"Keep everything the same, and maybe by the third or fourth inning, if you’re catching it cleanly you may get that call." This is an interesting observation- Ben, in your catcher framing evaluations, have you noticed a tendency for "stolen" strikes to occur more often later in games?

And what about this global warming stuff? It doesn't make sense to me. Has anyone ever heard of SUMMER???

just in time to come back in style!

jinx!

They're not that pretty so far, aside from the SB's: AAA Louisville: .189/.256/.270 17 SB, 2 CS

Yes, but how many skunks are required in total? Technically, the rabid animal would not also have to be a skunk, although there's no reason it could not, and in which case why not just use the originally-rabid skunk in the first place? I need to place my order by 5pm.

Bo Diaz, Ray Chapman, Cory Lidle, Dernell Stenson

I used to have a dog that offs-peed in the neighbor's yard.

Lou Gehrig. ALS started taking its toll at during his age 35 season in 1938 (the previous year he had put up a 176 OPS+ and 7.7 bWAR, both typical figures), and by the start of the 1939 season he could barely field a ground ball, retiring and ending his "Iron Horse" consecutive game streak 8 games into the season. His career numbers are insane and slam dunk HOF regardless, but had he been able to play until age 40 like his pal Babe Ruth, he might have surpassed 600 homers (he finished with 493); thrust himself into the all-time top 10 for bWAR (currently 18 behind); and possibly could have put the consecutive game streak out of Cal Ripken's reach (Cal's 2632 are a bit over 3 seasons more than Gehrig's 2130).

+a million. Even Marty is becoming unlistenable.

I think I speak for everyone else in saying that we would all like some ice cream as well. Are there plans to provide us ice cream, varying flavors? Thanks, Ben.

And actually, considering that Lincecum basically came out of the box an incredible pitcher w/out influence of Righetti, and after years of exposure has deteriorated in effectiveness, doesn't that point much more towards Righetti being a bad coach than a particularly good one? I'm just playing devil's advocate here- Righetti is obviously not entirely to blame and I'm sure he is a good coach... just playing with your logical construct.

Lincecum and "evolved" and "continued success" are things that do not play well together. If you think Righetti should no doubt get credit for their successes, shouldn't he also no doubt get blamed for Lincecum's struggles?

I find something really comforting in the thought of the Scott Elarton types who aren't playing in order to earn another shot at the big leagues, but rather for love of the game (or for passing on the love of the game to their children, in Elarton's case). They've left behind the turmoil of rat race, the fierce competition, the business, the taunting ambition, and are free to just play a game they enjoy. Paycheck aside, that sounds like a good deal.

Great write-up on the Phillies-Reds game. That was a fun one to watch, and you did justice to that Bruce at-bat- a thing of beauty.

Agreed; this is great! Is there a way for peasant folk to access the injury database aside from through the player cards? I guess I'd be mostly interested in a summary table showing the number historic instances/average games missed/etc. for each injury type. Data!

Not sure if this is the incident you are talking about, but Farnsworth did at least aggressively approach Paul Wilson after coming inside on him. He gets docked a few points since Wilson was a pitcher as well, although the body slam more than makes up for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mt0_0k40t4

Benny is way more a dick than I remember. I bet he has a painting of himself as a minotaur hanging in his bedroom.

Great article, RJ.

How is it that Maholm and can lob it up there at a speed comparable to the maximum speed I can muster with a running start in one of those "test your pitch speed" cages? Baseball players are amazing and also I am so weak.

It's hard out here for a pimp.

What about just adding a few line breaks between each Twitter entry to more clearly separate them? Great job as usual, guys!

SOURCE: Matt Kory has married Matt Sussman, taking his last name, all in the name of confusing Hit List readers. Which Matt is writing on which day? Mystery, intrigue, and betrayal and also baseball, all in this season of... The Hit List. {theme song}

This is already a great resource. Thanks Clint, Jason, and Joe!

dang, beat to the punch!

Yep, BP partnered up with FantasyRundown to provide this service: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=19760

Agreed, with all this talk about the value of leverage, it seems like WPA is very informative here. Too bad it only goes back to 1974 or so.

Oh dear. This brings a whole new meaning to terms like "mechanical intricacies", "raw", "explosive hip turn", '“loud” contact', and totally out of context, "fluid, explosive."

This is just stupidly thorough. And I had no idea BP had Run Expectancy tables... A multifaceted delight!

Format-wise, I'd also recommend putting team names in bold so that we can more easily do a quick scan for our fav teams' prospects.

My concern with Greene is that he's already had 4 extended cups of coffee in the majors (>115 PA 2009-2012) and has yet to show he can replicate his gaudy minor league numbers (which must be driving his projections) in the majors. I took a flier on him for $1 due to the potential, but he's on a short leash, and his crappy ST numbers make it shorter.

...my implication being that all you have to do is go to the next article if Jason's off-the-beaten path pieces are not your bag.

And in 95% of the prospect-related articles on this site, that's what you get.

Really interesting stuff. Here are the percentages for those who, like me, were curious: 2007: 0.513 % 2008: 0.174 % 2009: 0.080 % 2010: 0.069 % 2011: 0.054 % 2012: 0.046 %

/applies mustache wax, chortles/

As the guy who posted the original comment that revealed Ben and Sam's prejudices against the Reds*, I am just tickled that the Reds organization has recognized my diligent efforts in my ongoing campaign against the BP Daily Podcast. I'll get you SOB's off the air if it's the last thing I do! *actually, the conclusion of the original exercise was that they hate the entire NL Central... Cubs/Cardinals/Pirates/Brewers orgs, join the fight!

