THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Blyleven Was Not Clutch

A few years ago, I posted Blyleven‘s record, vis-a-vis Leverage Index.  I looked at each and every one of Blylven’s PA, starting from 1974.  Unless he happened to be super-clutch in his first four years, this is what I found:

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Thursday, November 30, 2006

The greatest fielder ever, who couldn’t hit a lick?

I posted this on another thread, regarding John McDonald of the Jays (Tigers and Indians)

It must be a virtual certainty that he’s a great fielder, since he’s never had 300 PA, has come into the league at almost age 25, is now 32, has 1146 career PA, his career OPS+ is 56, with a career high of 75.  His career high in salary is 500,000$. He’s also had SIX different managers on three teams.

Here’s my challenge to you.  Find all players who:

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Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Congratulations to the Most Valuable Canadian in MLB!

But MVP?  Here is one of those “Morneau and Player B” comparisons:

G.. AB. H.. 1B 2B 3B HR SB R.. RBI BB SO. AVG.. OBP.. SLG..
157 592 190 118 37 1 34 03 097 130 53 093 0.321 0.375 0.559 Morneau
153 591 187 117 34 3 34 18 117 117 94 110 0.317 0.415 0.555 Player B

Pretty dead-on match in most categories, with a clear win to Morneau on RBI (+13), and a clear win to Player B on Runs (+20), SB (+15), and walks (+41).  While Morneau was the 10th best clutch hitter in the AL, Player B was the second-best clutch hitter in the AL.  Fielding-wise, they were likely a match.

Wanna guess?  The answer is…

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Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Ichiro Cromartie

Mike Green takes a look at Ichiro for the Hall Of Fame, over at Batter’s Box.

There are two ways to look at the HOF, so let’s take a look at each one.

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Thursday, October 12, 2006

Worst Player, Under 30, in MLB?

Give me guys who have no business playing in the bigs.  Rules are simple:
1 - He has to be between the ages of 26 and 30, as of Oct 1, 2006 (i.e, at his peak!).
2 - He had to come to bat at least 150 times, or face at least 150 batters (about 40 IP), in 2006.
3 - He has to have at least 300 career PA or BFP.

Cristian Guzman will likely win this award in a landslide next year, but, unfortunately for him, he’s been injured for the season.  (You’ll get ‘em next time Guzman.)

I’ll start the ball rolling and nominate:

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Monday, October 02, 2006

The 2006 MVP, Clutchy, Chokey Hitters

Fangraphs has the data, and here are the results.

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Sunday, September 03, 2006

Most Valuable Hitters, 2006

Based on the quality and timing of their performance, Fangraphs is showing the following hitters as leaders in WPA:
Pujols +7.1 wins
Howard +6.1 wins

Ortiz +6.3 wins
Jeter +5.5 wins
Dye +5.4 wins

This list does not consider fielding.  Dye, Jeter, and Pujols are probably equivalent in terms of fielding.  Ortiz and Howard are way down the list.  The NL MVP race should be a cinch for Pujols.  In the AL, it’s a horse race. 

No pitcher is really in the mix.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

David Ortiz: The 2005 MVP

I love fangraphs.com.  David has now come up with historical WPA, back to 2002.  And, his presentation and navigation is superb:

David Ortiz, with the bat, was +8.5 wins.  That includes a Clutchiness score of +3.6 wins.  A-Rod, with the bat, was +5.7 wins, with a Clutchiness score of 0.  It’s likely that Ortiz had one of the greatest clutch seasons of all time last year.