Jeff Austin’s journey from high draft pick to Don Gullett experiment. Bruce Chen tries to remember which two teams he hasn’t pitched for yet. Brian Lawrence can now afford that new hammer he’s been eyeing. And Dave Nilsson gets a hearty Chris Kahrl “good on ya, mate.”
That I was wrong just brings the real issue into sharper focus: I’m not
supposed to be making these judgments. Don’t get me wrong, I know baseball. I
played the game, and just about every variant of it, for many years, and I
watch as much of the game as anybody you’ll find. (Just ask Sophia.) But my
talent isn’t in observing, and when I let my eyes make decisions for me, I end
up doing silly things like projecting the A’s to finish behind the Rangers and
Mariners.
Now playing right field for the Cards: Dane Iorg! Joe Roa could be the Phillies’ ace by Opening Day. Dan Wright: crappy pitcher or crappy injured pitcher? And Will Carroll vs. arrogance in a 12-round title fight.
In Part One, I took a walk through the big fielding stats: errors and fielding percentage, Range Factor, and Defensive Average/Zone Rating. Here, we’ll talk about three of the more advanced fielding statistics: Pete Palmer’s Fielding Runs, Clay Davenport’s Fielding Translations, and Bill James’ Win Shares.
Gary Huckabay goes head-to-head with a reader on the issue of performance-enhancing drugs, sets home improvement back a century, and looks forward to hazing BP’s three new interns.
Getting right into it tonight–I’ve taken on some customer service duties here at BP, and Jonah and Ryan will kill me if this gets any later! OK, honestly, I need to watch the last half of Survivor on TiVo. (BTW, if anyone has any experience with wireless home networks, please drop me an email and tell me how tough it would be to set one up linking my computer, TiVo, and the Gateway laptop I’m dreaming of. Maybe if I keep saying Gateway here and on the radio, I’ll get product.)
On March 4th, UTK included a reference to another injury analyst that should not have made it into publication. The statement was made with the intention of showing the genesis of my column, and not to disparage the ability or integrity of anyone else in the field, and I sincerely apologize for the remarks in question. Furthermore, let me go on the record and state that I have the utmost respect for the contributions and integrity of others in the field whose work inspired me in the first place.
What happens when a mild-mannered columnist gets involved with a group of
fire-breathing fantasy baseball experts? Confusion, puzzlement, and Alex
Gonzalez for $7. Joe Sheehan reports from the Rotowire Staff League fantasy
auction.
Six years ago, in Baseball Prospectus 1997, I wrote an article on the subject of “pitching to the score.” After some careful research, I concluded that there was no evidence that any pitcher in recent times had demonstrated a clear ability to win or lose games that was not based on how many runs they allowed in the context they were pitching. In that article, I primarily focused on those pitchers who had been labeled “winners” in recent years because they often sported excellent won-loss records despite mediocre ERAs. I looked at Jack Morris, Dwight Gooden, Jack McDowell, Dave Stewart, Dave Stieb, Jose DeLeon, Catfish Hunter, and Sandy Koufax, and found that none of them demonstrated any pattern of winning more games than one would expect from their runs allowed totals.
Felipe Alou and his ill-founded love for Marquis Grissom. Dusty Baker and his ill-founded love for Eric Karros. Bob Brenly and his ill-founded love for Matt Mantei. Special guest appearances by Nigel Wilson, Chris Tremie and Sherman Obando. Plus Joe needs your roto help.
Fernando Vina: Buff Bagwell impersonator or innocent second base collision victim? Roy Oswalt: Cy Young candidate or huge injury risk? And your jumble word of the day is IDKCYA.
There are signs that teams “get it.” I don’t think it’s any secret that the Blue Jays are one of the teams that get it. Sprung from the brain of the Athletics like Athena, the front office put together by J.P. Ricciardi can compete with the braintrust of any team. Despite revenue problems, hamstrung by contracts written in a bygone era, and having to play in the same division as the Red Sox and Yankees, the Blue Jays definitely “get it” and are headed for success.
Do day games really set the Cubs up for failure? To answer the question, I consulted Retrosheet game logs for each game played from 1997 to 2001 (Retrosheet doesn’t have the 2002 data ready just yet). The first series of numbers I ran looked at every team except for the Cubs, with data broken down between day and night games, as well as various permutations on what the team’s schedule had been like on the previous day (afternoon game on the road, and so forth). In the table below, I’ve provided the home team’s winning percentage based on each condition.