AND it ends up really entertaining for the rest of us. <- I felt the need to add this lest anyone think my first comment was intended as an insult, which it most definitely was not. :)

"If there wasn't, everybody's values for players' WAR (or WARP) would be the same." There are a LOT of things that differentiate WAR calculations aside from the chosen replacement level: http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_comparison.shtml

I love that when Sam has a stupid idea he dives head first into the stupid.

In that case, James Joyce is one disrespectful m***** f*****.

Awwwwwesome.

In Ian's defense, dislike of the AZ/Phoenix vibe is not uncommon, warranted or not. The sprawly/strip mall-centric design is a common put off- Jason Parks' narrative description in his ST Diaries last year masterfully (and hilariously) conveys this: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16330 Kind of related, here's a super crude analysis of which of the top 30 US metropolitan statistical areas that are considered the suckiest, based only on the number of Google search results for "[city name] sucks" and normalized by population: metro area results/population las vegas 0.045 denver 0.032 boston 0.032 st louis 0.030 “new york” 0.028 *will include NY state, too phoenix/scottsdale 0.028 san diego 0.027 san antonio 0.022 orlando 0.015 cleveland 0.013 san fran/oakland 0.013 dallas/fort worth 0.013 minneapolis/st paul 0.010 washington dc 0.010 detroit 0.009 tampa 0.009 “new york city” 0.009 “los angeles”/”la" 0.007 pittsburgh 0.007 houston 0.006 portland 0.005 miami 0.004 seattle 0.004 riverside/san bern. 0.003 baltimore 0.002 chicago 0.002 sacramento 0.002 ** cincinnati 0.002 atlanta 0.002 philadelphia 0.001 ** there's an urban dictionary entry for "sacramento sucks"

Really enjoyed this, Ian. I attended ST in AZ for the first time last year, and like Adrian, was totally weirded out by players running on the warning track during the games. I certainly get that, "the games are meaningless, who cares?", but, on the other hand, there are acres and acres and acres of practice fields immediately surrounding the field, so why not use those and avoid the heckling as well as the risk of colliding with drifting outfielders?

Well, it makes them comparatively aggressive, which was the main point.

Unusual gifs indeed: http://gif.mocksession.com/2012/06/chapman-somersault/ Oh, wait...

FINALLY a "The Kid Who Only Hit Homers" reference. BP's accomplishments are now complete. Shut it down.

Just remember that it's Colin that hates the Orioles, not PECOTA.

Jason Parks disagrees with an assessment of these two particular pitchers that is based solely on WARP; therefore, WARP is inherently flawed and should be discontinued?

Fair enough- I misinterpreted your comment. I don't necessarily think this means that WARP is inaccurate, though (and no BP writers have made that claim), but rather that the interpretation of what it measures is inaccurate; the evidence here suggests that it tends to measure "skills" (or something similar) as opposed to "results" (fWAR is very similar for pitchers). To that end, maybe we just need a bit more transparency as to how WARP values pitchers.

I realize I'm probably just arguing semantics here, but in defense of Parks, I think it's a bit of a stretch to call the argument "convincingly supported" given the numbers I cited above. Also, I don't see how the fact that WARP is a BP metric makes any difference... the implication is that all BP writers should blindly adhere to stats produced by BP, ignoring their limitations (in this case very meaningful limitations) for the sake of solidarity, and that's a dangerously cultish attitude, particularly for an organization that espouses a practically academic treatment of baseball analysis.

FWIW, those WARP numbers seem entirely FRA-driven, as most of the traditional, results-based stats peg Hellickson as superior: Here are their 2012 stats: Hellickson: 177 IP, 3.10 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 4.54 FRA, .269 oppTAv Moore: 177.3 IP, 3.81 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 3.65 FRA, .271 oppTAv FWIW, bWAR's calculation seems more "actual results" driven: Hellickson: 2.9 WAR 2012, 3.5 WAR 2011 Moore: 1.2 WAR 2012

I was too young at the time to remember the record-breaker, but I attended the final night game at Cinergy (nee Riverfront) in 2002, which afterwards featured an insanely awesome fireworks show. The show culminated with a blazing sparkler that shot from home plate, following the exact trajectory of Rose's record-breaking hit into left field as Marty Brennaman's call played over the PA. Made me all tingly.

On the other hand, Doug used a picture that demonstrates a noticeable mechanical change- I would suspect that visual evidence would be easier for an un-sabr-oriented arbitrator to swallow than a number and acronym salad.

There's some speculation on the PECOTA 2013 introduction thread that the replacement level used by Colin et al. was lowered this year, which would explain an increase in VORP/WARP vs. 2012.

PECOTA relies mostly on historical comps, and there simply just aren't that many good historical comps for a pitcher like Dickey, who busted out a career year at age 37. The best real world comps are other knuckleballers (Tim Wakefield, Hoyt Wilhelm, Phil Niekro, Charlie Hough all had their best years >35), but: (a) neither PECOTA nor any other projection system "knows" whether a pitcher is a knuckleballer (e.g.: none of PECOTA's comparables for Dickey- Dennis Martinez, Derek Lowe, Early Wynn - were knuckleballers) and (b) even among knuckleballers, Dickey's success last season was extremely unique (much higher K/9 and K/BB than previous knuckleballers). So, in conclusion, this is why no projection system knows what to do with Dickey (except probably the simplest one, Marcel, which relies solely on previous years stats).

