As we get closer to yet another wonderful, wacky, unpredictable, and incomparable season of baseball, its time for my what will become annual predictions for various awards. Hope these spark some controversy and conversations among our 12 readers-
2009 American League Cy Young Award Winner- King Felix Hernandez- King Felix reported to the WBC this season looking svelte as ever, having lost a good amount of weight over the offseason. In the WBC he looked very good, with an ERA of 0.00 over 8 2/3 innings. His WHIP was a respectable 1.27, and he had 11 K's. While many analysts would pick someone like CC or the perenially overrated Jon Lester, I think that the AL East's offenses have improved too much this offseason (see Mark Teixeira, Matt Weiters, Pat Burrell, etc.) to have a pitcher from that division win the Cy Young. The AL Central has some weak offenses, but it also for the most part lacks the big game, Cy Young caliber pitchers. And yes that statement includes Cliff Lee. It is for this reason that I look the AL West for my ALCY pick, and frankly, despite having to go to Texas and pitch a few times this year, expect King Felix to absolutely dominate barring any injuries.
Runner Up-Crazy Roy Halladay will find a way to get through the beastly AL East offenses
2009 National League Cy Young Award Winner- Tim Lincecum- I am picking Tim Lincecum for many of the same reason that I am picking King Felix. 1st off, there is very little chance of a pitcher in the NL East winning the Cy Young, as there are several offenses there that are just juggernauts. Don't entirely count out Johan, obviously, but his recent injury, despite allowing him to return for Opening Day (I think), makes me a bit uneasy. In the NL Central, the most consistent pitcher is Roy Oswalt, who, while a very very good pitcher, is also 31 and facing several potent offenses in the central. Clearly no one from the Brewers, Pirates, or Reds will win it, and the Cardinals only threat is Chris Carpenter, and that would be damn impressive, but not likely, coming off surgery. That leaves only the Cubs, who, as much as I hate to say it, just have a large group of very very good starters, but none of which seem to be able to put together one really really great season (see Carlos Zambrano's insanity, Rich Harden's injury history, and Ted Lilly being somewhat mediocre). This leaves the NL West, and the reigning champion, Tim Lincecum, who will once again crush the division with some of the worst offenses in baseball. The 2nd best NL West offense got rid of their best player (Matt Holliday), and the Padres and D-Backs both have pretty terrible offenses. While the Dodgers are quite good, so is Tim Lincecum. Expect a repeat here.
2009 AL Team to Watch-Seattle Mariners
As good as the Angels are relative to their division, on paper, they really aren't that good. Sure they have Vlad, who is only 47 years old, and they have Gary Mathews Jr. and his $11 million a year contract, but seriously, the Angels aren't that good of a team. Expect their stranglehold on the top of the division to ease this season, and expect the Mariners to maybe, possibly, make some kind of a run if Bedard can stay healthy and if King Felix dominates. And if Carlos Silva stays off the mound for them, for the love of God. Sure their offense is terrible, but if nothing else, its probably better than the Padres offense at least, and they still have Ichiro...
2009 Other AL Team to Watch-Kansas City Royals
In a relatively weak division, the KC Royals have potential to be this year's Tampa Bay Rays. They are stacked with young pitchers (Luke Hochevar, Zack Greinke, Brian Bannister, etc.) who, while are all unproven, still have significant potential (Hochevar had to be a #1 overall pick for a reason). They also have a solid closer in Joakim "The Mexicutioner" Soria, and some decent young hitting talent, including Alex Gordon, Mark Teahen, and Mike Aviles. They also added Mike Jacobs, and have one of the greatest names in the sport in Coco Crisp. Expect them to make some noise in the AL Central this year.
2009 NL team to watch- San Fransisco Giants- They're going to win the NL West. The rest of the division is really bad and the Giants have Pablo Sandoval coming up (batting .456 in spring training) and a beastly pitching staff. The only team that should compete with them for the division is the Dodgers, who have huge questions with their pitching staff after the departure of Derek Lowe and the possible injury to Chad Billinglsey, as well as the Takashi Saito leaving for Boston.
March Madness Predictions-
Villanova over UNC (Tyler Hansbrough cries himself to sleep from now until May at the very earliest)
UCONN over MSU
UCONN over Villanova
Also something of note, Cameroonian striker Samuel Eto'o, widely considered one of the best strikers in the world, has been linked to a possible £18 million ($32 million-ish) from Barcelona to Liverpool. Keep a close eye, as Liverpool skipper Rafa Benitez is insane and the Catalan giants may want to make room for Bojan Krkic. This move is especially likely now that Theirry Henry has settled into Camp Nou
Tomorrow or possibly Thursday- NL and AL MVPs, as well as some assorted other awards, including pitcher most likely to have an ERA of over 8
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Does a Hot (or Cold) Start affect the rest of the season?
Today I was asked what kind of effect winning an Opening Day game has on the rest of a team’s season. With Opening Day coming up, I thought it would be appropriate to answer that question here. I will also look at what effect success in the first 3 and 7 games of the year has on the rest of the season. The data is taken from 2008.
First, we have Opening Day. Here is the graph:
There is really no significant difference in wins for the season based on whether or not you win your Opening Day game. Actually, teams who won their opener had an average of 79.6 wins on the year, and teams who lost their opener had an average of 82.3 wins on the year. Interestingly enough, the team with the most wins in the AL (Angels) and the team with the most wins in the NL (Cubs) both lost their opener while the worst three teams in the league (Nationals, Mariners, Padres) all won their opener. As it turns out, Opening Day is just another game in a long season.
Then we can look at how teams fared in their first three games:
Still, there appears to be no real pattern. Teams who won one of their first three won an average of 82.76 on the season, teams who won two of their first three won 81.71 on the season, and only the Royals (74) and Nationals (59) won their first three games of the year. Detroit (74) was the only team to lose their first three. Again, there is no apparent relation between wins in the first three games of the season and total wins.
Finally, we look at the first seven games of the season:
We do see a very slight pattern in this data, but still nothing significant. In order from zero to six wins of their first seven, teams won an average of 74, 72, 73.67, 81.27, 84.62, 83, 79 games on the year. It appears that performance in the very early stages of the season does not determine how good or bad you will do during the rest of the year.
In MLB news today, the Cubs named Kevin Gregg as the Cubs closer for the upcoming season. Gregg has had a spotless spring, giving up no runs in 8.1 innings, and has 61 saves in the past two years. Marmol missed time to play for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic, but has dominated in the setup role the past two years, with a 2.13 ERA over the past two seasons. Marmol appears to be the closer of the future, and there is probably no need to rush him into that role, as Gregg has experience as closer.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: The longest losing streak to start a season is 21 games by the Baltimore Orioles in 1988 (54 wins on the year). The longest winning streak to start a season is 13 games, accomplished by the 1982 Atlanta Braves (89, lost in NLCS) and 1987 Milwaukee Brewers (91, 3rd in division).
First, we have Opening Day. Here is the graph:
There is really no significant difference in wins for the season based on whether or not you win your Opening Day game. Actually, teams who won their opener had an average of 79.6 wins on the year, and teams who lost their opener had an average of 82.3 wins on the year. Interestingly enough, the team with the most wins in the AL (Angels) and the team with the most wins in the NL (Cubs) both lost their opener while the worst three teams in the league (Nationals, Mariners, Padres) all won their opener. As it turns out, Opening Day is just another game in a long season.
Then we can look at how teams fared in their first three games:
Still, there appears to be no real pattern. Teams who won one of their first three won an average of 82.76 on the season, teams who won two of their first three won 81.71 on the season, and only the Royals (74) and Nationals (59) won their first three games of the year. Detroit (74) was the only team to lose their first three. Again, there is no apparent relation between wins in the first three games of the season and total wins.
Finally, we look at the first seven games of the season:
We do see a very slight pattern in this data, but still nothing significant. In order from zero to six wins of their first seven, teams won an average of 74, 72, 73.67, 81.27, 84.62, 83, 79 games on the year. It appears that performance in the very early stages of the season does not determine how good or bad you will do during the rest of the year.
In MLB news today, the Cubs named Kevin Gregg as the Cubs closer for the upcoming season. Gregg has had a spotless spring, giving up no runs in 8.1 innings, and has 61 saves in the past two years. Marmol missed time to play for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic, but has dominated in the setup role the past two years, with a 2.13 ERA over the past two seasons. Marmol appears to be the closer of the future, and there is probably no need to rush him into that role, as Gregg has experience as closer.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: The longest losing streak to start a season is 21 games by the Baltimore Orioles in 1988 (54 wins on the year). The longest winning streak to start a season is 13 games, accomplished by the 1982 Atlanta Braves (89, lost in NLCS) and 1987 Milwaukee Brewers (91, 3rd in division).
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Win Probability and Leverage Index
A new stat that I have recently found is Win Probability Added (WPA) from Baseball-Reference.com. What this stat essentially measures is how much a certain team’s probability of winning increased or decreased during a particular play. For instance, a solo home run in a close game in the 9th inning will have a much higher WPA than a solo home run in a 6th inning blowout. The reason this stat is so useful is because it takes game context into account when measuring the value of a player. Other stats that are involved with this are Leverage, Leverage Splits, and Winner’s Win Expectancy, all of which can be further examined by following the above link. Another great place to look at Win Expectancy and Leverage Index is another one of my new favorite sites, fangraphs.com.
One fun thing to do with this type of stat is to look at a box score from Baseball-Reference.com, where they have the probability of the eventual winner going on to win the game before and after each play. You can see the top five most important plays of the game and follow who had the largest effect on a team winning or losing the game. One interesting game to look at is the August 5, 2001 match-up between the Mariners and Indians, where the Mariners jumped out to a 14-2 lead after 5 innings, and the Indians came back to score 12 runs in the last three innings on their way to a 15-14, 11-inning win. Below is a graph of the running probability that Cleveland would go onto win the game.
As you can see, the probability of the Indians actually winning this game was below 1% from the middle of the 2nd inning to the middle of the 7th.The large jump in the bottom of the ninth is due to Omar Vizquel’s game-tying bases loaded triple with two outs. Before that hit, the Indians had a 10% chance of winning, and after the play, the Indians had a 63% chance of winning. Thus, the WPA for that play is 63% - 10% = 53%. This value is credited to Omar Vizquel and debited to the pitcher, Kazuhiro Sasaki.
For those who are interested, one of the creators of this statistic looks at the infamous top of the 8th of game 6 of the 2003 NLCS. I blame Alex Gonzalez.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: David DeJesus had the largest single-play WPA of the 2008 season, when he hit a two-out, two-run walkoff homer against the Mariners for a 5-4 Royals win. The hit took the Royals from a 9.6% probability of winning to 100% probability of winning, for a 90.4% increase. Manny Ramirez led the league in net WPA, with a season-long WPA of 7.57. The player with highest average Leverage Index, meaning the player who was always in the game in intense situations, was Francisco Rodriguez, with an average LI of 2.54 (below 0.7 is low, 0.7-1.5 is medium with the average at 1.0, and above 1.5 is high leverage).
One fun thing to do with this type of stat is to look at a box score from Baseball-Reference.com, where they have the probability of the eventual winner going on to win the game before and after each play. You can see the top five most important plays of the game and follow who had the largest effect on a team winning or losing the game. One interesting game to look at is the August 5, 2001 match-up between the Mariners and Indians, where the Mariners jumped out to a 14-2 lead after 5 innings, and the Indians came back to score 12 runs in the last three innings on their way to a 15-14, 11-inning win. Below is a graph of the running probability that Cleveland would go onto win the game.
As you can see, the probability of the Indians actually winning this game was below 1% from the middle of the 2nd inning to the middle of the 7th.The large jump in the bottom of the ninth is due to Omar Vizquel’s game-tying bases loaded triple with two outs. Before that hit, the Indians had a 10% chance of winning, and after the play, the Indians had a 63% chance of winning. Thus, the WPA for that play is 63% - 10% = 53%. This value is credited to Omar Vizquel and debited to the pitcher, Kazuhiro Sasaki.
For those who are interested, one of the creators of this statistic looks at the infamous top of the 8th of game 6 of the 2003 NLCS. I blame Alex Gonzalez.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: David DeJesus had the largest single-play WPA of the 2008 season, when he hit a two-out, two-run walkoff homer against the Mariners for a 5-4 Royals win. The hit took the Royals from a 9.6% probability of winning to 100% probability of winning, for a 90.4% increase. Manny Ramirez led the league in net WPA, with a season-long WPA of 7.57. The player with highest average Leverage Index, meaning the player who was always in the game in intense situations, was Francisco Rodriguez, with an average LI of 2.54 (below 0.7 is low, 0.7-1.5 is medium with the average at 1.0, and above 1.5 is high leverage).
Indians in Baseball (And I'm not talking about the ones in Cleveland)
Here at IHOB, our goal since the beginning (like 2 weeks ago) has been to provide good, relevant baseball knowledge with a bit of international flair. It has occurred to me that we've lacked some level of international news, so here's a bit.
When you think of sports in India, many of you may think of cricket, soccer, or some other sport that isn't baseball. You've thought correctly, as baseball is hardly played at all in India. However, being a nation of over 1 billion people, in theory, at least a few of them should be very good baseball players because of absurd God-given talent. This was the logic JB Bernstein, a sports agent who organized the Indian reality TV show The Million Dollar Arm, a show aimed at finding the best pitchers in India, with the prize being the ability to come to the United States and hone their incredibly raw pitching skills. There was also a $100,000 first prize. The winners of the contest became the first two Indians to ever sign with a major league baseball organization. They are two very promising young Indian pitching prospects, both of which have since signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. The first, Rinku Singh, is a skinny, 6' 0" left hander who has a fastball that has reached the low 90's. He is only 20 years old, and is still less polished as a pitcher than many Latin American teenagers that have been being signed by major league teams for years. The second Indian pitcher is Dinesh Patel, a more muscular, 5' 11" right handed pitcher who has also eclipsed the 90 MPH mark. Patel is 19 years old, and is also extremely raw as a pitcher, with enormous upside and room for improvement. Once both of these pitchers are able to develop a more balanced and crafty repertoire, including the addition of a couple of breaking pitches, they may prove to be major-league caliber. It should also be mentioned that the first time Dinesh Patel threw a baseball, he was able to reach the mid-80's, and while I cannot say whether Singh had also never thrown a baseball before the competition, he also reached the mid-80's initially.
Given the poise and willingness to learn that these 2 men have exhibited thus far in their American odyssey, it is safe to say that they may very well develop into two very formidable young pitchers in the next several years, with proper training and a bit of luck. Considering the rural poor that they both came from, they are grateful for every day that they are able to spend being paid to play baseball, and will undoubtedly play ball the right way, with joy and gratitude for their ability to be paid to play a game. Whether these two ever reach the major leagues is at this point relatively immaterial, they are already pioneers and representatives for their country, and have made names for themselves in the baseball history books as the first Indians to sign with a major league team.
When you think of sports in India, many of you may think of cricket, soccer, or some other sport that isn't baseball. You've thought correctly, as baseball is hardly played at all in India. However, being a nation of over 1 billion people, in theory, at least a few of them should be very good baseball players because of absurd God-given talent. This was the logic JB Bernstein, a sports agent who organized the Indian reality TV show The Million Dollar Arm, a show aimed at finding the best pitchers in India, with the prize being the ability to come to the United States and hone their incredibly raw pitching skills. There was also a $100,000 first prize. The winners of the contest became the first two Indians to ever sign with a major league baseball organization. They are two very promising young Indian pitching prospects, both of which have since signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. The first, Rinku Singh, is a skinny, 6' 0" left hander who has a fastball that has reached the low 90's. He is only 20 years old, and is still less polished as a pitcher than many Latin American teenagers that have been being signed by major league teams for years. The second Indian pitcher is Dinesh Patel, a more muscular, 5' 11" right handed pitcher who has also eclipsed the 90 MPH mark. Patel is 19 years old, and is also extremely raw as a pitcher, with enormous upside and room for improvement. Once both of these pitchers are able to develop a more balanced and crafty repertoire, including the addition of a couple of breaking pitches, they may prove to be major-league caliber. It should also be mentioned that the first time Dinesh Patel threw a baseball, he was able to reach the mid-80's, and while I cannot say whether Singh had also never thrown a baseball before the competition, he also reached the mid-80's initially.
Given the poise and willingness to learn that these 2 men have exhibited thus far in their American odyssey, it is safe to say that they may very well develop into two very formidable young pitchers in the next several years, with proper training and a bit of luck. Considering the rural poor that they both came from, they are grateful for every day that they are able to spend being paid to play baseball, and will undoubtedly play ball the right way, with joy and gratitude for their ability to be paid to play a game. Whether these two ever reach the major leagues is at this point relatively immaterial, they are already pioneers and representatives for their country, and have made names for themselves in the baseball history books as the first Indians to sign with a major league team.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Schilling’s Retirement and HOF Chances
As you most likely heard by now, Curt Schilling decided to retire today and the sports world instantly began judging his Hall of Fame worthiness. Let’s take a look at the résumé of Mr. Schilling and I’ll give my thoughts as to why he may or may not get the phone call from Cooperstown.
The Case for Schilling
Schilling has proved time and time again that he is a big game pitcher. You just have to look up his postseason numbers to show how big he came up. Over his career he made 19 starts in the playoffs going 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA and striking out 120 over 133.1 innings. He also has 3 World Series rings and a World Series MVP to his name. And of course he’s shown his ability to pitch through pain with infamous “bloody sock” performance in the 2004 playoffs. Away from the playoffs, Schilling has still accrued 216 wins, which puts him tied for 80th all-time. This is still a great feat because as Peter Gammons has mentioned on ESPN all day is that Schilling pitched his career in the era of a five-man rotation so he lost a lot of chances at earning more victories. He also pitched during the steroid era which will heighten his career. Schilling also has over 3,000 strikeouts which is a huge milestone to reach. So to sum it up, Schilling is a big-game pitcher, a 3,000+ strikeout pitcher, a 3-time World Series winner and a World Series MVP, and has performed well throughout his career given the atmosphere he pitched in.
