Project 1H: Heights and Weights of Major League Baseball Players

Overview

The data set consists of 1033 height and weight measurements for baseball players.

Details

Height and weight have heritable components, but other environmental and lifestyle factors can impact these characteristics. The data provides heights and weights for Major League Baseball Players, combined from a number of different resources. These data were obtained from: http://wiki.stat.ucla.edu/socr/index.php/SOCR_Data_MLB_HeightsWeights

Data Description

Variable	Description
Name	Player Name
Team	Baseball team of the player at the time of height and weight measurement
Position	Player field position
Height.inches.	Player height in inches
Weight.pounds.	Player weight in pounds
Age	Player age at the time of height and weight measurement.

mlb_ht_wt = read.table("data/mlb_height_weight.txt", header = TRUE)
head(mlb_ht_wt)

Data Files

• mlb_height_weight.txt

Objectives

We will consider modeling players’ body mass index (BMI). The goal is to find distributions that fit the BMI variable well.

• Use the players’ height and weight measurements to calculate their BMI.
• Provide numerical and graphical summaries of the players’ weights, heights, and BMI.
• Consider fitting some of the known distributions you’ve discussed in class, both this semester and last semester, to the variable BMI. For each distribution you consider, explain how you are estimating the relevant parameters (e.g., are you using the MLEs? MOMs? etc.). Consider at least 3 distributions.
• Provide some assessment of fit of the distributions to the data. For example, q-q plots are useful for this purpose.
• Make some conclusions about modeling this variable.