"What we're looking for is a well-functioning and well-connected social network." This makes me wonder if any interesting patterns can be derived from Twitter- a public data source participated in by many professional athletes. For instance, one could use the Twitter API to document the number of athletes that "mention" teammates in tweets. I doubt there are enough active users per team to generate anything too meaningful, but it might be worth it to at least do a feasibility assessment.

Using the powers of deduction, it looks like the game represented by that first GIF is this one: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN201006150.shtml (it's the only one in 2009-2010 in which the Reds are playing the Dodgers at home and Owings gets a pinch hit single). Anyways, the LF in that situation is none other than Manny Ramirez, so I think it's pretty safe to say that that would have been an out if any other player were out there.

FYI on the Top 10 Prospects index page (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/), Avisail Garcia is listed as the Tigers #1 prospect (as opposed to Castellanos here)

Sam, I really think that for the A-Rod v. Jeter battle you should have normalized by PA's as a Yankee. Jeter has >6000 more PA than A-Rod to accumulate accolades. Responsible research methods, b****, add an n-value

I'm not questioning the correctness of this list, but I'm curious: what factors keep 5'10" white guy SS with 84 career OPS+ Cliff Pennington from the number 1 position?

Great piece, Dave. Baseball on the radio is a wonderful thing. As Sam Miller pointed out in the podcast, it has barely changed over the past few decades despite the flurry of technological advancements surrounding it. It's like Big Boy restaurants in that way... but in a good way. ;)

pres130, the real risk wouldn't be players forgoing baseball for medicine/law/etc., but for other sports where salaries are market driven. Many top prep athletes are heavily recruited for football and/or basketball in addition to baseball and certainly would be more likely to choose those routes if the potential salaries were so widely disproportionate.

Well, this begs the question: which BP contributors are 30 years old or younger?

All WAR(P) stats take defense and position into account. The reason they are so different in this case appears to be the systems used to evaluate defense. UZR (fWAR) and TZR (bWAR) rate Bourn's defense at 3-4 WAR while FRAA (WARP) rates it at 0 WAR. For future reference, I find this tabular breakdown of how the different WAR(P)'s are calculated very useful: http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_comparison.shtml

Great stuff, Larry!

Wanted to add that TAV is also park- and league-adjusted, which, again, is very useful for comparing player offensive value.

Well, I mean, the fact that TAV is not 'catching on' doesn't mean it doesn't have value in any situation. It's a single rate metric that indicates overall offensive value... which is basically what OPS tried to be, but TAV is more accurate (FanGraphs wOBA is very similar- certainly someone smarter than me could and probably has made an argument to abandon one over the other, although I know they are not exactly alike). I also like the triple slash, for all the reasons you cite, but for situations when you want to compare player offensive value, how do you know which one of these lines is more valuable than the other? .300/.350/.400 .280/.320/.500 TAV would provide the answer. Just an example for how its useful.

...the idea being that players at different ages bring different perspectives/advantages, and the more perspectives there are, the better for the team as a whole.

Related to this, I've often wondered if the age distribution of a roster has any detectable influence on team performance- e.g., would a team with a relatively even distribution of a handful of rookies, a handful of young post-rookies, and some early and late veterans perform better than a team made up predominantly of veterans or young regulars? I can't imagine an easy way to statistically test this, what with the thousands of other variables involved, but one could start by dividing teams into age-distribution categories and comparing records.

Oh man. This is so great.

Mickey Cochrange: FINALLY, a word that rhymes with 'orange'!!

I can say, as someone who has wasted most of the day minusing andrews' comments, that the minusing has nothing to do with his stance on PED users and everything to do with presentation.

Your comments are aggressive, confrontational, and usually include logical fallacies and poorly explained or unsupported arguments. Hence, they suck.

Here's your guy who voted for Bonds but not Clemens: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130101/sports/701019948/

...and four ump-frownies equals one ball, so...

He also does a KILLER Bruce Bochy impression.

...says the guy who quoted 'eseduce.com' as an authority on mental illnesses. Never going to let you live that one down, Richard.

Thanks, Ben, for the very nice tribute. The following was written by a friend on FB, (who I'd credit if he had a BP account!): "Ryan Freel was the kind of ballplayer Cincinnatians adore, his on-field DNA the stuff of Charlie Hustle. He slammed into walls, tore along baselines, whipped the bat through the strike zone with impunity, playing each game as if it was his last, even as he manned the field for some terrible, terrible teams. Damn, Ryan. Man. Rest in peace, brother. Rest in peace."

Colin, just want some clarification- tell me if I'm wrong- but is this what is meant by 'component' vs. 'run-based' park factors?: component park factors: individual factors for singles, doubles, triples, HR, etc. run-based: just a single factor based on runs What about handedness of hitters- is this accounted for in either?

This is great, but: we don't get no stinking table?! Show us the top 20!

I'm pretty sure Kevin Millar yelling “GOT HEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!” is about the greatest extent of "analysis of the shows MLB Network does broadcast" that is possible. Loved it, Ian! LOL'd at Keep America Strong! and Flip this Franchise, among quite a few others.

Let's get some easily-lookupable-facts straight: (a) WAR calculations may differ, but all of them showed Trout as clearly way more valuable than Cabrera: fWAR: Trout=10.0, Cabrera=7.1 rWAR: Trout=10.7, Cabrera=6.9 WARP: Trout=9.1, Cabrera=6.1 (b) All WAR(P) metrics include defense, OBP, AND baserunning per: http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_comparison.shtml (c) Another common non-WR-related argument was that Cabrera out-"clutched" Trout (big September stats), but there was a nice piece of analysis at FanGraphs that dispelled that: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/trout-versus-cabrera-offense-only-context-included/ (d) Given all this, Cabrera won seemingly due to three primary factors: he voluntarily moved to 3B, his team made the playoffs, he own the Triple Crown.