The Case Against Schilling
The main problem that could hold Schilling out of the Hall of Fame is that he is a very polarizing figure. He is a very opinionated person who isn’t afraid of voicing his disagreement when someone or something rubs him the wrong way. The reason this might hold him out is that it is already hard enough to get into the Hall of Fame on just talent but if you give the voters a reason to keep you out, they’ll gladly take it, because they view the Hall of Fame as an elite club. The other problem that might keep Schilling out is while he has 216 wins during the five-man rotation era, he still only has 216 wins. There are many other pitchers who are not in Cooperstown and they have more wins then Schilling does. Bert Blyleven is a good example, he finished his career with 287 wins and still hasn't heard from the Hall of Fame. To go along with that Schilling has never won a Cy Young Award or an MVP award, he doesn’t have a stat like John Smoltz does where he has 200 wins and 200 saves. His achievements, while remarkable, just might not be Hall of Fame material.
I think Schilling will eventually get into the Hall of Fame, but I don’t think it will happen any time soon. He could even have to wait till the veterans’ committee votes for him to get his call. I just think the current voters will not look at Schilling’s body of work and instead just look at his numbers and go based off of Schilling’s personality.
The Case for Schilling
Schilling has proved time and time again that he is a big game pitcher. You just have to look up his postseason numbers to show how big he came up. Over his career he made 19 starts in the playoffs going 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA and striking out 120 over 133.1 innings. He also has 3 World Series rings and a World Series MVP to his name. And of course he’s shown his ability to pitch through pain with infamous “bloody sock” performance in the 2004 playoffs. Away from the playoffs, Schilling has still accrued 216 wins, which puts him tied for 80th all-time. This is still a great feat because as Peter Gammons has mentioned on ESPN all day is that Schilling pitched his career in the era of a five-man rotation so he lost a lot of chances at earning more victories. He also pitched during the steroid era which will heighten his career. Schilling also has over 3,000 strikeouts which is a huge milestone to reach. So to sum it up, Schilling is a big-game pitcher, a 3,000+ strikeout pitcher, a 3-time World Series winner and a World Series MVP, and has performed well throughout his career given the atmosphere he pitched in.
The Case Against Schilling
The main problem that could hold Schilling out of the Hall of Fame is that he is a very polarizing figure. He is a very opinionated person who isn’t afraid of voicing his disagreement when someone or something rubs him the wrong way. The reason this might hold him out is that it is already hard enough to get into the Hall of Fame on just talent but if you give the voters a reason to keep you out, they’ll gladly take it, because they view the Hall of Fame as an elite club. The other problem that might keep Schilling out is while he has 216 wins during the five-man rotation era, he still only has 216 wins. There are many other pitchers who are not in Cooperstown and they have more wins then Schilling does. Bert Blyleven is a good example, he finished his career with 287 wins and still hasn't heard from the Hall of Fame. To go along with that Schilling has never won a Cy Young Award or an MVP award, he doesn’t have a stat like John Smoltz does where he has 200 wins and 200 saves. His achievements, while remarkable, just might not be Hall of Fame material.
I think Schilling will eventually get into the Hall of Fame, but I don’t think it will happen any time soon. He could even have to wait till the veterans’ committee votes for him to get his call. I just think the current voters will not look at Schilling’s body of work and instead just look at his numbers and go based off of Schilling’s personality.
Fantasy Baseball Draft Analysis Cont.
As Tom stated in his last post, we had the fantasy draft for our league this past weekend. Keeper rule is anything later than a 5th round pick is keeper eligible. Some interesting picks by me and the rest of the field
14th Round (167)- Elvis Andrus
Elvis Andrus is a player that has been hyped now for several years. The first mention of him on the national stage, as many may remember, was as a piece of the trade that sent Mark Teixeira to the Braves from the Rangers. At the time, Andrus was the 2nd most well known prospect in the trade (Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s last name had already given him a big enough cult following to have him overshadow Andrus despite his mediocre abilities). However, now that Andrus is 20 years old and rapidly improving, many people are saying that he will be called up to the majors sometime relatively early this season. The first step to this claim becoming reality was when the Rangers decided to move Michael Young to 3rd base, causing much fervor throughout MLB. The Rangers insurance policy on Andrus, Omar Vizquel, will also help Andrus progress as a SS. On a related note, he is also literally double Andrus’ age. Overall, this pick was an attempt to combine keeper value with some reasonable production this season, and while I could have probably picked Andrus later in the draft, I’m not too disappointed with this pick.
17th Round (194)- Kenshin Kawakami
I generally know about Japanese pitchers coming to the major leagues, which is why this pick was reasonably interesting, as I had never heard of Kenshin Kawakami. Kawakami, from what I have gathered, has a repertoire similar to Mariano Rivera, with a mid 90’s fastball and a devastating cutter, as well as a slider he uses on occasion. As with most Japanese pitchers, he also probably has several other tricks up his sleeve, and should prove to be reasonably effective in the powerful NL east. Kawakami is a winner of Japan’s Cy Young Award, the Sawamura award, and won the 2006-2007 best 9 pitcher award, succeeding his countryman and fellow MLB player Hiroki Kuroda. Kawakami has been a consistent pitcher in Japan, avoiding a season with a 4+ ERA since 2000. Kawakami also has about an average strikeout rate for Japanese pitchers, approximately 7/9 IP. He also has a very low BB rate, walking only about 2 batters per 9 innings pitched. I figured in the 17th round, why not pick a pitcher who may prove to be more effective than most pitchers taken around this time, but who also may be in AAA by late April.
20th Round (239)-Yu Darvish
This pick is called, having a man-crush on a beastly pitcher. This pick really has very little risk involved. For as much of the year as I want, I need to deal with not having a roster spot, but if I ever really really need that extra pitcher/position player, I can just forfeit the rights to Yu Darvish and pick someone up. In the meantime, I have the rights to a really really good 22 year old pitcher who has dominated what is probably the 2nd best league in the world since he was 19, and I have those rights in the 20th round.
Other interesting picks that didn’t involve me
18th Round- Fausto Carmona-I really liked this pick, Fausto has already shown that he has potential to dominate, and in the 18th round, not only is this great keeper value, but it’s also just a good pick from a risk vs. reward standpoint. Worst case scenario, Fausto fails miserably and an 18th round pick is lost by Dave. In retrospect, I should have taken Fausto the pick before, when I took Brett Anderson, because while Anderson may have more long term potential, as I said, Fausto has proven himself once before.
20th Round-The Legend of Jack Cust- this was a magnificent pick by Steve. For some reason, no one was able to realize that Cust would be a beast in a league with OBP instead of AVG. Jack Cust hit 33 HR last year, had 77 RBI, and only a .231 BA. However, his OBP was .375. Three freaking seventy five. Another thing going for the Legend is that his lineup is adding Matt Holliday and Jason ‘Stash Giambi. That should at the very least increase Cust’s mediocre RBI total. Just a really freaking good pick by Steve here.
20th round- Kelly Shoppach- Shoppach is a really good pick here, as Victor Martinez may very well fail miserably, giving Shoppach the job. Even if Martinez doesn’t fail, Travis Hafner might, which might move either Shoppach or Martinez to 1B. In any case, this was a pretty damned good value pick for the very last pick in the draft.
What a coincidence, that’s the last pick I’ll be analyzing in this post.
More posts throughout the week...
14th Round (167)- Elvis Andrus
Elvis Andrus is a player that has been hyped now for several years. The first mention of him on the national stage, as many may remember, was as a piece of the trade that sent Mark Teixeira to the Braves from the Rangers. At the time, Andrus was the 2nd most well known prospect in the trade (Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s last name had already given him a big enough cult following to have him overshadow Andrus despite his mediocre abilities). However, now that Andrus is 20 years old and rapidly improving, many people are saying that he will be called up to the majors sometime relatively early this season. The first step to this claim becoming reality was when the Rangers decided to move Michael Young to 3rd base, causing much fervor throughout MLB. The Rangers insurance policy on Andrus, Omar Vizquel, will also help Andrus progress as a SS. On a related note, he is also literally double Andrus’ age. Overall, this pick was an attempt to combine keeper value with some reasonable production this season, and while I could have probably picked Andrus later in the draft, I’m not too disappointed with this pick.
17th Round (194)- Kenshin Kawakami
I generally know about Japanese pitchers coming to the major leagues, which is why this pick was reasonably interesting, as I had never heard of Kenshin Kawakami. Kawakami, from what I have gathered, has a repertoire similar to Mariano Rivera, with a mid 90’s fastball and a devastating cutter, as well as a slider he uses on occasion. As with most Japanese pitchers, he also probably has several other tricks up his sleeve, and should prove to be reasonably effective in the powerful NL east. Kawakami is a winner of Japan’s Cy Young Award, the Sawamura award, and won the 2006-2007 best 9 pitcher award, succeeding his countryman and fellow MLB player Hiroki Kuroda. Kawakami has been a consistent pitcher in Japan, avoiding a season with a 4+ ERA since 2000. Kawakami also has about an average strikeout rate for Japanese pitchers, approximately 7/9 IP. He also has a very low BB rate, walking only about 2 batters per 9 innings pitched. I figured in the 17th round, why not pick a pitcher who may prove to be more effective than most pitchers taken around this time, but who also may be in AAA by late April.
20th Round (239)-Yu Darvish
This pick is called, having a man-crush on a beastly pitcher. This pick really has very little risk involved. For as much of the year as I want, I need to deal with not having a roster spot, but if I ever really really need that extra pitcher/position player, I can just forfeit the rights to Yu Darvish and pick someone up. In the meantime, I have the rights to a really really good 22 year old pitcher who has dominated what is probably the 2nd best league in the world since he was 19, and I have those rights in the 20th round.
Other interesting picks that didn’t involve me
18th Round- Fausto Carmona-I really liked this pick, Fausto has already shown that he has potential to dominate, and in the 18th round, not only is this great keeper value, but it’s also just a good pick from a risk vs. reward standpoint. Worst case scenario, Fausto fails miserably and an 18th round pick is lost by Dave. In retrospect, I should have taken Fausto the pick before, when I took Brett Anderson, because while Anderson may have more long term potential, as I said, Fausto has proven himself once before.
20th Round-The Legend of Jack Cust- this was a magnificent pick by Steve. For some reason, no one was able to realize that Cust would be a beast in a league with OBP instead of AVG. Jack Cust hit 33 HR last year, had 77 RBI, and only a .231 BA. However, his OBP was .375. Three freaking seventy five. Another thing going for the Legend is that his lineup is adding Matt Holliday and Jason ‘Stash Giambi. That should at the very least increase Cust’s mediocre RBI total. Just a really freaking good pick by Steve here.
20th round- Kelly Shoppach- Shoppach is a really good pick here, as Victor Martinez may very well fail miserably, giving Shoppach the job. Even if Martinez doesn’t fail, Travis Hafner might, which might move either Shoppach or Martinez to 1B. In any case, this was a pretty damned good value pick for the very last pick in the draft.
What a coincidence, that’s the last pick I’ll be analyzing in this post.
More posts throughout the week...
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Fantasy Baseball Draft
Yesterday we held our draft for our fantasy baseball league. First, a big thanks goes out to our hard-working commissioner, our own Dave Creagh, and a big thanks to Mrs. Creagh for letting us invade her basement and providing us with delicious cookies and other foods. Personally, I’m not all that happy with my draft. I like my team, but there were definitely some picks I’d change and there were a couple times where I really wanted a guy who was picked just before me. I’ll go over some of the more interesting picks of the draft. The league is a 12-team league with a snaking draft order.
Adam Dunn, 2nd round, pick 23 overall: Absolutely loved and hated this pick at the same time. Loved the pick because it was genius, and hated it because in a million years I never thought someone besides me would go for Adam Dunn any earlier than the 5th round. I had the 20th pick overall and was going to take Dunn in the 3rd round because I knew Blaine would snap him up when it came back to him at the bottom of the 3rd. Dave just ripped my heart out with this one. Dunn has hit exactly 40 homers in the past 4 years with just about exactly 100 RBI in each of them. This is an OBP league and he will go for about a .380 OBP. Most fantasy rankings had him in about the 7th or 8th round, with ESPN ranking him 94th overall and Yahoo had him at 66 or 100, depending on what you look at. Still, I had him in my top 15, and this was a great pick.
Rickie Weeks, 10th round, 116 overall: Well this was my pick, and I guess in retrospect it was terrible. In my defense, it was questioned why I would pick someone who hit .234 last year, but his OBP was .342, which is bad, but not all that terrible when his OBP the previous year was .374. I was just really desperate for steals and I needed a second basemen, and he was the last second baseman left that’d give me some solid steals. His 90 or so runs will also be a welcome addition to my team. ESPN had him ranked 185 and Yahoo was about the same, so yeah, I guess I could have waited a round or two. Or five.
Matt Wieters, 5th round, 61 overall: This was more an interesting pick, and time will tell if it was good or bad. For a little background, we run a keeper league, and you can keep anybody drafted 5th round or later. Doing the math, you can see this was the first pick in the 5th round. There has been nothing but good things said about Wieters, and he will definitely be a great player in time. However, he was the fourth catcher taken in the draft, and the other three were taken in the previous thirteen picks. Wieters will not even start the season in the majors, and in the future, if he’s as good as advertised, he is still going to be about a second or third round pick at best. In my opinion, that is not great value as a keeper.
Yu Darvish, 20th round, 229 overall: Just like Wieters, time will tell if this will be a smart pick. I’m sure Blaine will tell you all about Yu and why he took him in his next post, but Blaine is stuck with an empty roster spot for a year, because Darvish is not coming over yet.
Ben Sheets, 15th round: Sheets is not on a team and will not play for most of 2009. If he’s lucky, he will make 10-15 starts, assuming he gets healthy and assuming he finds a team. His long history of injury problems is not too promising. Sheets is not worth more than a 19th or 20th round pick in deep keeper leagues.
Well it’s time to go to dinner so I am going to cut this a bit shorter than I had planned. Blaine should say something about a couple picks I was going to talk about in Elvis Andrus and Kenshin Kawakami.
Because I know people care, here are the teams for me, Dave, and Blaine:
Cubs (Tom Nielsen):
Hitters: Victor Martinez, Carlos Delgado, Rickie Weeks, Chipper Jones, Michael Young, Grady Sizemore, Nick Markakis, Josh Hamilton, Carlos Pena
Pitchers: Roy Oswalt, CC Sabathia, Kevin Slowey, David Price, Jeremy Guthrie, John Maine, Gil Meche, Francisco Rodriguez, Heath Bell, Chad Qualls
The Filthy Italians (Blaine Curcio):
Hitters: Brian McCann, Mark Teixeira, Chone Figgins, Evan Longoria, Elvis Andrus, Manny Ramirez, Raul Ibanez, Andre Ethier, Adrian Gonzalez
Pitchers: John Lackey, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Francisco Liriano, Erik Bedard, Hiroki Kuroda, Kenshin Kawakami, Brett Anderson, Jose Valverde, Trevor Hoffman, (Yu Darvish)
Balco Bobbleheads (Dave Creagh):
Hitters: Kelly Shoppach, Joey Votto, Dan Uggla, Alex Gordon, Hanley Ramirez, Ichiro Suzuki, Jayson Werth, Carlos Quentin, Adam Dunn
Pitchers: Ricky Nolasco, Cole Hamels, Chris Young, John Danks, Chien-Ming Wang, Jered Weaver, Fausto Carmona, Matt Capps, Joey Devine, Brandon Lyon, Chris Ray
I’m sure we’ll give updates as the season progresses.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: Tom Nielsen won this league in 2007.
Adam Dunn, 2nd round, pick 23 overall: Absolutely loved and hated this pick at the same time. Loved the pick because it was genius, and hated it because in a million years I never thought someone besides me would go for Adam Dunn any earlier than the 5th round. I had the 20th pick overall and was going to take Dunn in the 3rd round because I knew Blaine would snap him up when it came back to him at the bottom of the 3rd. Dave just ripped my heart out with this one. Dunn has hit exactly 40 homers in the past 4 years with just about exactly 100 RBI in each of them. This is an OBP league and he will go for about a .380 OBP. Most fantasy rankings had him in about the 7th or 8th round, with ESPN ranking him 94th overall and Yahoo had him at 66 or 100, depending on what you look at. Still, I had him in my top 15, and this was a great pick.
Rickie Weeks, 10th round, 116 overall: Well this was my pick, and I guess in retrospect it was terrible. In my defense, it was questioned why I would pick someone who hit .234 last year, but his OBP was .342, which is bad, but not all that terrible when his OBP the previous year was .374. I was just really desperate for steals and I needed a second basemen, and he was the last second baseman left that’d give me some solid steals. His 90 or so runs will also be a welcome addition to my team. ESPN had him ranked 185 and Yahoo was about the same, so yeah, I guess I could have waited a round or two. Or five.
Matt Wieters, 5th round, 61 overall: This was more an interesting pick, and time will tell if it was good or bad. For a little background, we run a keeper league, and you can keep anybody drafted 5th round or later. Doing the math, you can see this was the first pick in the 5th round. There has been nothing but good things said about Wieters, and he will definitely be a great player in time. However, he was the fourth catcher taken in the draft, and the other three were taken in the previous thirteen picks. Wieters will not even start the season in the majors, and in the future, if he’s as good as advertised, he is still going to be about a second or third round pick at best. In my opinion, that is not great value as a keeper.
Yu Darvish, 20th round, 229 overall: Just like Wieters, time will tell if this will be a smart pick. I’m sure Blaine will tell you all about Yu and why he took him in his next post, but Blaine is stuck with an empty roster spot for a year, because Darvish is not coming over yet.
