December 1, 2008
Now shipping The 2009 Hardball Times Annual is now available. You can read about it here, but just make sure you order it directly from ACTA today. 
Rich Barbieri John Barten Sal Baxamusa John Beamer Brian Borawski John Brattain Craig Brown Matthew Carruth Derek Carty Alex Eisenberg Mike Fast David Gassko
Brandon Isleib
Chris Jaffe Josh Kalk Chris Neault Dave Studeman Steve Treder Bryan Tsao Tuck! John Walsh Geoff Young And here's the full roster. StubHub is where fans buy and sell Yankees Tickets, Red Sox Tickets, White Sox Tickets, Mets Tickets and all other baseball tickets. If you are looking for World Series Tickets, ALCS Tickets or NLCS Tickets, you can find them at StubHub! More hot selling tickets include: Cubs Tickets, Astros Tickets, Dodgers Tickets, Angels Tickets and Detroit Tigers Tickets. Gear up for baseball season with Chicago White Sox tickets and New York Yankees tickets. LA Angels tickets, Houston Astros tickets, and Atlanta Braves tickets are hot sellers! You can get Boston Red Sox tickets, San Diego Padres tickets or Chicago Cubs tickets for your favorite baseball fan. Coast to Coast Tickets has the best MLB tickets like Minnesota Twins tickets, LA Dodgers tickets, Milwaukee Brewers tickets, New York Met tickets and St. Louis Cardinals tickets.
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Tuesday, September 30, 2008Ben Jacobs: modern day NostradamusPosted by Chris JaffeAt the season's outset, 18 THT-ities submitted their preseason predictions. Now that the year's over, let's see how we did and rank us. The ranking system is easy—if you predict a team comes in first and it comes in fifth, that's four points. If it's third, that's two points. Low score did the job. Ben Jacobs 29 points Chris Neault 30 points John Barten 32 points Matthew Carruth 33 points Chris Jaffe 33 points Richard Barbieri 34 points David Gassko 35 points John Beamer 35 points Bryan Tsao 35 points David Studenman 36 points Steve Treder 36 points Lisa Gray 36 points Geoff Young 37 points Brian Borowski 38 points Craig Brown 38 points John Walsh 39 points Sal Baxamusa 39 points Brandon Isleib 40 points Congrats to Ben Jacobs. Also, please note that John Barten was the only person to get an entire division perfectly ordered—- the AL West. The Red Sox have the best offense of any AL playoff teamPosted by Sal BaxamusaOkay, no surprise there. Pursuant to yesterday's post, I did the AL teams as well: likely roster, likely lineups, and current Marcel projections. Red Sox: 5.67 runs per game (Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis, Jason Bay, Mark Kotsay, Sean Casey, Jason Varitek, Jed Lowrie). LA Angels: 5.48 runs per game (Chone Figgins, Garret Anderson, Mark Teixeira, Vladimir Guerrero, Torii Hunter, Mike Napoli, Howie Kendrick, Gary Matthews Jr, Erick Aybar). Rays: 5.43 runs per game (Akinori Iwamura, B.J. Upton, Carlos Pena, Evan Longoria, Dioner Navarro, Rocco Baldelli, Jonny Gomes, Eric Hinske, Jason Bartlett). White Sox: 5.09 runs per game (Orlando Cabrera, Dewayne Wise, Jermaine Dye, Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Ken Griffey Jr, Alexei Ramirez, A.J. Pierzynski, Juan Uribe). No real surprises here. Height and home run ratesPosted by David GasskoI got an e-mail from a reporter today inquiring about changes in home run rates among differently sized players. His question piqued my interest, and I decided to run a simple query, checking on whether players of different heights have seen their home run rates decline by different amounts since the peak of the home run boom. Click for more... How the Twins and White Sox scorePosted by Dave StudemanAs the Twins and White Sox prepare to battle it out for the American League Central title tonight, I thought you might appreciate this little graph of how teams score. I first introduced this graph format in this article (quick tip: circle sizes are based on number of home runs hit), and it's still one of my favorites. Take a look... Click for more... Monday, September 29, 2008The Dodgers have the best offense of any NL playoff teamPosted by Sal BaxamusaDon't believe me? I don't blame you. The Dodgers scored 4.32 runs per game in the regular season, well below average. But there are a few problems with looking at that figure. First, the Dodgers are not the same team today that they were in April. Second, backups and scrubs are far less likely to see playing time in the postseason. Last, and most importantly, we can't look at a team's performance record and assume that they'll continue to perform the same. So, we have to figure out which players are on the roster, which ones are likely to play, and what the true talent of those players are going forward. I did just that, here's what I came up with: Click for more... Saturday, September 27, 2008Fielder vs. BraunPosted by Chris JaffeJust got back from tonight's Cub-Brewer game in