The Felix Factor
I was listening to the Jonah Keri podcast and he and Ben Gibbard were talking about the Mariners, specifically Felix Hernandez. One of the points Gibbard made was that Hernandez is so outstanding that he will be remembered and that people should try to see him pitch in person. This made me wonder, did Felix Hernandez have an impact on home ticket sales for the Mariners in 2014?
I was able to get all the data from some of the nicely formatted box score data that MLB provides. I initially tried to look at the data over the course of the year but attendance was so variable (which made for an extremely confusing plot) that I just ended up making a box and whiskers plot and ignored the date element:
Conclusion: Hernandez was not that strong of a driver of ticket sales which is great news if you are hoping to see him pitching in person.