In a nutshell, the primary purpose of the Nyman Rating is to quantitatively compare USBL players. When Moostard Nyman created the index in 1998, he first collected the statistical aptitudes of the premiere USBL achievers of the day. The top ten players in each statistical category were added to his scouting report; one time for each appearance on the leader board. This process took several months to do and involved several legal hurdles with the player's union.

With this information, Mr. Nyman (like any good scientist) attempted to uncover patterns. For example, do all top pitchers in the league have devastating curve balls? And do all homerun hitters have a low ground/fly ratio? A weighted average of this information was tabulated. This information represented "the leading performer".

Each player in the league could now be precisely compared to the best. While this is to some degree of an oversimplification of the Nyman Rating (since the actual formula uses complex multiplicative factors) the preceding explanation represents the design and thought process.

While the Nyman Rating has no max value, any index rating over 375 is widely regarded as exceptional, with 425 or above reserved for the baseball elite.

Originally a proprietary tool of the Boston Chiefs, after a legal dispute, the Nyman Rating was cleared by Massachusetts District Courts for mass consumption. The Chiefs contend that this rating is intellectual property of their organization, but Nyman holds fast to his ownership of the formula. The dispute surfaced after Nyman made several references to the index on his weekly USBL radio show.

As part of the settlement with Boston ownership, the exact formula for the rating will not be provided on this website.

About Moostard Nyman

Moostard Nyman, a highly respected United States Baseball League journalist, serves as a columnist on silverbox.com's "In The Eyes Of Nyman...". He also provides regular scouting reports during the baseball season for "USBL Biorhythm".

Nyman has served as a United States Baseball League correspondent since 1995. Besides working in this capacity, he writes a weekly baseball column for the Boston Globe each Sunday and is a regular contributor to Baseball America.

He was voted the National Sportswriter of the Year for 1996, 1997 and 2000 by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association and was awarded an honorary Pointer Fellow from Columbia University.

He began his career as a reporter for the Boston Globe in 1969. He has also worked for Sports Illustrated covering the National Hockey League and college basketball.

Nyman is also the author of November 1, a look at free agency.

Nyman was born September 4, 1945. He is a 1969 graduate of the University of Bombay.