Ben Sheets, 15th round: Sheets is not on a team and will not play for most of 2009. If he’s lucky, he will make 10-15 starts, assuming he gets healthy and assuming he finds a team. His long history of injury problems is not too promising. Sheets is not worth more than a 19th or 20th round pick in deep keeper leagues.
Well it’s time to go to dinner so I am going to cut this a bit shorter than I had planned. Blaine should say something about a couple picks I was going to talk about in Elvis Andrus and Kenshin Kawakami.
Because I know people care, here are the teams for me, Dave, and Blaine:
Cubs (Tom Nielsen):
Hitters: Victor Martinez, Carlos Delgado, Rickie Weeks, Chipper Jones, Michael Young, Grady Sizemore, Nick Markakis, Josh Hamilton, Carlos Pena
Pitchers: Roy Oswalt, CC Sabathia, Kevin Slowey, David Price, Jeremy Guthrie, John Maine, Gil Meche, Francisco Rodriguez, Heath Bell, Chad Qualls
The Filthy Italians (Blaine Curcio):
Hitters: Brian McCann, Mark Teixeira, Chone Figgins, Evan Longoria, Elvis Andrus, Manny Ramirez, Raul Ibanez, Andre Ethier, Adrian Gonzalez
Pitchers: John Lackey, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Francisco Liriano, Erik Bedard, Hiroki Kuroda, Kenshin Kawakami, Brett Anderson, Jose Valverde, Trevor Hoffman, (Yu Darvish)
Balco Bobbleheads (Dave Creagh):
Hitters: Kelly Shoppach, Joey Votto, Dan Uggla, Alex Gordon, Hanley Ramirez, Ichiro Suzuki, Jayson Werth, Carlos Quentin, Adam Dunn
Pitchers: Ricky Nolasco, Cole Hamels, Chris Young, John Danks, Chien-Ming Wang, Jered Weaver, Fausto Carmona, Matt Capps, Joey Devine, Brandon Lyon, Chris Ray
I’m sure we’ll give updates as the season progresses.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: Tom Nielsen won this league in 2007.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Thoughts From the First Round
After today’s slate of games, my bracket is still intact in my pool, but it is battered. The two big upsets from the first round would have to be Dayton beating West Virginia and Cleveland State just dropping Wake Forest like 3rd period English.
Sunday, Cleveland State takes on an Arizona team that barely got into the tournament, so I think they have a shot at advancing to the Sweet 16. Cleveland St. forces a lot of turnovers (18 against Wake Forest Friday night), which is a good thing for a Cinderella to continue to advance. Dayton will take on Kansas on Sunday, which should be a good game. Dayton won thanks to shooting 46% from the field and 40% from beyond the arc for the game, and a career high 27 points from Chris Wright. If they are to win on Sunday they will probably need a similar shooting performance from the entire team and help from an inexperienced Kansas squad.
I don’t see any big upsets happening tomorrow but Sunday could provide a different story with Dayton, Cleveland St., Arizona, and Wisconsin in action. I like Wisconsin to beat Xavier and advance to the Sweet 16 as well as Cleveland St. to beat Arizona.
I love the transitions that CBS does during their telecast but I really wish someone would step in and provide a vocal transition so I don’t get confused in what game I’m being switched to. There were multiple times when CBS would switch from the Wisconsin-Florida State game to the Ohio State-Siena game without verbal warning and I was thrown for a moment or two. Hopefully this gets corrected as the tournament progresses and this was just a first round thing.
Enjoy the 2nd Round!
Sunday, Cleveland State takes on an Arizona team that barely got into the tournament, so I think they have a shot at advancing to the Sweet 16. Cleveland St. forces a lot of turnovers (18 against Wake Forest Friday night), which is a good thing for a Cinderella to continue to advance. Dayton will take on Kansas on Sunday, which should be a good game. Dayton won thanks to shooting 46% from the field and 40% from beyond the arc for the game, and a career high 27 points from Chris Wright. If they are to win on Sunday they will probably need a similar shooting performance from the entire team and help from an inexperienced Kansas squad.
I don’t see any big upsets happening tomorrow but Sunday could provide a different story with Dayton, Cleveland St., Arizona, and Wisconsin in action. I like Wisconsin to beat Xavier and advance to the Sweet 16 as well as Cleveland St. to beat Arizona.
I love the transitions that CBS does during their telecast but I really wish someone would step in and provide a vocal transition so I don’t get confused in what game I’m being switched to. There were multiple times when CBS would switch from the Wisconsin-Florida State game to the Ohio State-Siena game without verbal warning and I was thrown for a moment or two. Hopefully this gets corrected as the tournament progresses and this was just a first round thing.
Enjoy the 2nd Round!
Friday, March 20, 2009
World Baseball Classic, March Madness, and the Champions League Quarterfinals
WBC Update
Team USA will be playing Japan in the semifinals of the WBC, pitting my home country against the team that I've been rooting for the entire time. I'll continue rooting for Japan, and continue getting yelled at by Tom for it. For the USA-Japan game, Japan should be able to beat a much-injured USA team fairly easily, given the fact that they've beaten every team not called South Korea so far this year. Presumably, Japan will be starting Daisuke Matsuzaka, who has made the WBC his personal showcase for brilliance, and the US will most likely start Jake Peavy, who has been pretty horrible so far in the WBC. Also, apparently, I heard at some point that the US is playing Adam Dunn at 1st base, although I'm not 100% sure on that. If that's the case, expect Dunn to get exposed for a piss-poor 1st baseman against the smallball, infield single loving Japanese team.
Korea-Venezuela should be a fairly interesting game as well. Korea has thus far vastly exceeded expectations, and Venezuela has seemed to just be able to hang around for long enough to get into the semis, rather than dominate every game like Korea has. I've got to pick Venezuela here, as I'd assume they'll start King Felix, who has looked pretty beastly so far during the tourney, and I'm not sure that Bong Jung-Keun, South Korea's ace so far, will be available on 3 days rest. Either way, expect Venezuela to win this game, and lose to the Kamikazes in the final.
March Madness musings from Day 1
U of I found a way to lose to a team called the hilltoppers. Personally I largely blame Bruce Weber. He was complaining about having to go all the way to Portland, and was complaining about calls an incredible amount throughout the game. He seemed to spend too much time whining and not enough time realizing that his team was down by 10 the whole game. On a related note, in case you haven't seem Obama's bracket, its the least creative thing I've ever seen. He may have had like 2 upsets, and they were like 9 over 8. Pretty bad.
Good win for LSU yesterday, they're well on their way to winning a national title.
Maryland looked pretty impressive in their win over Cal, they may be able to make some noise against an overrated Memphis team that's played Junior College teams for the last 2 months.
Champions League Draw
For the quarterfinals of the Champions league, the draws are as follows
Villareal-Arsenal
You'd have to assume that Arsenal should be able to pull off a relatively easy win here, they're playing pretty well and are better overall in just about every way than Villareal.
Manchester United-FC Porto
Manchester United will win this matchup against a hugely overmatched FC Porto club.
Liverpool-Chelsea
This is probably the most interesting of the 4 matchups, as the teams are relatively equally matched and are both suffering from inner-turmoil. Look for Liverpool to pull it off, as they are generally just unbelievably clutch in the Champions League.
Barcelona-Bayern Munich
Barcelona should be able to beat Bayern, although Bayern has been playing extremely well lately. Look for Barca to win big and home and draw or lose a close one in Munich, winning on aggregate.
Team USA will be playing Japan in the semifinals of the WBC, pitting my home country against the team that I've been rooting for the entire time. I'll continue rooting for Japan, and continue getting yelled at by Tom for it. For the USA-Japan game, Japan should be able to beat a much-injured USA team fairly easily, given the fact that they've beaten every team not called South Korea so far this year. Presumably, Japan will be starting Daisuke Matsuzaka, who has made the WBC his personal showcase for brilliance, and the US will most likely start Jake Peavy, who has been pretty horrible so far in the WBC. Also, apparently, I heard at some point that the US is playing Adam Dunn at 1st base, although I'm not 100% sure on that. If that's the case, expect Dunn to get exposed for a piss-poor 1st baseman against the smallball, infield single loving Japanese team.
Korea-Venezuela should be a fairly interesting game as well. Korea has thus far vastly exceeded expectations, and Venezuela has seemed to just be able to hang around for long enough to get into the semis, rather than dominate every game like Korea has. I've got to pick Venezuela here, as I'd assume they'll start King Felix, who has looked pretty beastly so far during the tourney, and I'm not sure that Bong Jung-Keun, South Korea's ace so far, will be available on 3 days rest. Either way, expect Venezuela to win this game, and lose to the Kamikazes in the final.
March Madness musings from Day 1
U of I found a way to lose to a team called the hilltoppers. Personally I largely blame Bruce Weber. He was complaining about having to go all the way to Portland, and was complaining about calls an incredible amount throughout the game. He seemed to spend too much time whining and not enough time realizing that his team was down by 10 the whole game. On a related note, in case you haven't seem Obama's bracket, its the least creative thing I've ever seen. He may have had like 2 upsets, and they were like 9 over 8. Pretty bad.
Good win for LSU yesterday, they're well on their way to winning a national title.
Maryland looked pretty impressive in their win over Cal, they may be able to make some noise against an overrated Memphis team that's played Junior College teams for the last 2 months.
Champions League Draw
For the quarterfinals of the Champions league, the draws are as follows
Villareal-Arsenal
You'd have to assume that Arsenal should be able to pull off a relatively easy win here, they're playing pretty well and are better overall in just about every way than Villareal.
Manchester United-FC Porto
Manchester United will win this matchup against a hugely overmatched FC Porto club.
Liverpool-Chelsea
This is probably the most interesting of the 4 matchups, as the teams are relatively equally matched and are both suffering from inner-turmoil. Look for Liverpool to pull it off, as they are generally just unbelievably clutch in the Champions League.
Barcelona-Bayern Munich
Barcelona should be able to beat Bayern, although Bayern has been playing extremely well lately. Look for Barca to win big and home and draw or lose a close one in Munich, winning on aggregate.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Who was the best team in the 1920s?
Here is the second installment of the ongoing series of simulations by decade. Today we will simulate the 1920s.
Division One
Division Two
The race in Division One came down to the final day, when the ’21 Yankees defeated the ’22 Cardinals 4-1 to force a one-game playoff with the ’27 Pirates. The Yankees won the playoff 6-2 behind a 131-pitch complete game effort by Bob Shawkey, who also went 2-4 at the plate with 1 RBI. The race in Division Two was not nearly so close, with the legendary 1927 Yankees with their Murderer’s Row running away with it, winning the division by an astounding 19 games, as the only team with a winning record.
Division Series
1927 New York (A) def. 1921 New York (A), 3-2: The ’21 version of the Yankees got off to a 2-0 lead in this series with two one-run victories. In game three, Murderer’s Row came alive for the ’27 Yankees, rapping out 13 hits in a 13-9 win, and Herb Pennock went 9 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 K in game 4 for a 4-1 victory. The 1927 Yankees won game 5 6-4 to finish up the series.
1928 St. Louis (N) def. 1929 Philadelphia (A), 3-1: The first two games were split, and in game 3, St. Louis rode a 6-hit shutout by Bill Sherdel to win 11-0, and won game 4 11-10 to move on to the championship series.
1920s Championship Series
1928 St. Louis (N) def. 1927 New York (A), 4-3: The first two games were split, and again in game 3, St. Louis pitcher Bill Sherdel tossed a gem, going 9 innings and giving up 7 hits and 1 earned run in a 3-1 win. In game 4, Flint Rhem and Art Reinhart combined to one-hit the powerful Yankee offense to give the 1928 St. Louis Cardinals a 3-1 series lead. Still, the Yankees would not go away, winning the next two games to force the series to a winner-takes-all game 7. St. Louis got 4 quick runs in the first with help from a 3-run Chick Hafey home run, and did not look back, shocking the favored Yankees.
Champion: 1928 St. Louis Cardinals
Stats of some notable players:
-Paul Waner, 1927 Pittsburgh: 48 2B, 21 3B, 132 R, 147 RBI, .424 (led league)/.509/.626
-Babe Ruth, 1921 New York (A): 58 HR, 167 RBI, 175 R (led league), .387/.531 (led league)/.891 (led league). Ruth’s OPS of 1.422 would have been the best of all-time.
-Babe Ruth, 1927 New York (A): 59 HR (led league), 173 RBI (led league), 165 R, .364/.483/.770
-Lou Gehrig, 1927 New York (A): 53 HR, 160 RBI, 147 R, .342/.460/.752
-Wilcy Moore, 1927 New York (A): 15-8, 10 S, 2.78 ERA, 1.18 WHIP in 12 GS and 35 as a reliever with 7 CG.
-Waite Hoyt, 1927 New York (A): 22-2, 3.12 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 19 CG, 265 IP. This was the lowest ERA by a regular starter by 0.59 runs, as number two was Carl Mays and his 3.71 ERA.
-This league had 0 pitchers with an ERA under 2.00, as opposed to the previous decade, which had 19. This decade’s lowest ERA was 2.78.
-38 hitters had batting averages over .300 in this 11 team league. 29 hitters had a batting average over .300 in 2008, in a 30 team league. In the 1900-1919 league, only 3 hitters had a batting average over .300. This really shows how quickly hitting overtook pitching in just one decade.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: The .400 barrier was broken 7 times in the 1920s. Rogers Hornsby hit .401 in 1922, .424 in 1924, and .403 in 1925. George Sisler hit .407 in 1920 and .420 in 1922. Ty Cobb hit .401 in 1922 and Harry Heilmann hit .403 in 1923. These account for 7 of the 13 .400 seasons since 1900.
Division One
| 1929 Philadelphia (A) | 84 | 66 | - |
| 1921 New York (A) | 82 | 68 | 2 |
| 1927 Pittsburgh | 82 | 68 | 2 |
| 1925 Washington | 74 | 76 | 10 |
| 1928 New York (A) | 74 | 76 | 10 |
| 1923 New York (N) | 66 | 84 | 18 |
Division Two
| 1927 New York (A) | 93 | 57 | - |
| 1928 St. Louis (N) | 74 | 76 | 19 |
| 1922 St. Louis (A) | 67 | 83 | 26 |
| 1924 New York (N) | 65 | 85 | 28 |
| 1929 Chicago (N) | 64 | 86 | 29 |
The race in Division One came down to the final day, when the ’21 Yankees defeated the ’22 Cardinals 4-1 to force a one-game playoff with the ’27 Pirates. The Yankees won the playoff 6-2 behind a 131-pitch complete game effort by Bob Shawkey, who also went 2-4 at the plate with 1 RBI. The race in Division Two was not nearly so close, with the legendary 1927 Yankees with their Murderer’s Row running away with it, winning the division by an astounding 19 games, as the only team with a winning record.
Division Series
1927 New York (A) def. 1921 New York (A), 3-2: The ’21 version of the Yankees got off to a 2-0 lead in this series with two one-run victories. In game three, Murderer’s Row came alive for the ’27 Yankees, rapping out 13 hits in a 13-9 win, and Herb Pennock went 9 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 K in game 4 for a 4-1 victory. The 1927 Yankees won game 5 6-4 to finish up the series.
1928 St. Louis (N) def. 1929 Philadelphia (A), 3-1: The first two games were split, and in game 3, St. Louis rode a 6-hit shutout by Bill Sherdel to win 11-0, and won game 4 11-10 to move on to the championship series.
1920s Championship Series
1928 St. Louis (N) def. 1927 New York (A), 4-3: The first two games were split, and again in game 3, St. Louis pitcher Bill Sherdel tossed a gem, going 9 innings and giving up 7 hits and 1 earned run in a 3-1 win. In game 4, Flint Rhem and Art Reinhart combined to one-hit the powerful Yankee offense to give the 1928 St. Louis Cardinals a 3-1 series lead. Still, the Yankees would not go away, winning the next two games to force the series to a winner-takes-all game 7. St. Louis got 4 quick runs in the first with help from a 3-run Chick Hafey home run, and did not look back, shocking the favored Yankees.
Champion: 1928 St. Louis Cardinals
Stats of some notable players:
-Paul Waner, 1927 Pittsburgh: 48 2B, 21 3B, 132 R, 147 RBI, .424 (led league)/.509/.626
-Babe Ruth, 1921 New York (A): 58 HR, 167 RBI, 175 R (led league), .387/.531 (led league)/.891 (led league). Ruth’s OPS of 1.422 would have been the best of all-time.
-Babe Ruth, 1927 New York (A): 59 HR (led league), 173 RBI (led league), 165 R, .364/.483/.770
-Lou Gehrig, 1927 New York (A): 53 HR, 160 RBI, 147 R, .342/.460/.752
-Wilcy Moore, 1927 New York (A): 15-8, 10 S, 2.78 ERA, 1.18 WHIP in 12 GS and 35 as a reliever with 7 CG.
-Waite Hoyt, 1927 New York (A): 22-2, 3.12 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 19 CG, 265 IP. This was the lowest ERA by a regular starter by 0.59 runs, as number two was Carl Mays and his 3.71 ERA.
-This league had 0 pitchers with an ERA under 2.00, as opposed to the previous decade, which had 19. This decade’s lowest ERA was 2.78.
-38 hitters had batting averages over .300 in this 11 team league. 29 hitters had a batting average over .300 in 2008, in a 30 team league. In the 1900-1919 league, only 3 hitters had a batting average over .300. This really shows how quickly hitting overtook pitching in just one decade.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: The .400 barrier was broken 7 times in the 1920s. Rogers Hornsby hit .401 in 1922, .424 in 1924, and .403 in 1925. George Sisler hit .407 in 1920 and .420 in 1922. Ty Cobb hit .401 in 1922 and Harry Heilmann hit .403 in 1923. These account for 7 of the 13 .400 seasons since 1900.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Is Matt Cain Really That Unlucky?