Baseball Reference has a fanastic tabular breakdown of the differences between each metric: http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_comparison.shtml

Hanley has really let himself go.

"The Reds have been faking the leadoff spot since Bip Roberts" <-- this was my exact impression as well, until I went back and looked at the last decade and was reminded of a certain Ryan Freel who filled the role quite nicely from '04-'06 (~.370 OBP). Regardless, it still somehow FEELS like two decades since the Reds have had a prototypical leadoff hitter, thanks no doubt to the chasms of out-producing suck that were Stubbs, Cozart, Willy Taveras, Orlando Cabrera, and Corey Patterson.

You just cited an article from "eseduce.com" as a credible source. Being anti-social basically means having an underdeveloped conscience and a general disregard for the rights and concerns of others. Having social anxiety means feeling discomfort in social interactions due to over-sensitivity to the perception that they are judging you. They are wholly and dramatically and extremely different things. This is an oversimplification, but: anti-social people don't care at all about what other people think, while those with social anxiety care way too much about what other people think.

You're missing an apparently significant component of Shield's value by looking just at WARP, which is the "good team mate" and "coach to younger pitchers" angle, cited here by R.J. and elsewhere. Obviously this value is totally unquantifiable, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It certainly makes sense that a team with a lot of younger pitchers (Chen excluded) could benefit a lot from the presence of a veteran who has had success fulfilling his potential.

Out of respect for a veteran player, maybe? MLB minimum is 480,000, so it's only $220,000 over. And who knows, maybe they had to compete with an offer from another team (unlikely, I know).

Yes, but: "A" has happened without "B" ...does not mean... "B" enables "A" ...is untrue.

FYI, everything is bold for me to- I'm using Chromium v. 20.0 on Ubuntu 12.04.

Great stuff- I know it's been said before, but I'll repeat that it's really awesome to have someone with Russell's unique perspective and expertise on the BP staff. Russell is becoming to baseball psychology/psychiatry what Will Carroll was/is to baseball injuries and KG was/is to baseball prospecting and Jason Parks is to Tom Verducci stalking.

Very interesting- thanks, Maury!

yes, +lots

Is Zach the PTBNL for Goldstein/Fast?

p.s. the threshold point in that situation is 92%. If Lamont was less than 92% sure that Fielder would have scored, the RE of holding him would have been greater than that of sending him (ignoring who was up or the game situation, etc.), and so he should have held him.

I suspect someone smarter than me has already done this analysis, but, based on Run Expectancies (I'll abbreviate to RE) (http://www.tangotiger.net/re24.html): DON'T SEND HIM scenario -runners on 2nd, 3rd, 0 out= 2.050 RE SEND HIM scenario -if we assume a 90% chance of Prince scoring: -scores (90%): (1{Prince's run} + 1.170{RE 2nd,0out} * 0.90 = 1.95 -doesn't score(10%): 0.721{RE 2nd,1out} * 0.1 = 0.07 -total RE: 1.95 + 0.07 = 2.02 I *think* it's safe to say 2.05 vs 2.02 RE is pretty debatable. And, there are other factors in play: the back end of the Tiger's lineup (Peralta, Garcia, Laird) was due up, no doubt decreasing the RE, also it was a scoreless game at that point, so the value of scoring AT LEAST one run was higher (there are #'s on the linked RE page for that too, but this comment is already too long).

Darin Ruf's right-handed triple slash is so fine.

Sam, these have been really great, entertaining, and insightful write-ups for the entire series. Thank you!

This may be true, but you're talking about a handful of writers for each player at most, out of ~700 total ballots. Any inside knowledge of "intangibles" that these few writers have is almost assuredly not going to impact who wins the award.

My goodness... what is that strange tingly feeling? Is that what sympathy for the Yankees feels like? A great burden has been lifted. I am free.

nicely done, BP intern crew! I particularly enjoyed the humor in the Twitter section.

Fantasy enthusiasts are already well-aware of this "pitchers are much less predictable" notion- many strategists recommend investing a disproportionately higher percentage of $ towards batters than pitchers b/c of this. So: if fantasy players are aware, then without a doubt GM's are already aware to a much greater extent.

Wait, pitchers can do this with no consequence if no one is on base?! Why in the hell don't more pitchers do this then? What a great way to psyche out a batter! If the only barrier is the myth about being injured, then, please, let's debunk that and get moving with some #weirdbaseball.

Damn straight, Dusty is abusing his relievers- making them pitch OVER 67 IP a year. He totally should have learned that after he caused Ryan Madson's elbow ligament to tear after only a few spring training sessions. And he also ruined Nick Masset's entire season. Dusty HAS to be stopped.

If you make this a multi-part series, I will forgive you for wasting your BP Daily Podcast Reds' topic on Bronson Arroyo.

Love this, although I'd argue that a 9% swing is in fact pretty close, especially given how hypothetical your assumptions are. e.g., what if the chance of winning while punting was 20%? That would push the chances of making the ALDS while punting over top. And actually, ~20% would probably be more reasonable since according to WAR/WARP, a roster of replacement players should win ~32% of their games- but should probably take a hit since they're playing a postseason-quality team.

