Which Baseball Players Earned Their Big Paychecks?

The baseball season may be over, but arguments around the water cooler about the performance of individual players in the Tigers-versus-Cardinals 2006 World Series, as well as the earlier National and American League Championship Series, will go on.

Was Cardinals shortstop David Eckstein really the series MVP? Did the performances of third baseman Scott Rolen and first baseman Albert Pujols match their $12.5 million and $14 million salaries, respectively? And what happened to Detroit's own $14 million man, Magglio Ordonez (.196 batting average in the postseason)?

Business intelligence software developer Information Builders Inc. has created a Web site where fans can analyze players' postseason stats, including their salaries, to buttress arguments about who was the most valuable player--or not. IBI built the site, which went live last week, to demonstrate its WebFocus Active Reports. The software allows users to access reports through a browser, download data, and use interactive analysis capabilities built into an HTML file.

"It demonstrates [WebFocus Active Reports'] capabilities and makes it kinda fun," says Richard Sitt, WebFocus product marketing director, who updated the site after each game.

IBI developed a similar site this summer with statistics from the World Cup soccer matches.