This week’s question comes from Robert Shore, who asks:
Like many people, I was mightily impressed by Voros McCracken’s work, which strongly suggested that pitchers have essentially no effect on the conversion of balls in play to outs. It occurred to me to wonder about the converse question. Are some batters better than others in converting balls in play to base hits?
Starting today, we will be periodically running some of the best content from the new, super-charged Baseball Prospectus archives. Those new to BP may be reading this content for the first time. Long-time readers can rekindle old debates. We begin today with Keith Woolner’s look at the conversion of balls in play into outs, from 2002. To do your own mining, go to BP’s Search function. To request a specific article from the archives, e-mail jkeri@baseballprospectus.com.
Those of you who have had your fill of Barry Bonds will probably want to skip to Keith Woolner’s latest column. For the rest of you… .628 I’ve spent a lot of time making the point that I, my colleagues here at Baseball Prospectus, and the many other people who do the kind of work…
“On one particular night, I was as good as anybody in the game.”
–Mike Cameron, Mariners outfielder, on hitting four home runs in a game
Lance Berkman was nice enough to stop at two home runs yesterday, so we’ll complete our look around the majors with some notes on National League performances to date.
Lance Berkman was nice enough to stop at two home runs yesterday, so we’ll complete our look around the majors with some notes on National League performances to date. The best position player on your World Champion Arizona Diamondbacks? Second baseman Junior Spivey, who only got his job thanks to injuries to Jay Bell and…
THINGS MUST CHANGE "I’m not ashamed of anything that’s happened to create this situation. We’ve wanted to win. We’ve worked hard here. We’ve improved a lot of people but we’ve got to win baseball games. And I understand that." —Tony Muser, Royals ex-manager "Baseball needs a new economic system. There is nothing that exists that…
Those of you expecting a trip around the National League’s performances to date will have to wait another day. There’s a long-standing rule in this space that says when a player hits four home runs, we write about it.
There’s some merit to the argument that a few starts can skew a pitcher’s cumulative line, and there have been attempts, such as
Michael Wolverton’s Support-Neutral statistics to better model the maximum impact a single game can have on a pitcher’s value.
One common defense you hear of a pitcher–usually one of the speaker’s favorites–whose season statistics don’t quite measure up is something like: "Yeah, but if you take away the two starts when he got pounded and the manager left him in, his ERA is really good!" There’s some merit to the argument that a few…
Those of you expecting a trip around the National League’s performances to date will have to wait another day. There’s a long-standing rule in this space that says when a player hits four home runs, we write about it. (Hey, if Bud can claim that 60/40 is older than the Blue Jays…) Anyway, as you…
There’s a book out now by Phil Kaplan, who runs a very famous Web site called f—edcompany.com. His book is basically a re-hash of what has run on his site during the past couple of years, as lots of Internet companies predictably cratered. Kaplan’s basic premise is pretty simple–it’s ridiculous to expect to make money…