I knew it!!!!!

Dear Sam and Ben, A few days ago I was on the verge of posting a whiny comment about how you never talk about the Reds on the podcast, but I decided instead to hold up, gather some data, and make sure my complaint was warranted first. So I made a spreadsheet tracking every BP Daily Podcast topic that has been discussed so far and which team, if any, each topic pertained to (or if the topic was a particular player, that player's team (or teamS if it was a recently traded player)). The results show that my whiny accusation is justified: Of the 73 topics that could be linked to a particular team or teams, only 1 (the very first, on Chapman) was about the Reds. But, CIN isn't the only team given short shrift: SDP = 0 topics, and only 1 topic for: CLE, HOU, MIL, STL, TOR. Look further, and we see a bone-chilling trend: -Summarizing by division- AL East - 16 (3.2/team) AL Central - 14 (2.8/team) AL West - 16 (4.0/team) NL East - 18 (3.6/team) NL Central - 9 (1.5/team) NL West - 12 (2.4/team) (*it adds up to >73 since some topics pertain to multiple teams) It's not like the NL Central is bereft of interesting things to talk about: Reds: best record in MLB at times?! 32-16 w/out Votto! Cueto! Frazier! The magical plays of Brandon Phillips! Cardinals: great run differential; mediocre record! Many runs w/out Pujols, Berkman! Pirates: The Pirates?!?! Finally, Alvarez! McCutchen OMG! Astros: SOOO BAD OH NO! OH NOOOO! Cubs: ...well, they've been talked about most (3 topics) despite their most non-descript season of the past few decades, so don't talk about the Cubs. Brewers: Also a baseball team! -The most talked about teams- Yankees - 6 Orioles - 5 (+1 proposed-but-not-talked-about topic, from the old pre-episode#4 format) Angels - 5 Rangers - 5 DET/NYM/OAK/PHI/SFG/WSN - 4 All this being said, I don't actually think you guys should make any sort of concerted effort to make sure you cover every team equally, and, of course: SSS. And I do LOVE the podcast, and in particular your abilities to hone in on interesting and often under-reported stories, or at least present refreshingly reasoned perspectives on the bigger stories, so I don't actually want you guys to change the way you do things. But I'm also a whiny fan of a particular team and therefore you are both jerks.

Just postulating here: maybe it was because the A's beat a better opponent (the Angels) than the Rangers (Indians).

"Vernon Wells is earning just shy of $49 million per WARP." My favorite stat.

Absolutely; I totally agree with this.

This is really what is so bothersome to those who disagree with the shutdown: the data and evidence for innings limits or pitch count limits reducing injuries just isn't convincing (the publicly available data, at least- it is absolutely likely that the Nats have done a LOT of research on the topic). Recall the rash of relievers who went down with injuries at the beginning of the season- that certainly could NOT have been due to high pitch counts/innings. On the other hand, I guess perhaps the ONLY thing we know is that pitching puts stress on the arm and therefore pitching any amount at all increases risk for injury. Which circles back to the Jeter diving in the stands argument...

Ouch.

Cool stuff, Sam... I wonder also if there could be a minute effect on runs scored per game BY the Rockies since they probably have been giving ever-so-slightly more at-bats to pinch hitters instead of pitchers as a result of removing their starters earlier...

*to opine

Thanks Ben and Joe for being receptive to reader input. I'd just like to take the opportunity opine that my favorite contributions of Kevin's were the Monday Ten Packs and the Minor League box score updates (the latter of which I have been sad to see become less frequent this season, presumably due to Kevin's increasingly heavy workload). And the Top 11's and Top 101, of course, are essentials. Looking forward to seeing what you guys have in store!

Hey! The Reds have FINALLY passed the Cardinals according to HLF. That's something.

Stephen A. Smith.

"Cotton Eyed Joe is a great tune" WUT. Make your case, sir!

In addition to the the small sample sizes, I suspect another element that makes bullpens so inconsistent from year-to-year is the relatively high turnover of members.

And Sam Crawford would be the decuple king!

I would also like to know what rolling the Angels entails. Sounds like a fancy euphemism for smoking PCP to me.

Math.

I don't think this is a totally unreasonable concern, but I do disagree with the notion that one cannot wear two (or more) hats and look good in them all. I doubt that an advice column for the blog would in any way overshadow Jason's contributions on the prospect side of things, which have continued to be extremely strong even with occasional (and appreciated, from my end) forays into the more creative avenues for info-tainment.

Kenny Rogers would make a nice addition to the rotation.

What? That makes zero sense. Put the fastest guy in baseball on base automatically? What? I...what? Unless you bean him really really hard in the foot. Ok. That would make sense.

I just love the disgust in the announcer's voice at the end: "...and one of the worst plays you'll ever see... ...I mean you got guys hurt because they ran into each other..."

Agreed, it seems that no one has noticed they currently have the best record in baseball (!).

Totally irrelevant, but I love the italian month abbreviations in the charts. Gives the article an exotic flair.

Like.

I really enjoyed this, Russell, and kudos for clear and concise explanation of advanced statistics. How about a series on sabr-myth busting?

Minor correction: for the Reds call, that is not Thom's father, Marty, but Chris Welsh uttering "Ohhhh baby" in the background. Regardless, creepy.

Mostly great, Ben! BUT: "Slugging .376"; not five syllables

I think the message here is that the Nielsen ratings need a Ratings Above Replacement stat to normalize across eras.