Well for a couple of years now, I have sat here and listened to Blaine complain about Matt Cain’s run support. It has been fairly well documented that he somehow manages to get virtually no run support ever. In 2007, he got an average run support of 3.16 runs per game, good for last in the league, while the Giants scored 4.48 runs per game when Cain did not pitch. In 2008, Cain got an average run support of 3.18 runs per game, again good for last in the league, while the Giants scored 4.15 runs per game when he did not pitch. It may interest some to know whether or not this difference is due to random chance or if it is statistically significant. To figure this out, we will perform a t-test for difference in means. Pretty much what this does is take two samples of data (runs per game when Cain pitches and runs per game when Cain does not pitch) and it sees if there is a statistically significant difference in the runs scored per game between the two categories.
Skipping the statistical mumbo-jumbo, it is quickly found that the difference is, unsurprisingly, statistically significant. In 2007 we obtain a p-value of 0.0129 and in 2008 the p-value is 0.0190. Essentially, a p-value of 0.0129 means that there is only a 1.129% chance that a difference in means that large is due to random chance alone. The fact that for two straight years there was a p-value that low means that something else is amiss here. Whether it is Cain’s notoriously bad hitting (11 hits the past two years), terrible luck, or the other Giants players simply not wanting to score runs for Cain, the Giants really do score significantly less runs when he is on the mound. It will be interesting to see if he can reverse that trend this year.
I would also like to say that I wish Major League Baseball had more fans like the fans we see at some World Baseball Classic games. I am currently watching the Korea-Japan game and it is amazing to see the Korean and Japanese fans constantly making noise with thundersticks, waving flags, and chanting and singing throughout the game. This is similar to the atmosphere you often see at soccer matches, especially abroad. It would be really cool if there could be even just one section at every major league park that would be like this. I know that it would most likely never happen due to logistical issues, but the atmosphere that these fans bring to games is undeniable.
And for some world sports notes:
-Jo Jackson set a world record in the women’s 400-meter freestyle swim at the British swimming championships on Monday with a time of 4:00.66.
-Twenty teams will compete in the 2009 Tour de France, with a total of 180 riders. The Tour starts July 4 in Monaco.
-After recovering from a boating accident, double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius will compete at the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester in the 100-meter and 400-meter sprints. Pistorius won three gold medals at the Paralympic Games in Beijing last year, after nearly qualifying for the Olympic Games in the 400-meter dash.
-The Oregon Ducks won the NCAA Men’s Indoor Track and Field Championships with 54 points beating second-place Florida, who finished with 36 points. Clemson wide receiver Jacoby Ford won the 60-meter dash with a time of 6.52 seconds. On the women’s side, Tennessee came in first with 42 points over second-place Texas A&M, who had 37 points.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: Of Matt Cain’s 20 career hits, 17 have come when his team is ahead, 2 in a tie game, and just 1 when his team is behind. I find this pretty amazing.
Skipping the statistical mumbo-jumbo, it is quickly found that the difference is, unsurprisingly, statistically significant. In 2007 we obtain a p-value of 0.0129 and in 2008 the p-value is 0.0190. Essentially, a p-value of 0.0129 means that there is only a 1.129% chance that a difference in means that large is due to random chance alone. The fact that for two straight years there was a p-value that low means that something else is amiss here. Whether it is Cain’s notoriously bad hitting (11 hits the past two years), terrible luck, or the other Giants players simply not wanting to score runs for Cain, the Giants really do score significantly less runs when he is on the mound. It will be interesting to see if he can reverse that trend this year.
I would also like to say that I wish Major League Baseball had more fans like the fans we see at some World Baseball Classic games. I am currently watching the Korea-Japan game and it is amazing to see the Korean and Japanese fans constantly making noise with thundersticks, waving flags, and chanting and singing throughout the game. This is similar to the atmosphere you often see at soccer matches, especially abroad. It would be really cool if there could be even just one section at every major league park that would be like this. I know that it would most likely never happen due to logistical issues, but the atmosphere that these fans bring to games is undeniable.
And for some world sports notes:
-Jo Jackson set a world record in the women’s 400-meter freestyle swim at the British swimming championships on Monday with a time of 4:00.66.
-Twenty teams will compete in the 2009 Tour de France, with a total of 180 riders. The Tour starts July 4 in Monaco.
-After recovering from a boating accident, double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius will compete at the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester in the 100-meter and 400-meter sprints. Pistorius won three gold medals at the Paralympic Games in Beijing last year, after nearly qualifying for the Olympic Games in the 400-meter dash.
-The Oregon Ducks won the NCAA Men’s Indoor Track and Field Championships with 54 points beating second-place Florida, who finished with 36 points. Clemson wide receiver Jacoby Ford won the 60-meter dash with a time of 6.52 seconds. On the women’s side, Tennessee came in first with 42 points over second-place Texas A&M, who had 37 points.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: Of Matt Cain’s 20 career hits, 17 have come when his team is ahead, 2 in a tie game, and just 1 when his team is behind. I find this pretty amazing.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
World Baseball Classic Thoughts
Watching David Wright hit the walk-off double to send the Americans to the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic made me realize that Opening Day is close and got me real excited for baseball again. While that game got me excited it also provided me to think that the World Baseball Classic is a tournament that needs some tweaking for it to really be good.
Scheduling is the biggest thing that needs to be changed because now the U.S. is facing a Venezuela team that hasn’t lost in this pool to determine the pool winner. What doesn’t make sense from this is that the U.S. has already lost a game in this round so if the Americans were to win then both teams would have the same record but the US would be the pool winner. Venezuela should be the pool winner and USA the pool runner-up. This tournament also needs a lot less off days as well. This is still spring training for most of the players and they’re being asked to give it all that they have for a game and then take a day off then put it all back out there to get another day off. As a result of this scheduling it leaves players susceptible to injuries. The number of off-days should be limited and eliminate the games that prove to be meaningless.
The other gripe that I have about the Classic is that Puerto Rico is its own country for the tournament. If Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory then the players from that territory should be eligible for the USA team. This is most certainly my pride as an American coming out but if a territory is part of the United States, the U.S. should be able to use the people from that country to make a team for an international tournament. If Puerto Rico and the United States combined squads it would leave Davey Johnson with more options and not have him contemplating having to forfeit games due to the number of injuries.
Overall, this tournament has won me over. I was not the biggest fan of this back in 2006 and wasn’t too excited heading into it this season. But with the success of the United States and the chance to see international talent, this tournament is growing on me. I think some of the American players who declined their invite to this team will reconsider for the next WBC if they saw tonight’s game and if the United States wins it all. The emotion that was displayed after that game was like October baseball and a feeling that any ballplayer wants to be a part of. This has the potential to be a great thing especially if Olympic Baseball is gone forever; it just needs a few adjustments.
Scheduling is the biggest thing that needs to be changed because now the U.S. is facing a Venezuela team that hasn’t lost in this pool to determine the pool winner. What doesn’t make sense from this is that the U.S. has already lost a game in this round so if the Americans were to win then both teams would have the same record but the US would be the pool winner. Venezuela should be the pool winner and USA the pool runner-up. This tournament also needs a lot less off days as well. This is still spring training for most of the players and they’re being asked to give it all that they have for a game and then take a day off then put it all back out there to get another day off. As a result of this scheduling it leaves players susceptible to injuries. The number of off-days should be limited and eliminate the games that prove to be meaningless.
The other gripe that I have about the Classic is that Puerto Rico is its own country for the tournament. If Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory then the players from that territory should be eligible for the USA team. This is most certainly my pride as an American coming out but if a territory is part of the United States, the U.S. should be able to use the people from that country to make a team for an international tournament. If Puerto Rico and the United States combined squads it would leave Davey Johnson with more options and not have him contemplating having to forfeit games due to the number of injuries.
Overall, this tournament has won me over. I was not the biggest fan of this back in 2006 and wasn’t too excited heading into it this season. But with the success of the United States and the chance to see international talent, this tournament is growing on me. I think some of the American players who declined their invite to this team will reconsider for the next WBC if they saw tonight’s game and if the United States wins it all. The emotion that was displayed after that game was like October baseball and a feeling that any ballplayer wants to be a part of. This has the potential to be a great thing especially if Olympic Baseball is gone forever; it just needs a few adjustments.
Porcello and Beckham starting a new trend
It’s not supposed to work this way, when you’re a 20 to 24 year old with a lack of professional baseball experience. You’re not supposed to even be considered for the Major League Club. But Rick Porcello and Gordon Beckham are trying to prove you don’t need time in the minors to be successful. Porcello is 20 years old and has accumulated less than 125 innings in his professional career in the Detroit Tigers’ minor league system. Beckham is an infield prospect for the Chicago White Sox; he was drafted in last year’s draft out of the University of Georgia. Both players went into Spring Training with outsiders expecting them to be in the minor leagues this season. Both however, have proven that they have the skills to compete right now on the major league level.
Porcello draws comparisons to Brandon Webb with his 93-95 mph sinker and is mentally strong enough to handle the pressure that comes with pitching in the big leagues. There also is a potential opening in the Tigers’ rotation with Dontrelle Willis still not able to find home plate and Nate Robertson just being bad, and the injury to Jeremy Bonderman. The problem Porcello is facing is that he is 20 years old and General Manager Dave Dombrowski doesn’t want to rush the pitcher. They say that if he makes the team he will be under strict pitch counts, which could tax the bullpen every fifth day. If he is rushed and fails he could develop into another Jeff Weaver, a mental case of a pitcher who never quite reaches his full potential. Manager Jim Leyland wants Porcello to head north with the Tigers when camp breaks in a few weeks. And it’s clear why he thinks that, Porcello has a lot of talent and talent is what the Tigers rotation needs if they want to contend in a fairly even American League Central this season.
For the White Sox, Beckham wasn’t even considered an option at second base this season. It was supposed to be a battle between Chris Getz, Brent Lillibridge and Jason Nix, but Beckham is not letting Ozzie Guillen or Kenny Williams forget about him. Beckham was thought to start the season in AA with the Birmingham Barons due to the fact he was drafted last year and didn’t make his professional debut until late in the season. But this spring Beckham is hitting .321 with seven of his nine hits going for extra bases and two of those being home runs. Beckham seems to be the future at second base for the White Sox so it would make sense to just let him take over now and let him grow into the position, but there is also the thought that giving him a little time to polish his game in the minors couldn’t hurt his development. The other argument that is being made is that the White Sox should wait until May to call up Beckham so they have control over him for another year (this is what the Rays did with Evan Longoria last season). People are also arguing that bringing up Beckham would hurt his development if it is discovered that he is overmatched to begin the season. I personally don’t agree with that argument, and I think if he struggles he’d welcome a move to the minors to work on his game. Beckham could potentially provide the White Sox with the leadoff hitter they desperately need to compete and fill one of the many holes experts think the White Sox have.
In my opinion if a player is competing against other major leaguers and having success doing so they should be rewarded for their performance. If the player will give you team the best chance to win right now, he should be on the team, if there is something he can work on, then keep him in the minors with the notion that he will be in the majors when the flaw in his game is corrected. If Porcello can get batters out and Beckham can handle second base both offensively and defensively then both should be on the opening day rosters for the respective clubs.
Porcello draws comparisons to Brandon Webb with his 93-95 mph sinker and is mentally strong enough to handle the pressure that comes with pitching in the big leagues. There also is a potential opening in the Tigers’ rotation with Dontrelle Willis still not able to find home plate and Nate Robertson just being bad, and the injury to Jeremy Bonderman. The problem Porcello is facing is that he is 20 years old and General Manager Dave Dombrowski doesn’t want to rush the pitcher. They say that if he makes the team he will be under strict pitch counts, which could tax the bullpen every fifth day. If he is rushed and fails he could develop into another Jeff Weaver, a mental case of a pitcher who never quite reaches his full potential. Manager Jim Leyland wants Porcello to head north with the Tigers when camp breaks in a few weeks. And it’s clear why he thinks that, Porcello has a lot of talent and talent is what the Tigers rotation needs if they want to contend in a fairly even American League Central this season.
For the White Sox, Beckham wasn’t even considered an option at second base this season. It was supposed to be a battle between Chris Getz, Brent Lillibridge and Jason Nix, but Beckham is not letting Ozzie Guillen or Kenny Williams forget about him. Beckham was thought to start the season in AA with the Birmingham Barons due to the fact he was drafted last year and didn’t make his professional debut until late in the season. But this spring Beckham is hitting .321 with seven of his nine hits going for extra bases and two of those being home runs. Beckham seems to be the future at second base for the White Sox so it would make sense to just let him take over now and let him grow into the position, but there is also the thought that giving him a little time to polish his game in the minors couldn’t hurt his development. The other argument that is being made is that the White Sox should wait until May to call up Beckham so they have control over him for another year (this is what the Rays did with Evan Longoria last season). People are also arguing that bringing up Beckham would hurt his development if it is discovered that he is overmatched to begin the season. I personally don’t agree with that argument, and I think if he struggles he’d welcome a move to the minors to work on his game. Beckham could potentially provide the White Sox with the leadoff hitter they desperately need to compete and fill one of the many holes experts think the White Sox have.
In my opinion if a player is competing against other major leaguers and having success doing so they should be rewarded for their performance. If the player will give you team the best chance to win right now, he should be on the team, if there is something he can work on, then keep him in the minors with the notion that he will be in the majors when the flaw in his game is corrected. If Porcello can get batters out and Beckham can handle second base both offensively and defensively then both should be on the opening day rosters for the respective clubs.
Monday, March 16, 2009
David Ortiz's Home Run Distribution in Relation to Game Score
Well for a while I had wanted to crunch some numbers, so for no particular reason I will examine the home run totals of David Ortiz in relation to the relative score of the game. We will find out if he hits more home runs in closer games, and if any difference between his actual home run distribution and his expected home run distribution is statistically significant. I’ll try to keep it as basic as possible, but when I can I’ll provide links if you want to read more about some stuff I talk about.
First, here is the table indicating how many home runs David Ortiz hit in each run differential situation (+4… means up by 4 or more runs, +3 means up by 3 runs, etc.) and his expected home runs in each situation. For example, about 12% (651 out of 5428) of David Ortiz’s plate appearances came when his team was up by 4 or more runs. Therefore, if he hits home runs at consistent rates no matter what the score is, 12% of his home runs should come when his team is up by 4 or more runs, or 34.66 of his 289 home runs. The “X^2 Value” is the Chi-Squared value for each situation. In a sentence, a Chi-Square test determines if something is independently distributed, i.e., this test will tell us if David Ortiz’s home runs are not independently distributed across each run differential based on how many plate appearances he has for each situation. If you don’t care to learn about chi-square tests, you can completely ignore this past sentence and the numbers in the bottom row, because I’ll explain everything without fancy numbers.
And the data graphically:
Just by looking at the data, the expected home runs match up with the actual home runs pretty well, and the test supports that conclusion; David Ortiz’s home runs are distributed among each run differential as they should be based on his plate appearances for each situation.
However, this does not tell the whole story. As Ortiz has spent most of his career hitting third, he nearly always starts the game with a plate appearance in a tied game. Also, when you come up down one or tied in the 3rd or 4th inning, it is much different than doing so in the 8th or 9th. It may be more interesting to look at these same numbers restricted to the 7th inning or later. So let’s do that. Here is the same table as before, but now it only includes plate appearances and home runs in the 7th inning or later.
And the data graphically:
Here, the story looks a little different. The test still tells us that as a whole, David Ortiz’s home runs are distributed as they should be based on his plate appearances. However, the one weakness of the chi-square test is that it only looks at distributions as a whole and is not able to tell if single differences are statistically significant. As is plain from the graph, there is a large discrepancy between Ortiz’s expected home runs in tied games after the 7th inning and his actual home runs, a difference that could somewhat be seen in the previous graph. To be exact, he was only expected to hit 12.44 home runs in those situations, but in his career he has hit 20. A similar phenomenon can be seen when his team is up or down by 4 or more runs. In those less pressure-packed (and less important) situations, Ortiz hits less home runs than he should. There are two possible explanations for this. One is that the difference is not significant at all, and that it is just random chance that accounts for this. The second is that Ortiz simply tries harder in those situations. If the game is close late, a hitter will be concentrating more and it is possible he will perform better. If the outcome is already decided, a player like David Ortiz will likely be mailing it in, and therefore may hit less home runs. I am of the opinion that for the situations where the game is decided, the second explanation works, that Ortiz will not be trying as hard. However, I think it is much harder to “turn it on” in late and close situations. The difference in home runs in late tie games is likely due to chance, not Ortiz’s so-called clutch hitting ability. Still, the debate about clutch hitting is a never ending one that has yet to be firmly answered with statistics. You will have to form your own opinion on this one.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: Of David Ortiz’s 9 career walk-off home runs, 4 have been hit to right field, 3 to center field, 1 to left-center field, and 1 to left field.
P.S. If anybody has an interesting baseball question that maybe can be answered with numbers or otherwise, post it in the comments, I'd be more than happy to have some ideas to play around with.
