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Russell A. Carleton 

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06-18

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4

Baseball Therapy: Is There a Pinch-Fielding Penalty?
by
Russell A. Carleton

06-13

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10

Baseball Therapy: The Truth About Closers and Extra-Inning Games
by
Russell A. Carleton

06-10

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6

Baseball Therapy: Does Firing the Hitting Coach Mid-Season Work?
by
Russell A. Carleton

06-04

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0

BP Unfiltered: FourSixtyThree: The Baltimore Bounce
by
Russell A. Carleton

06-03

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19

Baseball Therapy: Why Sabermetricians Should Watch Their Language
by
Russell A. Carleton

05-23

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8

Baseball Therapy: Are Starters Motivated by Wins?
by
Russell A. Carleton

05-20

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19

Baseball Therapy: Would the Astros' Piggyback Starters Model Work in the Majors?
by
Russell A. Carleton

05-14

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17

Baseball Therapy: How Reliable Are Our Fielding Metrics?
by
Russell A. Carleton

05-09

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5

Baseball Therapy: Should I Worry About My Favorite Pitcher?
by
Russell A. Carleton

05-06

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7

Baseball Therapy: What is a Good Hitting Coach Worth?
by
Russell A. Carleton

04-29

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2

BP Unfiltered: Starling Marte, Bryce Harper, and the Limits of WARP
by
Russell A. Carleton

04-29

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16

Baseball Therapy: On the Evolution of the Patient Hitter
by
Russell A. Carleton

04-23

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4

BP Unfiltered: Should Players Get Preventative Appendectomies?
by
Russell A. Carleton

04-22

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8

Baseball Therapy: What is a Good Pitching Coach Worth?
by
Russell A. Carleton

04-15

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35

Baseball Therapy: Boys Will Be Boys?: The Carlos Quentin and Zack Greinke Story
by
Russell A. Carleton

04-08

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43

Baseball Therapy: Rethinking Randomness: Pitchers and Their BABIPs
by
Russell A. Carleton

04-01

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5

BP Announcements: Entire Baseball Prospectus Staff Hired by Mystery Team
by
Russell A. Carleton

03-29

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21

Prospectus Preview: These Questions Three: The Bottom of the Barrel
by
Russell A. Carleton and Ian Miller

03-27

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9

Baseball Therapy: The Lessons of Lohse
by
Russell A. Carleton

03-25

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34

Baseball Therapy: Could the All-Bullpen Approach Actually Work?
by
Russell A. Carleton

03-21

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25

Baseball Therapy: Is Brandon Inge Worth 10 Wins Behind Closed Doors?
by
Russell A. Carleton

03-18

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14

Baseball Therapy: You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated
by
Russell A. Carleton

03-11

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21

Baseball Therapy: Maybe I'm Wrong
by
Russell A. Carleton

03-04

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22

Baseball Therapy: Of Dogs, Men, and Stolen Bases
by
Russell A. Carleton

03-04

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26

BP Unfiltered: Daddy, What's Replacement Level?
by
Russell A. Carleton

02-26

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10

Baseball Therapy: Can't Buy Me Chemistry?
by
Russell A. Carleton

02-18

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23

Baseball Therapy: What Really Predicts Pitcher Injuries?
by
Russell A. Carleton

02-11

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25

Baseball Therapy: How to Measure Clubhouse Chemistry
by
Russell A. Carleton

01-28

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25

Baseball Therapy: Fact or Fiction: The Verducci Effect
by
Russell A. Carleton

01-21

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6

Baseball Therapy: Pitchouts and My Underage Gambling Problem
by
Russell A. Carleton

01-14

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22

Baseball Therapy: Does Having a Veteran Around Help Young Players?
by
Russell A. Carleton

01-10

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14

Baseball Therapy: Lessons from the Hall of Fame Vote
by
Russell A. Carleton

01-07

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7

Baseball Therapy: What Really Happens When a Baseball Player Turns 18
by
Russell A. Carleton

01-03

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8

BP Unfiltered: A New Solution to the DH Debate
by
Russell A. Carleton

12-17

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9

Baseball Therapy: There is No Unicorn
by
Russell A. Carleton

12-10

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3

Baseball Therapy: Do Closers Age Differently Than Other Relievers?
by
Russell A. Carleton

12-03

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14

Baseball Therapy: Does the Way the Draft Works Now Hurt Bad Teams?
by
Russell A. Carleton

11-28

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15

Baseball Therapy: The Truth About Adderall
by
Russell A. Carleton

11-26

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3

Baseball Therapy: The 2012 Silly Awards
by
Russell A. Carleton

11-19

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5

Baseball Therapy: Defining Change in Player Performance from Year to Year
by
Russell A. Carleton

11-16

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27

BP Unfiltered: Why Mike Trout Matters
by
Russell A. Carleton

11-12

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21

Baseball Therapy: Assessing the Risk: Hamilton, Greinke, and Mental Health
by
Russell A. Carleton

11-05

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13

Baseball Therapy: In Praise of the Modern Bullpen
by
Russell A. Carleton

10-29

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21

Baseball Therapy: The Proper Care and Feeding of Minor Leaguers
by
Russell A. Carleton

10-22

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9

Baseball Therapy: Are Three-True-Outcomes Players Better in the Playoffs?
by
Russell A. Carleton

10-15

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19

Baseball Therapy: The Case for Cano
by
Russell A. Carleton

10-11

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2

Baseball Therapy: Is Joe Saunders a Double Play Machine?
by
Russell A. Carleton

10-02

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9

Baseball Therapy: WARP for People Who Didn't Like Math Class
by
Russell A. Carleton

10-01

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9

Baseball Therapy: When Do Players Stop Developing?
by
Russell A. Carleton

09-28

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22

Baseball Therapy: A Sabermetric Case for Miguel Cabrera's MVP Candidacy
by
Russell A. Carleton

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June 18, 2013 6:00 am

Baseball Therapy: Is There a Pinch-Fielding Penalty?