This is a pretty unnecessary attack on KG, I think- he was simply reporting what he was told from multiple sources "inside" the game. And how is it that 3 months of good public behavior means that a consensus opinion of Harper 1-2 years ago is inaccurate? Harper is maturing (as you say); no one can or should take anything away from what he's done or how he's presented himself thus far. That doesn't mean he wasn't actually a jerk a few years ago.

thanks for the correction, fellas... I should know better than to post around here without first doing my research!

I don't think this has been mentioned yet, but a third issue with the proposed derby-participant-from-home-team requirement would be that, currently, all derby participants must also be All-Stars. Since there is no guarantee that a home team non-pitcher All-Star will even be available to hit in the derby in some years, how can this requirement be fulfilled? And that is the most I ever want to think about All-Star/HR Derby roster construction for the rest of time.

I agree- isn't "upside", by definition the BEST (or at least 90th percentile) outcome one could expect? In that case, who's to say Youkilis won't pull a Lance Berkman and suddenly rediscover is stroke/approach? If his upside is what he is capable of doing, that is HUGE.

re: Cardinals comment - what is this, 1787? Racists. (tongue-in-cheek)

Very cool analysis, Dan- I'd be interested in seeing the mean and range in pitch speeds by count as well...

Felix Pie Brandon Larson Kosuke Fukudome

You know, I kept putting off reading this today, thinking "pffffffff- an article about the Hairston's? This can wait. Gimme some stats about how great Joey Votto is". It should not have waited; this is the most hilarious thing I've read since Sam's article about watching the worst game of 2011: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16041 :)

Not just two Alex Gonzalez's, but two slick-fielding, poor-hitting, middle-infielder Alex Gonzalez's.

Bronson Arroyo's 2011 fastball?

That said, my favorite quote from Ball Four is: "Baseball is an ass."

Ball Four may be one of my favorite books - baseball or otherwise - of all time. Not only does it 'pull back the curtain' on major leaguers and the psyche of a player as he navigates successes and failures, but it is hilarious, and Bouton is incredibly insightful, candid, and unabashed in his musings (to the somewhat amusing annoyance of his teammates, both then and, of course, after the book was published). It's basically a direct pipeline of stories about the majors through the filter of a baseball geek with a deep passion for the game.

Really interesting discussion- I agree with you Derek, that data with partial accuracy is better than no data at all. And I'm guessing you'd be hard pressed to find even a scout who would call scouting a "hard science". When you go on Pat's show, I'd be interested to hear what he thinks about defensive metrics... Is there any defensive metric (advanced or not) that does NOT have some subjective element? Is not, does that make them all worthless?

Brilliant!

Ha, scalpers. I KNEW something was amiss when he actually "paid" you face value for the tickets. I once bought a scalped ticket for a Cards game in St. Louis. The guy showed me the ticket- about $25 face value- before agreeing to take $20 for it. When I got to the turnstile, the ticket wouldn't scan. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was for the game the NEXT DAY. I was annoyed, but I remembered that he had showed me the ticket before selling, so it was really on me for not checking the date. Sneaky dudes, they be.

WHY HASN'T ANYONE EVER THOUGHT OF USING DUCKS AS DH'S BEFORE THIS???

Kevin, have you seen/heard anything to explain Gary Brown's struggles so far this year?

If there is a corollary for pitchers (i.e., needing to learn the new league's batters), then we probably wouldn't see any noticeable difference in interleague play.

I agree that stating that Lawrie threw his helmet at Miller's foot is incorrect, BUT reread the sentence referencing DY's suspension- Daniel is not calling for a similar suspension, simply referencing it as something the league MIGHT compare the incident to.

I agree as well. As a few commenters have noted before, users can sort by any column they wish, but I agree that the default sort order would be better if it was by team/date on DL.

like

Wicked.

I'm genuinely curious about this, as I have not followed Pujols closely: Is there actually any real reason/evidence to suggest that he is actually 2-4 years older than he is listed? I mean, aside from the fact that age-fixing was pretty common around the time he came up?

Jebus, Tim, you have 5 posts arguing against a position KG isn't even taking. You're saying he's probably not a star; KG is saying that he is interesting. That's all there is to see here. Rein it in.

Excellent thorough work as usual, Corey. How about organizing the Additions/Subtractions section by league, division, and/or team?

Count this as a 1 for 1 in Adam's daily record.

Good stuff.

I agree- some sort of organization would make it much more readable: perhaps keep separate the players whose statuses were updated in the last week or so?

That stuff's icing on the cake ;)

I AM NOT KEVIN, but: I mean, it obviously all depends on where you draw the line. For instance, draw it at ~4 WARP per season, and only Verlander, Halladay, Lee, Kershaw, and Sabathia would qualify. Gallardo, Hamels, Cain, Price, and Felix have never exceeded that mark. Greinke, Lincecum, and Lester haven't done it since 2009.

Stuff like this is why I started loving baseball.

I enjoyed this- very interesting, even w/ nothing concrete to conclude! Do you know (or can someone do the research on) the extent to which a pitcher's rubber placement is variable? i.e., are there pitchers that move around a lot within one game or do they tend to stay consistent throughout a game/season?

In the last year of old Yankee stadium I was in the outfield bleachers for a game against the Reds, for whom Corey Patterson was then the CF. Patterson, being terrible, was the recipient of relentless hecklings. "Hey Corey, what are you hitting, 200?" At this, Patterson turned around, smiled, raised his hands, and flashed 1 finger, then 9, then another 9. The crowd cheered, and I've been a fan of his person (though not his playing ability) ever since.