First, here is the table indicating how many home runs David Ortiz hit in each run differential situation (+4… means up by 4 or more runs, +3 means up by 3 runs, etc.) and his expected home runs in each situation. For example, about 12% (651 out of 5428) of David Ortiz’s plate appearances came when his team was up by 4 or more runs. Therefore, if he hits home runs at consistent rates no matter what the score is, 12% of his home runs should come when his team is up by 4 or more runs, or 34.66 of his 289 home runs. The “X^2 Value” is the Chi-Squared value for each situation. In a sentence, a Chi-Square test determines if something is independently distributed, i.e., this test will tell us if David Ortiz’s home runs are not independently distributed across each run differential based on how many plate appearances he has for each situation. If you don’t care to learn about chi-square tests, you can completely ignore this past sentence and the numbers in the bottom row, because I’ll explain everything without fancy numbers.
| Score | +4… | +3 | +2 | 1 | Tied | -1 | -2 | -3 | -4… | Total |
| PA | 651 | 323 | 415 | 584 | 1498 | 613 | 451 | 287 | 606 | 5428 |
| HR | 29 | 21 | 30 | 23 | 89 | 33 | 22 | 13 | 29 | 289 |
| Exp. HR | 34.66 | 17.20 | 22.10 | 31.09 | 79.76 | 32.64 | 24.01 | 15.28 | 32.26 | 289 |
| X^2 Value | 0.925 | 0.841 | 2.828 | 2.107 | 1.071 | 0.004 | 0.169 | 0.340 | 0.330 | 8.614 |
And the data graphically:
Just by looking at the data, the expected home runs match up with the actual home runs pretty well, and the test supports that conclusion; David Ortiz’s home runs are distributed among each run differential as they should be based on his plate appearances for each situation.
However, this does not tell the whole story. As Ortiz has spent most of his career hitting third, he nearly always starts the game with a plate appearance in a tied game. Also, when you come up down one or tied in the 3rd or 4th inning, it is much different than doing so in the 8th or 9th. It may be more interesting to look at these same numbers restricted to the 7th inning or later. So let’s do that. Here is the same table as before, but now it only includes plate appearances and home runs in the 7th inning or later.
| Score | +4… | +3 | +2 | +1 | Tied | -1 | -2 | -3 | -4… | Total |
| PA | 296 | 102 | 128 | 144 | 232 | 173 | 160 | 122 | 321 | 1678 |
| HR | 14 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 20 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 13 | 90 |
| Exp. HR | 15.88 | 5.47 | 6.87 | 7.72 | 12.44 | 9.28 | 8.58 | 6.54 | 17.22 | 90 |
| X^2 Value | 0.222 | 0.051 | 0.664 | 0.385 | 4.589 | 0.319 | 1.495 | 0.045 | 1.033 | 8.802 |
And the data graphically:
Here, the story looks a little different. The test still tells us that as a whole, David Ortiz’s home runs are distributed as they should be based on his plate appearances. However, the one weakness of the chi-square test is that it only looks at distributions as a whole and is not able to tell if single differences are statistically significant. As is plain from the graph, there is a large discrepancy between Ortiz’s expected home runs in tied games after the 7th inning and his actual home runs, a difference that could somewhat be seen in the previous graph. To be exact, he was only expected to hit 12.44 home runs in those situations, but in his career he has hit 20. A similar phenomenon can be seen when his team is up or down by 4 or more runs. In those less pressure-packed (and less important) situations, Ortiz hits less home runs than he should. There are two possible explanations for this. One is that the difference is not significant at all, and that it is just random chance that accounts for this. The second is that Ortiz simply tries harder in those situations. If the game is close late, a hitter will be concentrating more and it is possible he will perform better. If the outcome is already decided, a player like David Ortiz will likely be mailing it in, and therefore may hit less home runs. I am of the opinion that for the situations where the game is decided, the second explanation works, that Ortiz will not be trying as hard. However, I think it is much harder to “turn it on” in late and close situations. The difference in home runs in late tie games is likely due to chance, not Ortiz’s so-called clutch hitting ability. Still, the debate about clutch hitting is a never ending one that has yet to be firmly answered with statistics. You will have to form your own opinion on this one.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: Of David Ortiz’s 9 career walk-off home runs, 4 have been hit to right field, 3 to center field, 1 to left-center field, and 1 to left field.
P.S. If anybody has an interesting baseball question that maybe can be answered with numbers or otherwise, post it in the comments, I'd be more than happy to have some ideas to play around with.
Tournament Picks
First off, i think it was a good choice to not let ISU play in the tourney, because we would have beat everyone by 50, and we just don't want that kind of lack of suspense. And now without further ado, the most likely scenario for the NCAA tourney-winners are listed
Midwest Bracket
Louisville, Siena, Utah, Wake Forest, Dayton, KU, USC, Michigan State
West Bracket
UCONN, T A&M, Purdue, Mississippi State, Utah State, Cornell, Maryland, Memphis
East Bracket
Pittsburgh, Tennessee, FSU, Xavier, UCLA, Villanova, Minnesota, Duke
South Bracket
North Carolina, LSU, Illinois, Gonzaga, Arizona State, Syracuse, Clemson, Oklahoma
2nd round
Louisville over Siena, Wake Forest over Utah, KU over Dayton, USC over Mich State
UCONN over A&M, Mississippi State over Purdue, Cornell over Utah State, Maryland over Memphis
Pittsburgh over Tennessee, FSU over Xavier, UCLA over Villanova, Minnesota over Duke
LSU over UNC, Illinois over Gonzaga, Syracuse over ASU, Oklahoma over Clemson
Sweet 16
Louisville over Wake Forest, KU over USC, Mississippi State over UCONN, Maryland over Cornell, FSU over Pittsburgh, Minnesota over UCLA, LSU over Illinois, Oklahoma over Syracuse
Elite 8
Louisville over KU, Maryland over Mississippi State, Minnesota over FSU, LSU over Oklahoma
Final 4
Louisville over Maryland, LSU over Minnesota
Championship
Louisville loses to LSU 75-69
Midwest Bracket
Louisville, Siena, Utah, Wake Forest, Dayton, KU, USC, Michigan State
West Bracket
UCONN, T A&M, Purdue, Mississippi State, Utah State, Cornell, Maryland, Memphis
East Bracket
Pittsburgh, Tennessee, FSU, Xavier, UCLA, Villanova, Minnesota, Duke
South Bracket
North Carolina, LSU, Illinois, Gonzaga, Arizona State, Syracuse, Clemson, Oklahoma
2nd round
Louisville over Siena, Wake Forest over Utah, KU over Dayton, USC over Mich State
UCONN over A&M, Mississippi State over Purdue, Cornell over Utah State, Maryland over Memphis
Pittsburgh over Tennessee, FSU over Xavier, UCLA over Villanova, Minnesota over Duke
LSU over UNC, Illinois over Gonzaga, Syracuse over ASU, Oklahoma over Clemson
Sweet 16
Louisville over Wake Forest, KU over USC, Mississippi State over UCONN, Maryland over Cornell, FSU over Pittsburgh, Minnesota over UCLA, LSU over Illinois, Oklahoma over Syracuse
Elite 8
Louisville over KU, Maryland over Mississippi State, Minnesota over FSU, LSU over Oklahoma
Final 4
Louisville over Maryland, LSU over Minnesota
Championship
Louisville loses to LSU 75-69
2009 NCAA Tournament Picks
First Round
Midwest Region: Louisville, Ohio State, Utah, Wake Forest, West Virginia, Kansas, Boston College, and Michigan State
West Region: Connecticut, BYU, Purdue, Washington, Marquette, Missouri, Maryland, and Memphis
East Region: Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Xavier, VCU, Villanova, Texas, and Duke
South Region: North Carolina, LSU, Illinois, Gonzaga, Arizona State, Syracuse, Michigan, and Oklahoma
Second Round
Midwest Region: Louisville, Wake Forest, West Virginia, and Michigan State.
West Region: Connecticut, Purdue, Missouri, and Memphis
East Region: Pittsburgh, Wisconsin, Villanova, and Duke
South Region: North Carolina, Gonzaga, Syracuse, and Oklahoma
Sweet Sixteen
Midwest Region: Louisville and Michigan State
West Region: Purdue and Missouri
East Region: Pittsburgh and Duke
South Region: North Carolina and Oklahoma
Elite Eight
Midwest Region: Louisville over Michigan state
South Region: Missouri over Purdue
East Region: Duke over Pittsburgh
South Region: Oklahoma over North Carolina
Final Four
Midwest vs. West: Louisville over Missouri
East vs. South: Oklahoma over Duke
National Championship
Louisville over Oklahoma, score 76-72
Midwest Region: Louisville, Ohio State, Utah, Wake Forest, West Virginia, Kansas, Boston College, and Michigan State
West Region: Connecticut, BYU, Purdue, Washington, Marquette, Missouri, Maryland, and Memphis
East Region: Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Xavier, VCU, Villanova, Texas, and Duke
South Region: North Carolina, LSU, Illinois, Gonzaga, Arizona State, Syracuse, Michigan, and Oklahoma
Second Round
Midwest Region: Louisville, Wake Forest, West Virginia, and Michigan State.
West Region: Connecticut, Purdue, Missouri, and Memphis
East Region: Pittsburgh, Wisconsin, Villanova, and Duke
South Region: North Carolina, Gonzaga, Syracuse, and Oklahoma
Sweet Sixteen
Midwest Region: Louisville and Michigan State
West Region: Purdue and Missouri
East Region: Pittsburgh and Duke
South Region: North Carolina and Oklahoma
Elite Eight
Midwest Region: Louisville over Michigan state
South Region: Missouri over Purdue
East Region: Duke over Pittsburgh
South Region: Oklahoma over North Carolina
Final Four
Midwest vs. West: Louisville over Missouri
East vs. South: Oklahoma over Duke
National Championship
Louisville over Oklahoma, score 76-72
Play Index and NCAA Picks
I need to write about a new incredible toy I have recently bought. It is the Play Index from Baseball-Reference.com. With the Play Index, you can literally find any stat you have ever dreamed of. You can find consecutive starts with a Game Score of over 70, number of times Albert Pujols has hit a home run in the 4th inning in his career, or the number of times the Red Sox hit a home run to left field at home in 1983. I cannot think of enough words to describe how incredible this service is, so I’ll just give some examples of why it is amazing. (Streak records go back to 1956).
-The record for longest streak of games with at least one extra base hit is held by Chipper Jones, who got an extra base hit in 14 straight games in 2006. This streak included 8 doubles, 1 triple and 7 home runs, and Jones had a .544 average, 1.088 slugging percentage, and 1.688 OPS. This streak raised his average from .283 to .329 from late June to early July.
-The record for most games in a row with a game score of at least 75 is 8, held by Fernando Venezuela, who did it to begin his legendary 1981 season. In total, he was 8-0 with a 0.50 ERA, with 68 K’s in 72 IP and a 0.83 WHIP. Again, this was done in his first 8 career starts!!!
-Five teams have won a game while getting no hits. The most recent happened on June 28, 2008, when the Angels no-hit the Dodgers, but lost 1-0 due to a couple errors, a steal, and a sacrifice fly. On July 1, 1990, the White Sox actually scored 4 runs while getting no hits, beating the Yankees 4-0.
-Of Mark Grace’s 173 home runs, 61 were hit with no outs, 56 with one out, and 56 with two outs. 39 were hit in three-pitch at bats, 38 were hit to right-center field, 9 were hit at Qualcomm Stadium, 67 were hit behind in the count, 25 were hit in the 6th inning, and 4 were walk-off home runs. He hit one home run to center field at Wrigley while he was ahead in the count and hitting clean-up.
-In 1969, the Chicago Cubs were 66-6 (.904) when leading after 6 innings, but 70-7 (.897) when leading after 7 innings.
-The record for most consecutive games where a team hit a home run is held by the Texas Rangers, who hit a home run in 27 consecutive games from August to September, 2002. They went 17-10 in that span with 55 total home runs, on their way to a 72-90 season record.
As you can see, the list of possible things you can look up is literally endless, and once I really figure out what to look for, it will be incredible. This service is a must-have for any serious baseball stathead.
NCAA Tournament Picks
First Round
Louisville (over Alabama State), Ohio State, Utah, Wake Forest, Dayton, North Dakota State, Boston College, Michigan State, Connecticut, BYU, Purdue, Washington, Utah State, Missouri, California, Memphis, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Xavier, UCLA, Villanova, Texas, Duke, North Carolina, Butler, Illinois, Gonzaga, Arizona State, Syracuse, Michigan, Oklahoma
Second Round
Louisville, Wake Forest, Dayton, Michigan State, Connecticut, Purdue, Missouri, Memphis, Pittsburgh, Xavier, UCLA, Duke, North Carolina, Gonzaga, Syracuse, Michigan
Sweet Sixteen
Louisville, Michigan State, Purdue, Memphis, Pittsburgh, Duke, North Carolina, Syracuse
Elite Eight
Michigan State over Louisville, Purdue over Memphis, Duke over Pittsburgh, North Carolina over Syracuse
Final Four
Purdue over Michigan State, Duke over North Carolina
Championship Game
Purdue 68, Duke 63
I know it looks like I am being a homer here, but I think Purdue can pull this off. Having seen Purdue play in person 26 times this year, I know as well as anyone that if Purdue plays as well as it can, we can compete with any team in the nation. Purdue is finally completely healthy and hit its stride at the perfect time in the Big Ten Tournament. Purdue will need some breaks to fall their way, but any team does to win the National Championship, and it may as well be Purdue this year. That said, I do realize that realistically, Purdue will probably be knocked out around the Sweet Sixteen. But statistically speaking, this bracket is just as likely to happen as any other bracket out there, so I figure I may as well pick my team to go all the way.
Interesting baseball fact of the day, if those other ones were not enough: In 1974, the last year Purdue won a postseason championship (The NIT), the Los Angeles Dodgers had the highest single-game total bases total. They had 48 TB in an 18-8 drubbing of the Cubs, with 4 doubles, a triple, and 6 home runs. The second highest single-game total was 36. The record since 1956 is 58, by the Montreal Expos against the Atlanta Braves on July 30, 1978.
-The record for longest streak of games with at least one extra base hit is held by Chipper Jones, who got an extra base hit in 14 straight games in 2006. This streak included 8 doubles, 1 triple and 7 home runs, and Jones had a .544 average, 1.088 slugging percentage, and 1.688 OPS. This streak raised his average from .283 to .329 from late June to early July.
-The record for most games in a row with a game score of at least 75 is 8, held by Fernando Venezuela, who did it to begin his legendary 1981 season. In total, he was 8-0 with a 0.50 ERA, with 68 K’s in 72 IP and a 0.83 WHIP. Again, this was done in his first 8 career starts!!!
-Five teams have won a game while getting no hits. The most recent happened on June 28, 2008, when the Angels no-hit the Dodgers, but lost 1-0 due to a couple errors, a steal, and a sacrifice fly. On July 1, 1990, the White Sox actually scored 4 runs while getting no hits, beating the Yankees 4-0.
-Of Mark Grace’s 173 home runs, 61 were hit with no outs, 56 with one out, and 56 with two outs. 39 were hit in three-pitch at bats, 38 were hit to right-center field, 9 were hit at Qualcomm Stadium, 67 were hit behind in the count, 25 were hit in the 6th inning, and 4 were walk-off home runs. He hit one home run to center field at Wrigley while he was ahead in the count and hitting clean-up.
-In 1969, the Chicago Cubs were 66-6 (.904) when leading after 6 innings, but 70-7 (.897) when leading after 7 innings.
-The record for most consecutive games where a team hit a home run is held by the Texas Rangers, who hit a home run in 27 consecutive games from August to September, 2002. They went 17-10 in that span with 55 total home runs, on their way to a 72-90 season record.
As you can see, the list of possible things you can look up is literally endless, and once I really figure out what to look for, it will be incredible. This service is a must-have for any serious baseball stathead.
NCAA Tournament Picks
First Round
Louisville (over Alabama State), Ohio State, Utah, Wake Forest, Dayton, North Dakota State, Boston College, Michigan State, Connecticut, BYU, Purdue, Washington, Utah State, Missouri, California, Memphis, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Xavier, UCLA, Villanova, Texas, Duke, North Carolina, Butler, Illinois, Gonzaga, Arizona State, Syracuse, Michigan, Oklahoma
Second Round
Louisville, Wake Forest, Dayton, Michigan State, Connecticut, Purdue, Missouri, Memphis, Pittsburgh, Xavier, UCLA, Duke, North Carolina, Gonzaga, Syracuse, Michigan
Sweet Sixteen
Louisville, Michigan State, Purdue, Memphis, Pittsburgh, Duke, North Carolina, Syracuse
Elite Eight
Michigan State over Louisville, Purdue over Memphis, Duke over Pittsburgh, North Carolina over Syracuse
Final Four
Purdue over Michigan State, Duke over North Carolina
Championship Game
Purdue 68, Duke 63
I know it looks like I am being a homer here, but I think Purdue can pull this off. Having seen Purdue play in person 26 times this year, I know as well as anyone that if Purdue plays as well as it can, we can compete with any team in the nation. Purdue is finally completely healthy and hit its stride at the perfect time in the Big Ten Tournament. Purdue will need some breaks to fall their way, but any team does to win the National Championship, and it may as well be Purdue this year. That said, I do realize that realistically, Purdue will probably be knocked out around the Sweet Sixteen. But statistically speaking, this bracket is just as likely to happen as any other bracket out there, so I figure I may as well pick my team to go all the way.
Interesting baseball fact of the day, if those other ones were not enough: In 1974, the last year Purdue won a postseason championship (The NIT), the Los Angeles Dodgers had the highest single-game total bases total. They had 48 TB in an 18-8 drubbing of the Cubs, with 4 doubles, a triple, and 6 home runs. The second highest single-game total was 36. The record since 1956 is 58, by the Montreal Expos against the Atlanta Braves on July 30, 1978.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Who should get the last #1 Seed?
With no school wanting to step up and grab that last number one seed for the NCAA Tournament (I’m looking at you Michigan State, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Connecticut), I’ll take a look at the other schools that should still be considered for the last one seed. First off, the locks in my opinion for the first three #1 seeds are, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Louisville. So for that last spot, I think Duke, Connecticut, and Memphis are the schools the selection committee will look at. Let’s take a look at Duke first.