4

Russell A. Carleton

Do substitute defenders perform worse in the field than starters?

I have a fascination with super-utility players, the guys who can play anywhere on the diamond. Players like Tony Phillips, Ben Zobrist, or even Denny Hocking. They're so handy to have around because a manager can fill out a lineup with a little more flexibility and know that he has someone to fill whatever hole is left. He's a wild card that gives a general manager more choices when putting together a roster. He's the type of player who adds a little extra value that the box score— and WARP—don't really capture.

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Ron Washington, Joe Nathan, and the best time to use your closer.

Over the past week, baseball fans have been treated to some epic extended baseball games. This past Saturday, the Rangers and Blue Jays played 18 innings before they could decide the matter, and that wasn’t the longest game that day. The Mets and Marlins played 20 innings in their game. It made last Wednesday's White Sox-Mariners 16-inning game look like a quickie.

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What the numbers say about making a mid-season sacrifice.

We are now a week and a half into the (interim) reign of George Brett as Royals hitting coach. Brett took over the task of straightening out Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer when tandem hitting coaches Jack Maloof and Andre David were re-assigned within the organization. There are surely plenty of theories circulating around Kansas City as to why the Royals made the switch, but at the end of the day, they probably all boil down to "the kids aren't hitting."

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An early look at All-Star voting.

We here at Baseball Prospectus take democracy very seriously. We're proud of our longstanding tradition of using witchcraft... erm, math to talk about all sorts of issues in baseball. And now it's election season again. In a few short weeks, the annual Midsummer Classic will take place in New York City, and your votes will determine the starters. And because this must be said before every election, "This is the most important election of our lifetimes." I can't wait for the first debate between Dustin Pedroia and Robinson Cano before the next Yankees-Red Sox series.

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Extending the olive branch to Eric Wedge.

Smoking cigarettes is bad for your health. This is not a secret. Six-year-olds know that. And smoking is not just bad, it's really super-duper bad for you. Yet, tobacco companies aren't going out of business any time soon. There are millions of smokers in the United States and more start each day, even knowing all the risks. Why?

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May 23, 2013 5:00 am

Baseball Therapy: Are Starters Motivated by Wins?

8

Russell A. Carleton

The win might be a silly statistic, but does it affect pitchers' performance?

On Monday’s edition of MLB Now, anchor Brian Kenny once again made the case against using wins as a measure of pitcher quality. Citing recent games such as Matt Harvey’s brilliant nine-inning, one-hit no-decision, he argued that the win is an overrated statistic that doesn’t do a good job of describing the pitcher’s performance. After Kenny’s presentation, former pitcher Al Leiter came out to give a rebuttal. Leiter had an interesting take on the issue. He said that Kenny wasn’t respecting the human element of the game, and he suggested that the win statistic might actually make starters perform a little better in some key situations.

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Considering the pros and cons of an innovative experiment.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article in which I suggested that teams might benefit from going to a model that gets rid of the traditional starting pitcher. Instead of having five men who are expected to go 6-7 innings over 100 pitches, I suggested a model in which three pairs of pitchers each throw 50 pitches, and on the third day, they would pitch again, in fulfillment… I should stop there. I argued that a team that committed to that model could leverage a group of (cheap!) pitchers who were good for a couple innings, but not for six. In this way, a team could get the same sort of results that they might expect from having a bunch of pretty good starters, but for a fraction of the (David) Price.

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How long fielding stats take to stabilize.

A little more than a week ago, Jon Heyman of CBS sent out a tweet wondering why it was that Starling Marte and Bryce Harper had the same WAR. Heyman was quoting Baseball-Reference's version of WAR, which at that moment in time showed Marte and Harper tied at 1.7 wins. Harper had clearly been the superior hitter, but drilling down, it turned out that the fielding metric used by Baseball-Reference loved Marte's defense enough (and thought Harper's was average enough) to call them equals.

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When pitching stats stabilize.

Of course. He's a pitcher.

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In some cases, quite a bit.

Two weeks ago in this space, I asked what a good pitching coach—someone like noted magician Leo Mazzone—is worth to a major-league team. I came up with an estimate that Mazzone might have been worth four wins to the Braves (and Orioles) per year during his tenure.

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Have Starling Marte and Bryce Harper really been equally valuable in 2013?

Earlier today, CBS baseball writer Jon Heyman asked a rather innocuous question on Twitter.

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Have hitters become too passive, or is there something else going on?

Last week, in an article in Sports Illustrated, Tom Verducci put forth an argument that the modern game of baseball has a problem. Hitters, he claimed, have become too passive in their approach at the plate as they attempt to drive up the pitch counts of the opposing pitcher. He mixes together a couple of case examples (Joey Votto, Jayson Werth) with some data that appear to show that hitters have become more passive in their approach over time, and are paying for it in declining run production. Maybe Joey and Jayson, and by proxy the rest of the baseball players out there, should swing the bat a little more.

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