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…
Then, all of a sudden, it happens: the player just collapses.
As the Month of Gory Managerial Death fades away, is there some sort of central lesson that can be learned from the various dugout purges? Were the decisions to hire Davey Lopes, Phil Garner, Tony Muser, and Buddy Bell just bad decisions from the outset, or were they good decisions that just didn’t have good outcomes? Is there anything at all to be learned from this wave of firings? What will a smart organization take away from all this?
One word thrown around a lot when a manager is fired is “accountability.” At the end of the day, managers are accountable for what happens on the field–the wins and losses.
Just running through the AL stats, a month into the season, we marvel at Garret Anderson’s consistency, and try to keep Chad Bradford–the submarine reliever–straight from Corey Bradford, the NFL wide receiver.
Just running through the AL stats, a month into the season: Garret Anderson isn’t nearly as good the Angels, or many Angels fans, think he is, but geez, the guy is consistent. He’s at .315/.336/.528, which makes him an above-average AL left fielder. Anderson is only good when he’s at or near the top of…
You never see it coming. Player X is having a solid career, peaking in the .300/.380/.540 range for a run-of-the-mill franchise. He has a minimal history of injuries–the average aches and pains, an occasional stint on the DL, but nothing worse than that. He hits the other side of 30 as an accomplished player and…