Duke is currently ranked second in the RPI but with a win tomorrow in the ACC title game they should be first. I don’t think any school ranked first in the RPI was not awarded a one seed in the NCAA tournament. They also have a Strength of Schedule (SOS) ranked second, so they have played a difficult schedule. They have however a terrible loss to Clemson which could hurt them. Right now I don’t see them as a one seed but if Duke wins tomorrow, I expect them to get the last one seed.
Memphis is the second team that is being considered. They have won 25 games in a row, and more than 50 straight conference games. Memphis’ RPI is 8 which is good but what hurts them is their SOS of 54, which comes from playing in Conference USA. What also hurts them is the loss to Georgetown. People will make the argument that a team shouldn’t get penalized for the conference they play in, but you shouldn't be able to pad your wins by playing lesser teams. Memphis is a good team but I just don’t see them getting a one seed this season.
Connecticut has an RPI of six and an SOS of 25.What they have going for them is that they play in the Big East, the top conference in the country, and they had a very successful season in that conference. What they have going against them is that they got bounced in the Big East tournament (That Six OT thriller you might remember), and took a loss to a disappointing Georgetown team, and they also lost twice to Pittsburgh this season. I think losing in the Big East Tournament will prevent them for getting the last one seed.
Duke is currently ranked second in the RPI but with a win tomorrow in the ACC title game they should be first. I don’t think any school ranked first in the RPI was not awarded a one seed in the NCAA tournament. They also have a Strength of Schedule (SOS) ranked second, so they have played a difficult schedule. They have however a terrible loss to Clemson which could hurt them. Right now I don’t see them as a one seed but if Duke wins tomorrow, I expect them to get the last one seed.
Memphis is the second team that is being considered. They have won 25 games in a row, and more than 50 straight conference games. Memphis’ RPI is 8 which is good but what hurts them is their SOS of 54, which comes from playing in Conference USA. What also hurts them is the loss to Georgetown. People will make the argument that a team shouldn’t get penalized for the conference they play in, but you shouldn't be able to pad your wins by playing lesser teams. Memphis is a good team but I just don’t see them getting a one seed this season.
Connecticut has an RPI of six and an SOS of 25.What they have going for them is that they play in the Big East, the top conference in the country, and they had a very successful season in that conference. What they have going against them is that they got bounced in the Big East tournament (That Six OT thriller you might remember), and took a loss to a disappointing Georgetown team, and they also lost twice to Pittsburgh this season. I think losing in the Big East Tournament will prevent them for getting the last one seed.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Assorted Notes and WBC picks
WBC group play round 2 is starting this weekend, expect the groups to end up something like this-
Group 1
Japan 3-0
Cuba-2-2
Korea-1-2
Mexico-0-2
Group 2
USA-3-1
Venezuela-2-1
Puerto Rico-1-2
Netherlands-0-2
After the 2nd group stage, expect Japan to make easy work of Venezuela, and expect Cuba to beat the US for a Japan Cuba final, where Cuba pulls off the semi-upset of the defending champions. Or something like that.
Other Random Sports Notes-
European Football-
It was announced earlier today that Karim Benzema, one of the top young strikers in the world, is to remain with Lyon for at least one more season after much speculation of a transfer to one of many top clubs interested in the 21 year old’s services.
Another brilliant striker, David Villa, has announced that he is not interested in a transfer to Manchester City, despite the fact that his current club, Valencia F.C., recently announced that they are in debt in excess of 400 million euros. Villa’s transfer was expected to be in the range of 60 million euros.
College Basketball-
I’m sure that you’ve all heard about the epic overtime match last night that pushed UCONN and Syracuse into 6 OT’s, and for those who didn’t know, Syracuse has to play West Virginia tonight in the Big East Semifinals. Expect an absolutely drained Syracuse team to still pull off the win against the Mountaineers, then get absolutely dominated in the final by Rick Pitino’s suit.
Alabama takes on Tennessee tonight in the SEC tournament, which is a rematch from last week, when Alabama made a last second, half court 3 pointer to win the game. Expect nationwide indifference, as it is SEC basketball, and therefore unimportant. Unless it pertains to LSU.
Purdue is probably losing to Penn State tonight.
Keep an eye to see if Oklahoma State can win huge games on back to back nights tonight against Mizzou, after their enormous upset of Oklahoma last night.
Spring Training Update
The Braves (10-2) and the Angels (10-3) are both looking pretty good so far in spring training, which means absolutely nothing when we’re talking about the regular season, although it does to some extent cement the idea that the Angels will destroy that division by mid-July
Matt Cain has been doing pretty well in spring training.
Keep in mind that Barry Zito, at one point, was a Cy Young award winner, and keep an eye on him during the last couple of weeks of Spring Training. He’s been looking OK, nothing spectacular, but I’m pretty sure his ERA is below 6.
A few picks that I got as steals in my first fantasy baseball draft of the year, I would suggest taking these players if you get the chance in a comparable round-
Adam Dunn-59th overall (5th round)
Ryan Zimmerman- 83rd overall (7th)
John Lackey- 86th (8th)
Zack Greinke- 134th (12th)
Milton Bradley-182 (16th)
Mike Pelfrey-203 (17th)
That’s all for now, sorry about the massive amount of time since my previous article, it’s been a busy spring break. Should get back to a more consistent pace next week.
Group 1
Japan 3-0
Cuba-2-2
Korea-1-2
Mexico-0-2
Group 2
USA-3-1
Venezuela-2-1
Puerto Rico-1-2
Netherlands-0-2
After the 2nd group stage, expect Japan to make easy work of Venezuela, and expect Cuba to beat the US for a Japan Cuba final, where Cuba pulls off the semi-upset of the defending champions. Or something like that.
Other Random Sports Notes-
European Football-
It was announced earlier today that Karim Benzema, one of the top young strikers in the world, is to remain with Lyon for at least one more season after much speculation of a transfer to one of many top clubs interested in the 21 year old’s services.
Another brilliant striker, David Villa, has announced that he is not interested in a transfer to Manchester City, despite the fact that his current club, Valencia F.C., recently announced that they are in debt in excess of 400 million euros. Villa’s transfer was expected to be in the range of 60 million euros.
College Basketball-
I’m sure that you’ve all heard about the epic overtime match last night that pushed UCONN and Syracuse into 6 OT’s, and for those who didn’t know, Syracuse has to play West Virginia tonight in the Big East Semifinals. Expect an absolutely drained Syracuse team to still pull off the win against the Mountaineers, then get absolutely dominated in the final by Rick Pitino’s suit.
Alabama takes on Tennessee tonight in the SEC tournament, which is a rematch from last week, when Alabama made a last second, half court 3 pointer to win the game. Expect nationwide indifference, as it is SEC basketball, and therefore unimportant. Unless it pertains to LSU.
Purdue is probably losing to Penn State tonight.
Keep an eye to see if Oklahoma State can win huge games on back to back nights tonight against Mizzou, after their enormous upset of Oklahoma last night.
Spring Training Update
The Braves (10-2) and the Angels (10-3) are both looking pretty good so far in spring training, which means absolutely nothing when we’re talking about the regular season, although it does to some extent cement the idea that the Angels will destroy that division by mid-July
Matt Cain has been doing pretty well in spring training.
Keep in mind that Barry Zito, at one point, was a Cy Young award winner, and keep an eye on him during the last couple of weeks of Spring Training. He’s been looking OK, nothing spectacular, but I’m pretty sure his ERA is below 6.
A few picks that I got as steals in my first fantasy baseball draft of the year, I would suggest taking these players if you get the chance in a comparable round-
Adam Dunn-59th overall (5th round)
Ryan Zimmerman- 83rd overall (7th)
John Lackey- 86th (8th)
Zack Greinke- 134th (12th)
Milton Bradley-182 (16th)
Mike Pelfrey-203 (17th)
That’s all for now, sorry about the massive amount of time since my previous article, it’s been a busy spring break. Should get back to a more consistent pace next week.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
A Name to Know: Stephen Strasburg
For the casual baseball fan, the MLB Draft is not an event that is followed closely. But for the baseball junkie, it is an event that is watched closely to find the next potential stars of the game. I want to introduce you to the most likely first overall pick in the upcoming draft. His name is Stephen Strasburg and he is a pitcher for San Diego State University. Scouts told ESPN’s Buster Olney, “[He is] the best I’ve ever seen.” So far this season for the Aztecs, Strasburg has compiled a 3-0 record with a 1.77 ERA, striking out 45 in 20.1 innings pitched. Strasburg was also the only collegiate player to play for USA Baseball in the 2008 Olympics. On that stage, Strasburg went 1-1 with a 1.64 ERA along with holding the same Netherlands squad in this year’s World Baseball Classic to one hit over 7 innings and striking out five of the first six batters he faced. Strasburg has a fastball that consistently goes over 100 miles per hour and just as good secondary pitches, including a slider in the low 90’s.
The Washington Nationals hold the first pick in the upcoming draft, which brings up an interesting scenario. If Strasburg is really as good as advertised, he could be an immediate impact to a rotation that lacks dominate pitching. This is considering that Washington is able to sign him, the Nationals weren’t able to sign their first round pick last year. Agent Scott Boras represents Strasburg, and he isn’t afraid of having his clients hold out for more money (see Manny Ramirez). All this combined with a new General Manager in Washington puts an insane amount of pressure on Washington to get this guy drafted and signed so they can have a potential face to the franchise. So when the MLB draft rolls around this summer, don’t be surprised to hear Stephen Strasburg’s name called first by Commissioner Selig.
Here's a little video of Strasburg pitching in the bullpen:
Thanks to Derek Cooley for telling me about this guy.
The Washington Nationals hold the first pick in the upcoming draft, which brings up an interesting scenario. If Strasburg is really as good as advertised, he could be an immediate impact to a rotation that lacks dominate pitching. This is considering that Washington is able to sign him, the Nationals weren’t able to sign their first round pick last year. Agent Scott Boras represents Strasburg, and he isn’t afraid of having his clients hold out for more money (see Manny Ramirez). All this combined with a new General Manager in Washington puts an insane amount of pressure on Washington to get this guy drafted and signed so they can have a potential face to the franchise. So when the MLB draft rolls around this summer, don’t be surprised to hear Stephen Strasburg’s name called first by Commissioner Selig.
Here's a little video of Strasburg pitching in the bullpen:
Thanks to Derek Cooley for telling me about this guy.
Some Assorted Notes and Big Ten Tournament Picks
Well due to the school work of me and Dave and the work/laziness of Blaine, it’s been three days since we’ve posted anything, so I thought I’d give an update of all the interesting things happening in the sports world.
World Baseball Classic
-Easily the story of the tournament so far, the Netherlands have done it again, shocking the Dominican Republic in 11 innings, 2-1. This eliminates the Dominican Republic from the tournament and ensures the Netherlands a spot in the next round. The Dominicans scored in the top of the eleventh and brought out closer Carlos Marmol to finish off the Dutch, but a botched pick-off play and error by first baseman Willy Aybar gave the Dutch the 2-1 win. Shockingly, the one-out eleventh inning single by Gene Kingsale was the first earned run the Dominicans gave up the entire tournament. Though it is great to see the Netherlands continue their Cinderella story, it will be sad to see such a great team go home after two heart-wrenching losses. The Netherlands will meet Puerto Rico tonight to determine the pool winner.
-The United States and Venezuela meet tonight to determine the winner of Pool C, after the Venezuelans put away an upstart Italian team that eliminated Canada a day earlier.
-In Pool B, Cuba has clinched a spot in the next round, and Mexico will meet Australia tonight to decide who will join them. Mexico will be out for revenge after they were shocked 17-7 by Australia in the opener on Mexican soil.
-Korea won Pool A with a 1-0 win over Japan, and both teams will look to repeat their success from the 2006 tournament.
Champions League
European Champions League soccer action continued yesterday, with Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, and Villarreal moving on to the Quarterfinals after eliminating Real Madrid, Sporting Lisbon, Juventus, and Panathinaikos, respectively. Today’s action is headlined by a much-anticipated match-up between Inter Milan and Manchester United at Old Trafford in Manchester, which is currently 0-0 on aggregate. There is also Roma-Arsenal (0-1 on aggregate), FC Porto-Atlético Madrid (2-2), and Barcelona-Lyon (1-1).
Olympic Sports
-Lindsay Vonn became the first American woman to win two World Cup overall titles in skiing Wednesday with a victory in the final downhill race of the season.
-In men’s field hockey action in the Pan American Cup, Argentina defeated USA 8-0 and Canada defeated Mexico 7-3. Team USA was already guaranteed a spot in the semifinals, and will meet Chile on Saturday, with Argentina and Canada meeting up in the other semifinal.
-FINA, the governing body for international swimming, may make a decision soon on modifying the high-performance swimsuits that have been used to shatter more than 100 world records in the past year.
College Basketball
The Big East Tournament started yesterday, headlined by a shocking win by DePaul over Cincinnati. DePaul went 0-18 in conference play this year and is giving Providence a run for their money in the second round (Updates to come). St. John’s squashed all hope of a last-ditch run by Georgetown, defeating the Hoyas 64-59.
#17 Butler lost to Cleveland State in the finals of the Horizon League Tournament 57-54.
Big Ten Tournament Picks with no real explanation given
First Round
Northwestern over Minnesota
Michigan over Iowa
Penn State over Indiana
Second Round
Michigan State over Northwestern
Ohio State over Wisconsin
Illinois over Michigan
Purdue over Penn State
Semifinals
Michigan State over Ohio State
Purdue over Illinois
Finals
Purdue over Michigan State, 67-61
Interesting Baseball Fact of the Day: Pete Rose reached first base by catcher’s interference 29 times during his career, most in history and 11 more than second place Julian Javier and Dale Berra.
World Baseball Classic
-Easily the story of the tournament so far, the Netherlands have done it again, shocking the Dominican Republic in 11 innings, 2-1. This eliminates the Dominican Republic from the tournament and ensures the Netherlands a spot in the next round. The Dominicans scored in the top of the eleventh and brought out closer Carlos Marmol to finish off the Dutch, but a botched pick-off play and error by first baseman Willy Aybar gave the Dutch the 2-1 win. Shockingly, the one-out eleventh inning single by Gene Kingsale was the first earned run the Dominicans gave up the entire tournament. Though it is great to see the Netherlands continue their Cinderella story, it will be sad to see such a great team go home after two heart-wrenching losses. The Netherlands will meet Puerto Rico tonight to determine the pool winner.
-The United States and Venezuela meet tonight to determine the winner of Pool C, after the Venezuelans put away an upstart Italian team that eliminated Canada a day earlier.
-In Pool B, Cuba has clinched a spot in the next round, and Mexico will meet Australia tonight to decide who will join them. Mexico will be out for revenge after they were shocked 17-7 by Australia in the opener on Mexican soil.
-Korea won Pool A with a 1-0 win over Japan, and both teams will look to repeat their success from the 2006 tournament.
Champions League
European Champions League soccer action continued yesterday, with Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, and Villarreal moving on to the Quarterfinals after eliminating Real Madrid, Sporting Lisbon, Juventus, and Panathinaikos, respectively. Today’s action is headlined by a much-anticipated match-up between Inter Milan and Manchester United at Old Trafford in Manchester, which is currently 0-0 on aggregate. There is also Roma-Arsenal (0-1 on aggregate), FC Porto-Atlético Madrid (2-2), and Barcelona-Lyon (1-1).
Olympic Sports
-Lindsay Vonn became the first American woman to win two World Cup overall titles in skiing Wednesday with a victory in the final downhill race of the season.
-In men’s field hockey action in the Pan American Cup, Argentina defeated USA 8-0 and Canada defeated Mexico 7-3. Team USA was already guaranteed a spot in the semifinals, and will meet Chile on Saturday, with Argentina and Canada meeting up in the other semifinal.
-FINA, the governing body for international swimming, may make a decision soon on modifying the high-performance swimsuits that have been used to shatter more than 100 world records in the past year.
College Basketball
The Big East Tournament started yesterday, headlined by a shocking win by DePaul over Cincinnati. DePaul went 0-18 in conference play this year and is giving Providence a run for their money in the second round (Updates to come). St. John’s squashed all hope of a last-ditch run by Georgetown, defeating the Hoyas 64-59.
#17 Butler lost to Cleveland State in the finals of the Horizon League Tournament 57-54.
Big Ten Tournament Picks with no real explanation given
First Round
Northwestern over Minnesota
Michigan over Iowa
Penn State over Indiana
Second Round
Michigan State over Northwestern
Ohio State over Wisconsin
Illinois over Michigan
Purdue over Penn State
Semifinals
Michigan State over Ohio State
Purdue over Illinois
Finals
Purdue over Michigan State, 67-61
Interesting Baseball Fact of the Day: Pete Rose reached first base by catcher’s interference 29 times during his career, most in history and 11 more than second place Julian Javier and Dale Berra.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
The 5 Most Underrated Players in Fantasy Baseball
I'm sure that all 4 readers that we have were crushed when I failed to post this yesterday, as promised, so my apologies. Here you go-
Derrek Lee- 1B, Chicago Cubs- Yahoo.com rank-95. Last Season’s rank-65. My projected rank-48. I couldn’t believe it when I saw Derrek Lee ranked as low as he is. Last season was a fine one for him, and I don’t see him really falling off much this season. He played a lot of last season without Alfonso Soriano, who Yahoo ranks incredibly highly. If Soriano is to have as good of a season as yahoo projects, Lee’s numbers should also improve a bit. If Soriano has a great season to compliment the consistently excellent Aramis Ramirez, Derrek Lee may enjoy some excellent lineup protection. Also, Lee appears to be healthy coming into this season, which has not always been the case. Expect something to the tune of 25 HR, 100 RBI, about 80 R, and a BA around .285.
