New Stat Model for Comparing Baseball Players

As described in this article on Wired.com, a group of statisticians have developed a new model for comparing baseball players across teams, seasons and even eras. The math is both apparently very complex and also not described in the article, but apparently the system uses a variant on the six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon idea to compare players:

"Hank Aaron can be set beside Barry Bonds — not just according to how they each did against Nolan Ryan, though that would be part of the score, but according to how each did against every pitcher they ever faced, and how each of those pitchers did against every hitter, so long as some series of links connected the two sluggers."

The model is incomplete, especially given that it doesn't account for park effects (Todd Helton is the second-greatest hitter of all time) and PEDs (Barry Bonds is the greatest), but it is of note to Sox fans; of the ten greatest starters of the modern era, four are now or have been members of the Red Sox (and we just missed out on another):

1. Pedro Martinez
2. Roger Clemens
3. Roy Halladay
4. Curt Schilling
5. Sandy Koufax
6. Randy Johnson
7. John Smoltz
8. Mike Mussina
9. J.R. Richard
10. Greg Maddux