Aaron Gleeman

Aaron Gleeman is the co-founder and operator of the baseball statistics website, "The Hardball Times". He maintains a popular blog with over four million hits and is a contributing baseball writer for The Hardball Times, Fox Sports, USA Today, Rotoworld, and Insider Baseball. In 2006, Gleeman was featured in a short profile in Sports Illustrated. That same year, Gleeman began writing about more than just baseball for NBCSports.com.

Biography

Gleeman is a graduate of Highland Park High School in St. Paul, MN. After high school, he attended the University of Minnesota as a journalism major. However, the Minnesota Daily did not hire him as a staff writer, despite annual attempts (although they did give him one freelance story which ran on the Daily website) and Gleeman eventually dropped out of the University without obtaining his degree.

Contributions to sabermetrics

On November 25, 2003, Gleeman used his blog to introduce a new statistic called Gleeman Production Average. The name was later changed to Gross Production Average to make it more palatable. The formula is

:$GPA\; =\; \{(1.8\; imes\; OBP)+SLGover\; 4\}$

where OBP is on-base percentage and SLG is slugging percentage. The result is a number that resembles a batting average but reflects the player's ability to avoid outs and hit for power.

External links

* [http://www.hardballtimes.com The Hardball Times]
* [http://www.aarongleeman.com AaronGleeman.com]
* [http://www.aarongleeman.com/2003_11_23_baseballblog_archive.html#106974007971391611 Introducing GPA]