Ryan Zimmerman, 3B, Washington Nationals- Yahoo.com rank-69. Last Season’s rank-342. My projected rank-35. Zimmerman’s firs t full season was a beastly one. In 2006, he batted .287 with 20 HR and 110 RBI. He got 2nd in the ROY voting. After that, Zimmerman had a disappointing season where he played 162 games, and last year he only played about 100 due to injuries. This huge dropoff in 2007, however, can be explained fairly easily. The 2006 Washington Nationals had Alfonso Soriano and his 46 HR, and Nick Johnson with 23 HR and a whopping 110 BB. In 2007, Zimmerman led the team with 24 HR. 2nd place had 16 HR, and that was the mighty Austin Kearns. In short, the team became garbage in 2007. This season, they have added Adam Dunn and Lastings Milledge to their lineup, and with Dunn’s high amount of walks and HR, and Milledge’s seemingly promising potential, Zimmerman is given a huge increase in the lineup quality that surrounds him. I think that you can expect close to 30 HR and 100 RBI, as well as about a .300 average from Zimmerman.
Brett Myers, SP, Philadelphia Phillies- Yahoo.com rank-152. Last Season’s rank- 749. My projected rank-89. People tend to forget that Brett Myers was a #1 starter at one point. His 2006 season was very impressive, and his time as a closer in 2007 was a failure. At the beginning of 2008, he got absolutely shelled every single start, and as a result he got demoted. However, people need to remember that he was transitioning back from a closer to a starter. After his demotion, he came back and absolutely dominated life in July and August, before slowing down a bit in September, probably due to an uncharacteristic inning load (190 major league innings+ time in the minors). When he came back in July/August his ERA was 2.25 in July and 1.62 in August. This season it’s fair to expect him to come back strong and not have his early-season struggles like he did last year. With Cole Hamels as the team’s solid #1 starter, Myers should flourish in the 2 spot, and have a season that looks something like 3.75 ERA, about 16-17 wins, and about 185 K’s.
Ted Lilly, SP, Chicago Cubs- Yahoo.com rank-190. Last season’s rank-166. My projected rank-106. Ted Lilly’s season last year started off abysmally. Lilly’s 1st half ERA was 4.68 compared to 3.32 in the 2nd half. The biggest difference in the 2nd half was a significant decrease in BB, as well as, strangely enough, a large decrease in K’s. Another difference in the 2nd half was Lilly’s spot in the rotation. With the addition of Rich Harden absolutely destroying anything that came up to bat against him, Lilly was moved back to the 4 spot, where he pitched quite well. Lilly is getting on in years, he will be turning 33 this season, but his style of pitching doesn’t necessarily mean a huge dropoff as he ages. Expect a respectable season with an ERA around 3.85 with about 170 K’s and roughly 16 wins.
Daisuke Matsuzaka, SP, Boston Red Sox-Yahoo.com rank-114. Last season’s rank-95. My projected rank-77. This prediction is iffy. I’ll acknowledge that now. I still believe, however, that one of my biggest man-crushes will continue to improve as he spends more time in the majors. Matsuzaka’s season last year was masterful. Somehow, over and over again, he was able to get out of bases loaded jams with 0 outs and the 3-4-5 hitters coming up without giving up a run. A lot of people called that luck, but I think that he’s just so good under those circumstances that it’s just the way he works. This season, it would not surprise me if he had an approximate repeat of last season’s ERA (2.90), but with a slightly lower WHIP and more K’s, due to an increase in IP (from 167 last year). He should win another 17-18 games, and I pick him for the AL Cy Young. That’s my bold prediction for the week.
Derrek Lee- 1B, Chicago Cubs- Yahoo.com rank-95. Last Season’s rank-65. My projected rank-48. I couldn’t believe it when I saw Derrek Lee ranked as low as he is. Last season was a fine one for him, and I don’t see him really falling off much this season. He played a lot of last season without Alfonso Soriano, who Yahoo ranks incredibly highly. If Soriano is to have as good of a season as yahoo projects, Lee’s numbers should also improve a bit. If Soriano has a great season to compliment the consistently excellent Aramis Ramirez, Derrek Lee may enjoy some excellent lineup protection. Also, Lee appears to be healthy coming into this season, which has not always been the case. Expect something to the tune of 25 HR, 100 RBI, about 80 R, and a BA around .285.
Ryan Zimmerman, 3B, Washington Nationals- Yahoo.com rank-69. Last Season’s rank-342. My projected rank-35. Zimmerman’s firs t full season was a beastly one. In 2006, he batted .287 with 20 HR and 110 RBI. He got 2nd in the ROY voting. After that, Zimmerman had a disappointing season where he played 162 games, and last year he only played about 100 due to injuries. This huge dropoff in 2007, however, can be explained fairly easily. The 2006 Washington Nationals had Alfonso Soriano and his 46 HR, and Nick Johnson with 23 HR and a whopping 110 BB. In 2007, Zimmerman led the team with 24 HR. 2nd place had 16 HR, and that was the mighty Austin Kearns. In short, the team became garbage in 2007. This season, they have added Adam Dunn and Lastings Milledge to their lineup, and with Dunn’s high amount of walks and HR, and Milledge’s seemingly promising potential, Zimmerman is given a huge increase in the lineup quality that surrounds him. I think that you can expect close to 30 HR and 100 RBI, as well as about a .300 average from Zimmerman.
Brett Myers, SP, Philadelphia Phillies- Yahoo.com rank-152. Last Season’s rank- 749. My projected rank-89. People tend to forget that Brett Myers was a #1 starter at one point. His 2006 season was very impressive, and his time as a closer in 2007 was a failure. At the beginning of 2008, he got absolutely shelled every single start, and as a result he got demoted. However, people need to remember that he was transitioning back from a closer to a starter. After his demotion, he came back and absolutely dominated life in July and August, before slowing down a bit in September, probably due to an uncharacteristic inning load (190 major league innings+ time in the minors). When he came back in July/August his ERA was 2.25 in July and 1.62 in August. This season it’s fair to expect him to come back strong and not have his early-season struggles like he did last year. With Cole Hamels as the team’s solid #1 starter, Myers should flourish in the 2 spot, and have a season that looks something like 3.75 ERA, about 16-17 wins, and about 185 K’s.
Ted Lilly, SP, Chicago Cubs- Yahoo.com rank-190. Last season’s rank-166. My projected rank-106. Ted Lilly’s season last year started off abysmally. Lilly’s 1st half ERA was 4.68 compared to 3.32 in the 2nd half. The biggest difference in the 2nd half was a significant decrease in BB, as well as, strangely enough, a large decrease in K’s. Another difference in the 2nd half was Lilly’s spot in the rotation. With the addition of Rich Harden absolutely destroying anything that came up to bat against him, Lilly was moved back to the 4 spot, where he pitched quite well. Lilly is getting on in years, he will be turning 33 this season, but his style of pitching doesn’t necessarily mean a huge dropoff as he ages. Expect a respectable season with an ERA around 3.85 with about 170 K’s and roughly 16 wins.
Daisuke Matsuzaka, SP, Boston Red Sox-Yahoo.com rank-114. Last season’s rank-95. My projected rank-77. This prediction is iffy. I’ll acknowledge that now. I still believe, however, that one of my biggest man-crushes will continue to improve as he spends more time in the majors. Matsuzaka’s season last year was masterful. Somehow, over and over again, he was able to get out of bases loaded jams with 0 outs and the 3-4-5 hitters coming up without giving up a run. A lot of people called that luck, but I think that he’s just so good under those circumstances that it’s just the way he works. This season, it would not surprise me if he had an approximate repeat of last season’s ERA (2.90), but with a slightly lower WHIP and more K’s, due to an increase in IP (from 167 last year). He should win another 17-18 games, and I pick him for the AL Cy Young. That’s my bold prediction for the week.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Diamond Mind Baseball, and a fun simulation
Today I thought I would give you an introduction to an amazing baseball computer simulation game: Diamond Mind Baseball. It is probably the most accurate simulation game out there, and you can buy leagues and teams in packages, such as season projections, past seasons, or leagues that are compilations of some of the greatest teams of all time. There are 8 discs which contain the best teams of all time, and I have all 8. You can then create leagues of any of the teams you have and simulate entire seasons in about 5 minutes. You can also play each season game by game, making every decision a manager makes in terms of lineups, pinch hitting, infield alignments, etc. So, I thought it would be fun to make a league for every decade that I have and simulate the league and playoffs to see what the best team in every decade was. I already ran this simulation for every decade last summer, but I’ll re-run it and put the results up here. I will just do one decade at a time, and I’ll put results up every so often (read: when I have nothing else to write about) along with a short summery of the season.
The first “decade” is the period of time from 1900-1919, because there weren’t enough teams to make either of those an individual decade. Here are the standings:
Division One
Division Two
Teams from Chicago and Pittsburgh dominated this era. Of the 4 teams with winning records, 3 were from one of the two cities, and 4 of the 5 best records and all 4 playoff spots are occupied by Chicago or Pittsburgh teams. The 1908 Chicago Cubs were the ONLY team with a winning record in Division One, with an unthinkable 21 game lead over the second place team. This makes the playoff match-ups 1908 Chicago (N) vs. 1909 Pittsburgh and 1919 Chicago (A) vs. 1902 Pittsburgh.
Division Series
1908 Chicago (N) def. 1909 Pittsburgh, 3-0: The first game went to 15 innings and the Cubs won on an astonishing 6 errors by Pittsburgh, while committing 3 errors themselves. 1908 Chicago won game 3 4-2 in 11 innings by means of 10 innings from Ed Reulbach, giving up just 5 hits, 2 runs, 0 earned, 4 BB, and 5 K.
1919 Chicago (A) def. 1902 Pittsburgh, 3-2: A thrilling series where every game was decided by just one run. Pitching was the name of the game in this series, as a total of 25 runs were scored in the series, good for 2.5 per team per game.
1900-1919 Championship Series
1908 Chicago wins the series 4-2 on the back of a strong pitching effort, with 3 complete game wins by their starting staff, including a 124-pitch gem by Orval Overall in game 3, where he gave up just 6 hits and 5 walks in a shutout and a 139 pitch effort by Ed Reulbach in game 4, where he gave up 11 hits and 1 run in 9 innings.
Champion: 1908 Chicago Cubs
Stats of some notable players:
-Babe Ruth, 1918 Boston (A): 15 HR (led league), 68 RBI, .227/.401/.455 in 396 AB as a hitter, and 8-15, 4.96 ERA in 23 GS, with 20 CG in 207 IP. This version of Babe Ruth tends to struggle in simulations against the much better competition than he faced in real life.
-Eddie Collins, 1911 Philadelphia (A): .326 (led league)/.416 (led league)/.408
-Tris Speaker, 1912 Boston (A): 12 HR, 67 RBI, 47 SB, .314/.415/.499
-Honus Wagner, 1909 Pittsburgh: 77 R, 30 SB, .280/.389/.380. It really speaks volumes of how much pitching dominated this era when Honus Wagner hits .280.
-Orval Overall, 1908 Chicago (N): 20-4, 1.35 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 151 K
-Mordecai Brown, 1908 Chicago (N): 21-9, 1.46 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, 30 GS, 26 CG, 8 SHO
-Eddie Cicotte, 1919 Chicago (A): 27-9, 1.54 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 39 GS, 32 CG, 11 SHO.
-Christy Mathewson, 1904 New York (N): 15-28, 3.08 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 45 GS, 350.1 IP
-Joe McGinnity, 1904 New York (N): 18-16, 1.92 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, 43 GS, 365.1 IP
-12 players had more than 40 SB, and Frank Chance of 1906 Chicago (N) led the league with 55, but he still got caught 22 times.
-19 starting pitchers had an ERA under 2.00, and 4 of those pitchers threw more than 300 IP.
-27 pitchers had more than 20 CG. To put this in perspective, the last time a pitcher had 20 CG was Fernando Valenzuela in 1986. There are only 25 pitchers active with more than 20 CG in their entire CAREER.
Before I end this, I also want to recognize and congratulate the Netherlands on their stunning 3-2 win in WBC action over the Dominican Republic! I wear my Ruud van Nistelrooy Netherlands national team jersey with pride today.
Interesting Baseball Fact of the Day: Christy Mathewson had the most complete games from 1900-1919, with 434 CG out of 551 GS, along with 79 SHO.
The first “decade” is the period of time from 1900-1919, because there weren’t enough teams to make either of those an individual decade. Here are the standings:
Division One
| Team | W | L | GB |
| 1908 Chicago (N) | 95 | 55 | - |
| 1902 Pittsburgh | 74 | 76 | 21 |
| 1912 Boston (A) | 73 | 77 | 22 |
| 1917 Chicago (A) | 72 | 78 | 23 |
| 1918 Boston | 69 | 81 | 26 |
| 1912 New York (N) | 68 | 82 | 27 |
| 1911 Philadelphia (A) | 65 | 85 | 30 |
Division Two
| Team | W | L | GB |
| 1919 Chicago (A) | 90 | 60 | - |
| 1909 Pittsburgh | 81 | 69 | 9 |
| 1906 Chicago (N) | 80 | 70 | 10 |
| 1915 Boston (A) | 75 | 75 | 15 |
| 1904 New York (N) | 73 | 77 | 17 |
| 1914 Philadelphia (A) | 70 | 80 | 20 |
| 1919 Cincinnati | 65 | 85 | 25 |
Teams from Chicago and Pittsburgh dominated this era. Of the 4 teams with winning records, 3 were from one of the two cities, and 4 of the 5 best records and all 4 playoff spots are occupied by Chicago or Pittsburgh teams. The 1908 Chicago Cubs were the ONLY team with a winning record in Division One, with an unthinkable 21 game lead over the second place team. This makes the playoff match-ups 1908 Chicago (N) vs. 1909 Pittsburgh and 1919 Chicago (A) vs. 1902 Pittsburgh.
Division Series
1908 Chicago (N) def. 1909 Pittsburgh, 3-0: The first game went to 15 innings and the Cubs won on an astonishing 6 errors by Pittsburgh, while committing 3 errors themselves. 1908 Chicago won game 3 4-2 in 11 innings by means of 10 innings from Ed Reulbach, giving up just 5 hits, 2 runs, 0 earned, 4 BB, and 5 K.
1919 Chicago (A) def. 1902 Pittsburgh, 3-2: A thrilling series where every game was decided by just one run. Pitching was the name of the game in this series, as a total of 25 runs were scored in the series, good for 2.5 per team per game.
1900-1919 Championship Series
1908 Chicago wins the series 4-2 on the back of a strong pitching effort, with 3 complete game wins by their starting staff, including a 124-pitch gem by Orval Overall in game 3, where he gave up just 6 hits and 5 walks in a shutout and a 139 pitch effort by Ed Reulbach in game 4, where he gave up 11 hits and 1 run in 9 innings.
Champion: 1908 Chicago Cubs
Stats of some notable players:
-Babe Ruth, 1918 Boston (A): 15 HR (led league), 68 RBI, .227/.401/.455 in 396 AB as a hitter, and 8-15, 4.96 ERA in 23 GS, with 20 CG in 207 IP. This version of Babe Ruth tends to struggle in simulations against the much better competition than he faced in real life.
-Eddie Collins, 1911 Philadelphia (A): .326 (led league)/.416 (led league)/.408
-Tris Speaker, 1912 Boston (A): 12 HR, 67 RBI, 47 SB, .314/.415/.499
-Honus Wagner, 1909 Pittsburgh: 77 R, 30 SB, .280/.389/.380. It really speaks volumes of how much pitching dominated this era when Honus Wagner hits .280.
-Orval Overall, 1908 Chicago (N): 20-4, 1.35 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 151 K
-Mordecai Brown, 1908 Chicago (N): 21-9, 1.46 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, 30 GS, 26 CG, 8 SHO
-Eddie Cicotte, 1919 Chicago (A): 27-9, 1.54 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 39 GS, 32 CG, 11 SHO.
-Christy Mathewson, 1904 New York (N): 15-28, 3.08 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 45 GS, 350.1 IP
-Joe McGinnity, 1904 New York (N): 18-16, 1.92 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, 43 GS, 365.1 IP
-12 players had more than 40 SB, and Frank Chance of 1906 Chicago (N) led the league with 55, but he still got caught 22 times.
-19 starting pitchers had an ERA under 2.00, and 4 of those pitchers threw more than 300 IP.
-27 pitchers had more than 20 CG. To put this in perspective, the last time a pitcher had 20 CG was Fernando Valenzuela in 1986. There are only 25 pitchers active with more than 20 CG in their entire CAREER.
Before I end this, I also want to recognize and congratulate the Netherlands on their stunning 3-2 win in WBC action over the Dominican Republic! I wear my Ruud van Nistelrooy Netherlands national team jersey with pride today.
Interesting Baseball Fact of the Day: Christy Mathewson had the most complete games from 1900-1919, with 434 CG out of 551 GS, along with 79 SHO.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Fantasy Baseball 2009- Best tasting Hater-ade
It’s almost time for another exciting, challenging, and downright excellent season of fantasy baseball. Today I'm posting my 5 most overrated players in baseball using, as amateur as it is, the standard Yahoo.com fantasy baseball rankings for a H2H league using the standard 10 stats, AVG., HR, RBI, R, SB, ERA, K, W, SV, and WHIP. I did what I could to keep this unbiased, as I tend to drink a lot of hater-ade and have a lot of man-crushes, but this should at least be decently neutral and relevant. Enjoy.
The Best Tasting Hater-ade in Baseball
Jimmy Rollins, SS, Philadelphia Phillies-Yahoo.com rank-12. Last season’s rank-88. My Projected Rank-108. Jimmy Rollins is quite simply the 3rd best hitter on his team, behind Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. Last season you could make an argument that he was the 4th best hitter, with Pat Burrell having a good year. Rollins will bat leadoff in the potent Phillies lineup, and he will score 90+ runs, but his power numbers are absolutely average. Granted, 2 years ago he had 30 HR, and the year before that he had 25, but he’s also on the wrong side of 30 now, and while he was hurt last year, he still had only 11 HR in 556 AB. His average also suffered significantly (dropping to a mediocre .277), and I just don’t see him coming back strong this year. It also doesn’t help that he’s probably the worst player to win MVP this millennium.