I would like to read a collection of Sam's made-up Robert Frost poetry.

I think "I don't like the Cubs, but..." could be the new "...although I have once been beaned during a baseball game." I don't like the Cubs, but Opening Day was glorious.

Seriously, though- solid analysis, Daniel. While Ludwick is in the Opening Day lineup, I do think it is inaccurate to say that is in the "regular" lineup. Dusty bases many of his lineup decisions on historic batter-v-pitcher match-ups, and this is reportedly another one of those cases, where he doesn't like Heisey vs. Buehrle: http://cincinnati.com/blogs/reds/2012/04/04/opening-day-lineup Here's hoping Heisey starts out strong enough to grab hold of the starting slot.

[INSERT SEVEN THOUSAND COMMENTS ABOUT DUSTY BAKER FAVORING VETERANS]

oh yeah, "during the 1990s"... missed that part. Derp.

Perhaps it was because of this transformation from Opening Day to Opening Week that, while you remember so well Tuffy Rhodes' achievement, you totally forgot about the illustrious Dmitri Young's 3-homerun Opening Day for the Tigers in 2005: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Dmitri_Young_hits_three_home_runs_in_Tigers%27_opener

From: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=432&position=1B Helton's value from 2002-2011: $132 million Helton's earnings from 2002-2011: $144 million That's not too shabby.

The Bachelor so needs to have Jason as The Bachelor.

Sigh, yeah, it's unfortunate, but it does actually make some sense in the short-term considering that (a) the rotation still has 5 serviceable arms and (b) the bullpen is hurting from injuries to Ryan Madson and Nick Masset. Dusty is at least still saying that he will be a starter, and I get the impression that Chapman is the first in line when the inevitable injury to one of the starting 5 occurs.

VERDUCCI EFFECT IT WAS THE VERDUCCI EFFECT

Fair enough. But I'd still argue that giving a veteran the Opening Day nod, then replacing him with a youngster within a week does not constitute an egregious favoring of a vet.

The Scott Hatteberg vs. Joey Votto argument doesn't hold up. Votto was a September call-up in 2007, and pretty much was instantly given the starting job. Hatteberg hung around on the bench in 2008 (61 PA), but was by zero means in consideration as the starter. Now Corey Patterson as RedsManRick mentions below, that's a great example that I had forgotten about. An rotten log would have played better than he did.

Also, check out this nice piece by John Perrotto in which Dusty explains his (over)use of veterans in SF/Chicago (the basic argument he makes is that there was lots of pressure to win immediately, which was not conducive to dealing with growing pains of youngsters: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=8606

I see your point, but in reality there is no reason to think that the age of bench players has anything to do with the age of starters. That's kind of like saying: "Since all of the bench players are men, we'd expect all the starters to be women". As a Reds fan, I've never ever seen evidence of the Dusty-loves-veterans idea. He may have earned it in SF and Chicago, but I can't think of an instance in Cincinnati when he's egregiously favored a veteran over a promising younger player... although that would change if he favors Ryan Ludwick over Chris Heisey in battle for left field this year.

They're all so great! I love the "Mad Men" - the contrast b/t the music and visual spectacle is marvelously bizarre... add in that's what would be seen/heard after a home run is hit and we're on the next level, friends.

Team Bert may be better off playing Pujols at both 1B and 3B.

+1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1

Curious the Citizen's Bank Park had such a low HR factor last season. Maybe this is a stupid question, because I don't know how park factors are calculated, but could that have anything to do with the Phillies' insanely good starting rotation? i.e., good SPs = fewer homers allowed = makes the park look hard to hit a homerun in.

Good stuff, RJ.

Sounds like the perfect intern job, if you ask me. ;)

Hey Ben, are there any plans for the return of the "This Weeks in Quotes" column?

What?

Hahaha, awesome. It would be a victory for mankind if the Rockies field that lineup.

Indeed, they have a 4-part series on the subject: http://www.firejoemorgan.com/search?q=%22Baseball+for+Dummies%22

Any plans for the return of the "This Week in Quotes" column with John Erhardt back in the fold? That was always one of my favorite features... even if only for the humorous category sub-headings...

I gotta say I'm really glad Steve Goldman did not take ALL of BP's knowledge of baseball history with him when he left. Love these pieces. Thanks, Larry!

"it's better to watch people do what they do best, than what they do worst" Fans of "The Room" will disagree.

Well said, Bill. I'll add that Jay says "Less of this, please", referring to poor pitchers-as-batters performance, but I ask: Why? How does it decrease the fun/enjoyment of a baseball game to watch someone be totally overmatched every ninth batter? It's a David-vs-Goliath story 4-5 times a game! And what's more exciting than a pitcher actually hitting a homerun in that situation? The most memorable part of a Mets game I saw in their last year at Shea was Felix Hernandez cranking a grand slam off of Johan Santana. If it weren't for that, I would have remember absolutely nothing about that game.

This is the last thing I expected out of a Yu Darvish review, which is partly why it is so great. It is also so great because it is great.

Thanks for the reply, Dave- I was asking for a friend ;) but I'll pass on the info!

What about for the millions of poor English majors who have graduated but still don't have jobs? Do you have any resume-padding opportunities for them?

Hey Mike- I read somewhere that Ryan Raburn may end up platooning (I forget with whom). Do you have any info about that? Thanks!