Milwaukee. I saw so many Ryan Braun jerseys than Prince Fielder ones I started to keep a tally. Result: Braun: 48 Fielder: 12 Also, I counted 10 Hardys, 5 Harts, 4 Sheets, and 1 Carlo Lee. (There's no repeats - there's a way I know that, but it's long/boring to explain). Friday, September 26, 2008Plunking the IndiansPosted by Dave StudemanCleveland set a major league record last night when they were hit by a pitch for the 101st time this season. Michael Bourn, of Plunk Biggo fame, has written a guest column at Let's Go Tribe about the Indians' new mark. Thursday, September 25, 2008Cubs with monobrowsPosted by Dave StudemanA few Chicago Cubs got together and posted a video on Funny or Die. So this is what they do to pass time on the road? AL Central symmetryPosted by Brandon IsleibThe standings in the AL Central: White Sox 86-71 Twins 86-72 Indians 79-79 Royals 73-86 Tigers 71-86 I haven't researched this at all, but I suspect this is the closest any league or division has ever gotten to perfect symmetry in the win-loss records this late in the year. It has no bearing on anything, but it looks cool. Tuesday, September 23, 2008Marshall reportPosted by Dave StudemanAlex Eisenberg has a nice scouting report up on Yankee prospect Brett Marshall. Monday, September 22, 2008Dodgers still remain favoritesPosted by Alex EisenbergDespite Arizona winning six of their last seven games, Jon Weisman notes the Dodgers remain the NL West favorites with 13 games left to play... An early look at the early predictionsPosted by Dave StudemanVegas Watch assesses the various preseason predictions from some of the major outlets. His finding: don't listen to ESPN. Plus, it's past time to give PECOTA its due. Nate Silver is concentrating on the presidential race these days, but his PECOTA system is a gift that keeps giving. Friday, September 19, 2008When owners dreamPosted by Dave StudemanShysterball looks deep into the fantasies of major league owners. Hey, if it could happen to AIG, why not NYA? Catching up in SeptemberPosted by Dave StudemanI'm working away on the 2009 Hardball Times Annual (preorder it now!), collecting articles from over 40 prominent baseball writers and preparing THT's usual stable of stupendous stats. Among other things, we list each team's wins, losses, ERA and other stats on a monthly basis. So I have a lot of spreadsheets of 2008 data to load. I took last year's monthly team spreadsheet and inputted each team's monthly 2008 wins and losses through the end of August (got to wait for the season to end before inputting the September stats). As a result of combining this year's monthly totals with last year's year-end totals, I got an interesting picture of how each team will have to perform in September to match last year's record.... Click for more... Getting it donePosted by Dave StudemanPatrick Sullivan has posted a "Getting It Done" list of All Stars—those players who have performed the best since August 1st. Here is the list of position players and here are the pitchers. In other words, these players are helping their teams stay in the pennant race as the season comes to its conclusion. We often notice hot starts (such as Chase Utley's and Chipper's) or sizzling performances after switching teams (Hello, Manny) but great performances are great no matter when they occur. |
 Baseball NewsFrom USA TodayWinter ball provides chance for notice, instruction, redemption For the insatiable baseball fan not satisfied with pondering the latest rumor from the hot stove league, Mexico, Puerto Rico, ... Henderson on Hall of Fame ballot for the first time Career steals leader Rickey Henderson heads 10 first-time candidates on this year's Hall of Fame ballot, joining holdovers Mark ... K-Rod's agent: No contract talks until winter meetings Paul Kinzer, Francisco Rodriguez's agent, won't start detailed discussions with teams until the winter meetings open in Las Vegas ... Judge orders BALCO testimony documents unsealed A federal judge in San Francisco ordered thousands of pages of grand jury testimony related to the BALCO investigation unsealed ... Tigers look to rebound from injury-riddled 2008 season The Detroit Tigers, one of baseball's biggest busts in 2008, will try to recover this offseason by fixing their bullpen and finding ... Young talent points way, but Giants need veteran help too By their own admission, the San Francisco Giants took too long to embark on a youth movement. When the futility of trying to ... After his report, Mitchell thinks drug use down in MLB His investigation tarnished the reputation of Roger Clemens and dozens of other players, led to a toughened drug agreement and ... Boras says Red Sox interested in bringing back Varitek The Boston Red Sox have expressed an interest in bringing back captain Jason Varitek but have not made a contract offer, the ... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||