. People need something to believe in ... and the reason for a Savior couldn't be stronger. All around us there are people who are struggling, who are discouraged and who feel hopeless. There is only ONE who can rescue and redeem us and ... put our feet on solid ground and give us a HOPE and a future that is worth living for.
Just reading about the heart behind this new album, it gave me chills and honestly, even reminded me ... that no matter what happens ... whether good or bad ... our God is for us! He believes in us. And I've realized even I need to be reminded that God believes in me. 'Cause honestly I forget and sometimes feel like He doesn't.
Check out an excerpt about this new album ... may it inspire you and remind you of His promises for YOU ...
As many will realize, the title comes from Tomlin's #1 song from the PASSION: AWAKENING live CD, "Our God," as Tomlin explains, the title is one that wasn't his first choice, but kept coming back to him.
"For the longest time I had a different title for the album, but at the end of the day, I really came back to 'And if Our God is for Us.' I just love that statement. It's just so strong. Every night in concert when we get to the part of the song where we sing 'if our God is for us,' it's amazing to see what happens, to see so many people rise up in that statement.
If you really believe in God, you know that everything is possible. Anything can happen. Miracles can happen. All things are available to you no matter what you're going through, no matter what you're facing, no matter what is coming against you. Life comes against all of us, but you know God is for you.
That's straight from the Scripture. It's not just my thought. It's not just my idea or opinion. The Scripture tells us 'if God is for you then who can be against you.' I love the hope that is in that statement. I think when people see that in the stores and they pick it up or they see it online, hopefully it just instantly takes them to that idea--'God is for me today!'
Amen. And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what can stand against? Nothing.
So I was perusing some books at Borders yesterday and I came across this book called, "God's Little Instruction Book for the Class of 2010". I was going through it and a few pages stood out a bit more than others.
One of them that made me just stop said this ...
Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
And then on the bottom of the page it said ...
Perfect love drives out fear. ~ 1 John 4:18
And I loved that moment because it reminded me of how incredibly amazing God's love is. His love for us is unstoppable. And His love is big and deep enough to cover us ... our fears, our insecurities, our worries, our uncertain future, _____________ ... God's perfect love drives out fear and frees us to live fully for Him.
What a Beautiful Savior.
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
A different promo video this time around, but still pretty sweet!:D It's time to trade in small dreams for a place in the beautiful and epic Story that never ends.
Really loved the scripture reading I came across today ... what a beautiful way to start the day. This is where my Hope comes from ... Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. 6He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. 7My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. 8Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. Selah
The new series I've been helping to facilitate on Grace has been crazy challenging so far. It was really neat to see how the sermon yesterday tied together so well with everything we've been talking about in the class. Grace is the one thing that has the power to change the world.
At its core, grace just seems too good to be true or so good that it must be true. Grace is unfair, but that's the beauty of grace ... it is never about fairness.
Yesterday, we talked about forgiveness which is super tough, especially, when you don't feel like you've done anything wrong. But grace challenges us to love ... to act differently than what most people would do. And in many ways, forgiveness puts our message to the test ... do we just believe a great theology or does it actually change the way that we love others?
"To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you." ~ C.S. Lewis