Chad Billingsley, SP, Los Angeles Dodgers- Yahoo.com rank-73. Last season’s rank-116. My Projected Rank-135. Don’t get me wrong, as an enthusiast of young pitchers, I’m very excited about this young man’s potential. He is a phenomenally talented young pitcher, and given another year or so of major league experience, he could be a lights out number 1 starter. This season, however, he will most likely be moving up to the #1 spot in the Dodgers rotation with the departure of Derek Lowe. While that transition is difficult enough, the rest of their rotation is extremely depleted, with the most likely #2 starter being Hiroki Kuroda, followed by Randy Wolf and Clayton Kershaw in some order for 3-4, and some guy for their 5th starter (maybe Manny???). It just isn’t realistic to expect that this 24 year old will be able to go from 2-3 starter in a pretty good rotation to #1 starter in a garbage rotation and make a smooth transition immediately. Expect a fine season, something similar to Joe Saunders numbers last year but with a few less wins and a few more strikeouts, but not one of the #10 ranked starter on yahoo.
Brandon Phillips, 2B, Cincinnati Reds- Yahoo.com rank-25. Last season’s rank-105. My projected rank- not good. Brandon Phillips was hurled into the national spotlight (for baseball junkies) in 2007 when he had a breakout year, belting 30 HR, 94 RBI, 32 SB, scoring 107 R, and batting a robust .288. Last season was not so good. His HR count dropped to 21, RBIs fell to 78, and average fell to .261. He also scored only 80 R and swiped 23 bags. There is no reason to believe that these numbers will improve, especially with the departure of Adam Dunn and the slightly less valuable but nonetheless important Ken Griffey Jr. Phillips is still young at 27, but I still think that rather than saying that last year was an off-year, it’s safer to say that 2007 was a fluke. This is even more possible given Phillips’ numbers prior to 2007, which were thoroughly unimpressive for the most part.
Carsten Charles Sabathia, SP, New York Yankees- Yahoo.com rank-27. Last season’s rank-6. My Projected Rank-52. There are few players I enjoy watching more than CC Sabathia. He plays the game right, with joy, sportsmanship, and obesity not seen since the era of David Wells. However, Sabathia’s numbers last season in the American League were not particularly mind-boggling. His ERA was 3.83, a 6-8 record, and 1.23 WHIP. Granted, a lot of that is because of a few horrible starts to begin the season that were a result of arm fatigue, but that was still 4-5 starts where he taxed the bullpen mightily and lost the game for the Indians before the 2nd inning. CC will be facing some pretty powerful offenses in the AL East, specifically the Red Sox and Rays, although the Orioles offense has potential with Matt Weiters and Nick Markakis. CC may also suffer from pitching in Yankees stadium, with its horrendously short corner outfield fences. Expect a season from CC that is still quite good, probably something similar to Brandon Webb last year but with less wins, a slightly higher ERA, and more K’s.
Josh Beckett, SP, Boston Red Sox-Yahoo.com rank-75. Last season’s rank-164. My Projected Rank-166. If there is one thing I hate about postseason baseball, it’s that players that do well in the postseason seem to automatically be regarded as great in the regular season as well. I call this the Rocky IV effect for some reason. Josh Beckett is the biggest offender of this, being absolutely lights out in the postseason, and showing flashes of brilliance in the regular season, but mainly hovering around mediocrity. He’s now 29 years old, which is not old, but for a pitcher it’s also not 25 either. Last season Beckett struggled a bit with injuries, but quite honestly, every season Beckett struggles a bit with injuries. There is little reason to expect him to be brilliant this year, with the exception of his 2007 season, which may be evidence of his true potential. This season, Beckett will have to go up against a Yankees lineup that is now almost certainly the most dangerous in baseball, as well as a Rays lineup that continues to look extremely good despite its youth. Expect something similar to Beckett’s season last year, with an ERA around 4 and about 12-15 wins, respectable, but nothing spectacular.
Tomorrow will be 5 most underrated, and if I'm feeling frisky, maybe some players to keep your eye on, as they may prove to be interesting
The Best Tasting Hater-ade in Baseball
Jimmy Rollins, SS, Philadelphia Phillies-Yahoo.com rank-12. Last season’s rank-88. My Projected Rank-108. Jimmy Rollins is quite simply the 3rd best hitter on his team, behind Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. Last season you could make an argument that he was the 4th best hitter, with Pat Burrell having a good year. Rollins will bat leadoff in the potent Phillies lineup, and he will score 90+ runs, but his power numbers are absolutely average. Granted, 2 years ago he had 30 HR, and the year before that he had 25, but he’s also on the wrong side of 30 now, and while he was hurt last year, he still had only 11 HR in 556 AB. His average also suffered significantly (dropping to a mediocre .277), and I just don’t see him coming back strong this year. It also doesn’t help that he’s probably the worst player to win MVP this millennium.
Chad Billingsley, SP, Los Angeles Dodgers- Yahoo.com rank-73. Last season’s rank-116. My Projected Rank-135. Don’t get me wrong, as an enthusiast of young pitchers, I’m very excited about this young man’s potential. He is a phenomenally talented young pitcher, and given another year or so of major league experience, he could be a lights out number 1 starter. This season, however, he will most likely be moving up to the #1 spot in the Dodgers rotation with the departure of Derek Lowe. While that transition is difficult enough, the rest of their rotation is extremely depleted, with the most likely #2 starter being Hiroki Kuroda, followed by Randy Wolf and Clayton Kershaw in some order for 3-4, and some guy for their 5th starter (maybe Manny???). It just isn’t realistic to expect that this 24 year old will be able to go from 2-3 starter in a pretty good rotation to #1 starter in a garbage rotation and make a smooth transition immediately. Expect a fine season, something similar to Joe Saunders numbers last year but with a few less wins and a few more strikeouts, but not one of the #10 ranked starter on yahoo.
Brandon Phillips, 2B, Cincinnati Reds- Yahoo.com rank-25. Last season’s rank-105. My projected rank- not good. Brandon Phillips was hurled into the national spotlight (for baseball junkies) in 2007 when he had a breakout year, belting 30 HR, 94 RBI, 32 SB, scoring 107 R, and batting a robust .288. Last season was not so good. His HR count dropped to 21, RBIs fell to 78, and average fell to .261. He also scored only 80 R and swiped 23 bags. There is no reason to believe that these numbers will improve, especially with the departure of Adam Dunn and the slightly less valuable but nonetheless important Ken Griffey Jr. Phillips is still young at 27, but I still think that rather than saying that last year was an off-year, it’s safer to say that 2007 was a fluke. This is even more possible given Phillips’ numbers prior to 2007, which were thoroughly unimpressive for the most part.
Carsten Charles Sabathia, SP, New York Yankees- Yahoo.com rank-27. Last season’s rank-6. My Projected Rank-52. There are few players I enjoy watching more than CC Sabathia. He plays the game right, with joy, sportsmanship, and obesity not seen since the era of David Wells. However, Sabathia’s numbers last season in the American League were not particularly mind-boggling. His ERA was 3.83, a 6-8 record, and 1.23 WHIP. Granted, a lot of that is because of a few horrible starts to begin the season that were a result of arm fatigue, but that was still 4-5 starts where he taxed the bullpen mightily and lost the game for the Indians before the 2nd inning. CC will be facing some pretty powerful offenses in the AL East, specifically the Red Sox and Rays, although the Orioles offense has potential with Matt Weiters and Nick Markakis. CC may also suffer from pitching in Yankees stadium, with its horrendously short corner outfield fences. Expect a season from CC that is still quite good, probably something similar to Brandon Webb last year but with less wins, a slightly higher ERA, and more K’s.
Josh Beckett, SP, Boston Red Sox-Yahoo.com rank-75. Last season’s rank-164. My Projected Rank-166. If there is one thing I hate about postseason baseball, it’s that players that do well in the postseason seem to automatically be regarded as great in the regular season as well. I call this the Rocky IV effect for some reason. Josh Beckett is the biggest offender of this, being absolutely lights out in the postseason, and showing flashes of brilliance in the regular season, but mainly hovering around mediocrity. He’s now 29 years old, which is not old, but for a pitcher it’s also not 25 either. Last season Beckett struggled a bit with injuries, but quite honestly, every season Beckett struggles a bit with injuries. There is little reason to expect him to be brilliant this year, with the exception of his 2007 season, which may be evidence of his true potential. This season, Beckett will have to go up against a Yankees lineup that is now almost certainly the most dangerous in baseball, as well as a Rays lineup that continues to look extremely good despite its youth. Expect something similar to Beckett’s season last year, with an ERA around 4 and about 12-15 wins, respectable, but nothing spectacular.
Tomorrow will be 5 most underrated, and if I'm feeling frisky, maybe some players to keep your eye on, as they may prove to be interesting
Manny Ramirez is NOT statistically the best postseason player of all time
“Manny Ramirez is statistically the best postseason player of all time.”
This statement is one I heard Wednesday, while waiting in line for the Purdue basketball game. It was said with an air of confidence not seen since the days of Muhammad Ali, and I reacted with immediate fury. Such a broad statement is impossible to make due to the nature of postseason play and the changes in its format over the years. Nevertheless, I will set out to prove that statement wrong in every way possible.
I assume the statement grew from the fact that Manny has been an absolute monster in the past two playoffs, helping lead the Red Sox to the World Series in 2007 and taking the Dodgers to the championship series on his shoulders last year. Manny is indeed the all-time leader in postseason home runs, is fourth in runs, third in hits, second in RBI, and third in total bases. So he wants to play the accumulation game. I can play that game as well. We will take Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams and I will show why they are at least just as good at Manny Ramirez if we only take the cumulative statistics. Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams are 1-2 respectively in games played, at bats, runs, hits, total bases, and times on base, while going 2-1 in doubles, 2-5 in home runs and 1-3 in extra base hits. As you can see, they are dominant enough in just about every category to be considered in this debate. Remember, right now we are only looking at cumulative statistics, so rate statistics such as AVG, OBP, OPS will not be considered here. First, let us compare Bernie Williams to Manny Ramirez:
Cumulatively, Bernie Williams is statistically a better postseason player, with nearly 20 more runs, 20 more hits, 14 more doubles, and just 6 less home runs while having 6 more RBI, along with eight times as many stolen bases as Manny (OK, a nearly irrelevant statement, but the fact that Bernie has a significant number of stolen bases while Manny has one is well, significant).
Now let’s look at Derek Jeter, for a somewhat less convincing but still interesting argument:
Clearly, these are two different types of players, but I will take “El Capitan” Derek Jeter by virtue of him having 21 more runs, 45 more hits, and many more steals. An argument could be made for Manny, but clearly the “Manny Ramirez is statistically the best postseason player of all time” statement is not definitive whatsoever.
Now that I’ve played the less important cumulative statistics game, I will completely blow the validity of that statement out of the water. You cannot look at cumulative statistics and say “this man is better than that man” because ‘this man’ had the chance to play almost three times as many postseason games per postseason. For example, the legendary Babe Ruth played in 10 postseasons, just as Manny Ramirez did, but Manny Ramirez played in an astonishing two and a half times more playoff games than did Babe Ruth. Does this mean that Manny is better just because he got to play in more games? Absolutely not. Let’s look at the data:
Here we have the relevant data for the players I figured may get close to Manny in terms of postseason greatness. A quick glance at the data reveals that we can pretty much shave this group down to Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Manny Ramirez. At this point, there is no argument to make for Manny Ramirez being statistically the greatest postseason player of all time. Manny’s not great (relatively) .286 postseason average was bolstered by his .340 average in the LCS, while his LDS and WS averages are a paltry .246 and .247 respectively! BOTH Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth have more Runs/Game, RBI/Game, AB/HR (less in this case), higher BA, OBP, SLG, and a little stat I like to call World Series Rings. Here is the kicker: Not only did Babe Ruth hit incredibly well in the postseason (which at the time consisted only of the World Series), but he went 2-0 with a 0.87 ERA in three starts in the postseason as a pitcher!!!!! When the Dodgers can bring in Manny Ramirez to pitch 14 innings in a complete game while only giving up one run and six hits, then come talk to me and claim that Manny Ramirez is statistically the best postseason player of all time. Because he still won’t be.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: If you expand Manny and the Babe's postseason stats to a 162-game season, Manny would have 44 HR, 116 RBI, 101 R, .278/.399/.550. The Babe would be at 59 HR, 130 RBI, 146 R, and .326/.467/.744.
This statement is one I heard Wednesday, while waiting in line for the Purdue basketball game. It was said with an air of confidence not seen since the days of Muhammad Ali, and I reacted with immediate fury. Such a broad statement is impossible to make due to the nature of postseason play and the changes in its format over the years. Nevertheless, I will set out to prove that statement wrong in every way possible.
I assume the statement grew from the fact that Manny has been an absolute monster in the past two playoffs, helping lead the Red Sox to the World Series in 2007 and taking the Dodgers to the championship series on his shoulders last year. Manny is indeed the all-time leader in postseason home runs, is fourth in runs, third in hits, second in RBI, and third in total bases. So he wants to play the accumulation game. I can play that game as well. We will take Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams and I will show why they are at least just as good at Manny Ramirez if we only take the cumulative statistics. Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams are 1-2 respectively in games played, at bats, runs, hits, total bases, and times on base, while going 2-1 in doubles, 2-5 in home runs and 1-3 in extra base hits. As you can see, they are dominant enough in just about every category to be considered in this debate. Remember, right now we are only looking at cumulative statistics, so rate statistics such as AVG, OBP, OPS will not be considered here. First, let us compare Bernie Williams to Manny Ramirez:
| Player | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB |
| Bernie Williams | 121 | 465 | 83 | 128 | 29 | 0 | 22 | 80 | 71 | 85 | 8 |
| Manny Ramirez | 103 | 378 | 64 | 108 | 16 | 0 | 28 | 74 | 70 | 85 | 1 |
Cumulatively, Bernie Williams is statistically a better postseason player, with nearly 20 more runs, 20 more hits, 14 more doubles, and just 6 less home runs while having 6 more RBI, along with eight times as many stolen bases as Manny (OK, a nearly irrelevant statement, but the fact that Bernie has a significant number of stolen bases while Manny has one is well, significant).
Now let’s look at Derek Jeter, for a somewhat less convincing but still interesting argument:
| Player | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB |
| Derek Jeter | 123 | 495 | 85 | 153 | 22 | 3 | 17 | 49 | 51 | 96 | 16 |
| Manny Ramirez | 103 | 378 | 64 | 108 | 16 | 0 | 28 | 74 | 70 | 85 | 1 |
Clearly, these are two different types of players, but I will take “El Capitan” Derek Jeter by virtue of him having 21 more runs, 45 more hits, and many more steals. An argument could be made for Manny, but clearly the “Manny Ramirez is statistically the best postseason player of all time” statement is not definitive whatsoever.
Now that I’ve played the less important cumulative statistics game, I will completely blow the validity of that statement out of the water. You cannot look at cumulative statistics and say “this man is better than that man” because ‘this man’ had the chance to play almost three times as many postseason games per postseason. For example, the legendary Babe Ruth played in 10 postseasons, just as Manny Ramirez did, but Manny Ramirez played in an astonishing two and a half times more playoff games than did Babe Ruth. Does this mean that Manny is better just because he got to play in more games? Absolutely not. Let’s look at the data:
| Player | G | AB | R/G | RBI/G | AB/HR | BA | OBP | SLG | Rings |
| Lou Gehrig | 34 | 119 | 0.88 | 1.03 | 11.90 | 0.361 | 0.477 | 0.731 | 6 |
| Babe Ruth | 41 | 129 | 0.90 | 0.80 | 8.60 | 0.326 | 0.467 | 0.744 | 7 |
| Derek Jeter | 123 | 495 | 0.69 | 0.40 | 29.12 | 0.309 | 0.377 | 0.469 | 4 |
| Bernie Williams | 121 | 465 | 0.69 | 0.66 | 21.14 | 0.275 | 0.371 | 0.480 | 4 |
| Manny Ramirez | 103 | 378 | 0.72 | 0.73 | 13.50 | 0.286 | 0.399 | 0.550 | 2 |
| Reggie Jackson | 77 | 281 | 0.53 | 0.62 | 15.61 | 0.278 | 0.358 | 0.527 | 4 |
Here we have the relevant data for the players I figured may get close to Manny in terms of postseason greatness. A quick glance at the data reveals that we can pretty much shave this group down to Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Manny Ramirez. At this point, there is no argument to make for Manny Ramirez being statistically the greatest postseason player of all time. Manny’s not great (relatively) .286 postseason average was bolstered by his .340 average in the LCS, while his LDS and WS averages are a paltry .246 and .247 respectively! BOTH Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth have more Runs/Game, RBI/Game, AB/HR (less in this case), higher BA, OBP, SLG, and a little stat I like to call World Series Rings. Here is the kicker: Not only did Babe Ruth hit incredibly well in the postseason (which at the time consisted only of the World Series), but he went 2-0 with a 0.87 ERA in three starts in the postseason as a pitcher!!!!! When the Dodgers can bring in Manny Ramirez to pitch 14 innings in a complete game while only giving up one run and six hits, then come talk to me and claim that Manny Ramirez is statistically the best postseason player of all time. Because he still won’t be.
Interesting baseball fact of the day: If you expand Manny and the Babe's postseason stats to a 162-game season, Manny would have 44 HR, 116 RBI, 101 R, .278/.399/.550. The Babe would be at 59 HR, 130 RBI, 146 R, and .326/.467/.744.
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