* "age 27"

To answer my own question, looking at BR's "Similar batters through age 17" scores: Tony Lazzeri had a similar peak ages 23-25 (~140 OPS+), dropped off two years (~119 OPS+), and came back nearly to his previous level (~130 OPS+) for a few years. Joe Torre, had a peak 23-25 (~145 OPS+), returned to earth for three years (~125 OPS+), and then had an insane 171 in his age 30 1971 season.

*unnecessary question mark

Hanley is a really interesting case- I'm curious if anyone can think of any historic comps for his recent performance. i.e., elite combination of power/speed/average for a string of 3-4 years followed by two consecutive years of performance drop-off (injury related or otherwise) DURING his theoretical prime. This would help to get an idea of the chances he ever returns to his age 23-25 performance levels?

Ha! Todd Walker.

Very interesting stuff! Nicely done, Eriq.

In this sense, it's very similar to the Chapman signing by the Reds. As a loyal Reds fan, I was approaching the 2010 season with a decades-worth of frustration and disillusionment, all of which was shattered when the Reds went out on a limb to get Chapman. When ownership shows they care, fans take notice.

Awesome.

haha, whoops... that should be: "little-things"

For whatever it's worth, Juan Castro stuck around not because he was a 'little-thing' or a 'clubhouse' guy, but because, according to those judging defense solely via the eye-ball test, he was as a defensive wizard. "Manos de oro" (hands of gold) was his nickname.

This gets me very curious about advanced scouting- it occurs to me that teams the 'overperform' may do so due to really good advance scouting reports and effective application of said reports(as opposed to, say, a really good coaching). KG, to your knowledge, how much variability is there in quality of advance scouting among different teams? And what goes into it? Do scouts look at how future opponents perform just in the few weeks preceding a series or further back in time? Might be a good podcast topic!

BP: now for English majors! (math majors still welcome)

Amazing that anyone could overlook Bartolo Colon I CAN SEE HIM FROM HERE* *because he is fat lolololol

This is just great.

Hahhahahahahahahaahha. Wonderful. I'd never heard of "Igor" as a nickname, but I'll always remember it now. Mission accomplished. HoF what?

Good point- I love Marty, but boy does he despise strikeouts. Stubbs now gets the same treatment, unfortunately.

BP staff, pls make WORP data available thx.

I posit that there's an error in the premise of this article: "fun to watch" and "fun to root for" are two very different and in some cases very opposite things. As a Reds fan, I (along with every single other person in Cincinnati) found Adam Dunn and Wily Mo (and I'd imagine any other three-true-outcome type) very very fun to root for, but usually very very painful to watch. Strikeouts for batters may be way overrated in terms of their statistical negative value, but they are still really painful to watch. Add to that piss-poor defense. By the time Dunn was traded, despite his incredible consistency and historic power, he was, ridiculously, reviled by Reds fans. I didn't share in the vitriol, but the strikeouts mostly definitely wore down the love.

Awesome stuff. I think it is important to make clear that what makes this phenomenon so striking is that it occurs among differently aged players at the SAME experience level (i.e., as high school seniors, with (almost) everyone having the same number of years of baseball experience under their belts). If, for instance, high school juniors were also eligible for the draft, then the best players would tend to get drafted in their junior years; thus we would of course expect the younger draftees to have more value over the course of their careers than the older draftees. However, only high school seniors are eligible, so the only players who would violate this assumption would be either older high schoolers who may have been held back (Rany cuts off at 21 and up, but maybe he should try cutting off at 20), and on the other end, someone like Bryce Harper who effectively jump-started his draft eligibility by a year.

Ah, Colin, so psyched to see "Right Field" on this list! I, too, repeatedly watched that TMNT VHS with the Pizza Hut commercial prelude and always loved the presentation of that song. Makes a grown man tear up.

And I should clarify as well- I certainly am not attempting to exonerate Cueto- I don't think the fine/suspension was undeserved at all. I just think Will was being a overly harsh in calling it "criminal" and looking at in a completely black-and-white manner ("There's just no way to make this right").

My point is that when someone is in what is perceived as a life-threatening situation, any sense of "knowlingly" doing anything goes out the window in favor of survival instincts. As someone who deals with panic attacks, I know that when one feels threatened, your mind/body can react in a way that completely defies logic/decorum. That said, I obviously don't know what was going on in Cueto's mind at the time, but his drastic actions certainly suggest he wasn't acting with a clear head.

Come on, Will, NO excuses for Cueto? The guy was backed up against a brick wall with a crowd surging on him. People do a lot of desperate things when cornered. No doubt it's incredibly unfortunate what happened to LaRue as a result, but I think it's more fair to chalk it up to a bizarre situation rather than one man's intent to harm.

Hahaha, this reads like an Onion article. Fantastic. BUT Bautista's premise is partially flawed: does he not recall the management's heroic move to acquire Matt Morris at the trade deadline? Alas, if there were only 4 other Matt Morrae available...

Does anyone else think that Bill James' uncharacteristically illogical comment re: the value of shifts was a ploy to help out his employer by convincing opposing teams NOT to put on the shift against Ortiz? It's clearly the only reasonable explanation.

Chapman's game was made a ton better by the free swinging Mud Hens: in the previous two games, Travis Wood struck out 9 in 4 innings and Matt Maloney struck out 8 in 5.2 innings. I was at Chapman's game and he may have only walked one, but he still threw a lot of balls that were WAY outside the strike zone.

Another thought: 20 starts by Volquez is probably unrealistic since he isn't expected to be back until August.

Hilariously, Palmiero won the Edgar Martinez Outstanding DH Award the same year he won a Gold Glove.

The sub-title alone makes this article worth reading.