November 23, 2009
Order Now The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 is now in development and will ship in mid November! This year's book will feature articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright. If you use this link to purchase the Annual, you will be in the first group to receive it and you'll be supporting THT. Most Recent Comments
Introducing Visual Baseball (1)
HR/FB Park Factors (9) Why Baseball Needs a Visual Facelift (5) Building a Retrosheet database, the short form (4) Is peak at age 29? (7) 
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Monday, August 03, 2009Midseason TotalZone MinorsIn February, Sean ("Chone") Smith applied his TotalZone defensive metric to the last few years of minor league data. The resulting numbers confirmed some opinions, questioned some conventional wisdom, and helped us better understand the relationship between fielding at various levels of professional baseball. Sean or I will probably go further in depth when the 2009 season is in the books, but while we wait, we've run TZ for the full-season minors through games of July 31. Read on for some of the highlights. Click for more... THT Daily: A Romp in BaltimoreMajor League News for August 3Player News Yesterday’s Results Today’s Games Standings Top Minor League Performances You can always find the most recent THT Daily at http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/content/thtdaily/ Player NewsPlayer Headlines are courtesy of RotoworldEdinson Volquez underwent Tommy John surgery Monday morning, according to Ed Price of AOL Fanhouse. Volquez is likely to miss most of the 2010 season. There's a chance he could return by late August or September, if setbacks are avoided. It's a major hit to the Reds' immediate future. The 26-year-old right-hander was 4-2 this season with a 4.35 ERA and boasts a 24-19 career record. Adrian Beltre is expected to return to the Mariners Tuesday. Beltre has been sidelined since June 28 after undergoing shoulder surgery. "Everything looks good with Adrian, and it will be good to get him back," manager Don Wakamatsu said. The third baseman should provide a decent offensive boost for the Mariners, who have struggled to score runs lately. The Astros have scratched Roy Oswalt (back) from his Tuesday start. Oswalt, who had already been scratched from a start this weekend, is now aiming to start on Saturday against the Brewers. He'll try a bullpen session Monday, and another in the middle of the week. "Wednesday I'll throw a pretty good one," said the Houston ace, "and if I feel great I may try to throw an inning out of the pen and make sure I'm ready for game action on Saturday." The Dodgers are calling Chad Billingsley's injury a right hamstring cramp. Billingsley came out of Sunday's game against the Braves after throwing five scoreless innings. He'll likely be ready to make his next start as scheduled. Rangers placed second baseman Ian Kinsler on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to July 29, with a strained left hamstring. Kinsler's loss is big, but Rangers fans have to be excited to see Neftali Feliz up with another one of the team's roster moves today. Omar Vizquel has done a nice job so far, so he'll keep starting at second base for the next couple of weeks. Joaquin Arias will serve as the backup. Casey Blake is out of Sunday's lineup with a left hand injury that's getting him sent for X-rays. Blake was hurt Saturday, but neither he nor the Dodgers thought it was significant then. When he was still having problems swinging in batting practice today, he was sent for X-rays. Mark Loretta is starting at third. Corey Hart had surgery Sunday to remove his appendix and will go on the disabled list. The Brewers are bringing Bill Hall right back to the majors as a result. Frank Catalanotto may get the majority of the time in right field for the next three weeks. Jody Gerut is the better option, given his defense, but it's pretty clear which of the two manager Ken Macha prefers. Kendry Morales drove in six runs on a pair of homers in the Angels' 13-4 win over the Twis on Sunday. Both were three-run shots off left-handed pitchers, one being starter Glen Perkins and the other reliever Jose Mijares. Morales, who also added a single, is now up to a very impressive .299-23-69 mark on the season that includes 10 homers and 28 RBI since the start of July. Victor Martinez collected five hits and drove in four runs in his first start at catcher since joining the Red Sox. Welcome to the club, Victor. Martinez doubled and hit four singles while scoring once in Boston's 18-10 win over the Orioles. V-Mart finished July with a 530 OPS, so both his owners and the Red Sox are quite happy to see the fast start with his new team. Yesterday’s ResultsFor the full scoop regarding yesterday's games, read "And That Happened" at Shysterball.American League BOS 18 BAL 10 (Recap and Boxscore) KC 4 TB 1 (Recap and Boxscore) NYA 8 CHA 5 (Recap and Boxscore) CLE 11 DET 1 (Recap and Boxscore) LAA 13 MIN 4 (Recap and Boxscore) TOR 7 OAK 2 (Recap and Boxscore) TEX 4 SEA 2 (Recap and Boxscore) National League LAN 9 ATL 1 (Recap and Boxscore) FLA 3 CHN 2 (Recap and Boxscore) ARI 5 NYN 2 (Recap and Boxscore) COL 6 CIN 4 (Recap and Boxscore) WAS 5 PIT 3 (Recap and Boxscore) HOU 2 STL 0 (Recap and Boxscore) MIL 6 SD 1 (Recap and Boxscore) SF 7 PHI 3 (Recap and Boxscore)Check out Fangraphs' scoreboard to see all the games in action. Today’s GamesStandingsThe graphics next to each team are called "sparklines.” They depict each team’s performance over the last month. Each "up" bar is a victory and a "down" bar is a loss. There are horizontal lines for home games and red bars represent games decided by two runs or less. "PWins" is short for Projected Wins, based on each team’s Run Differential, and is often a better measure of a team’s true strength. Other team graphs and stats can be found on our Team Page.American League East Pwins Diff NYA 63 42 .600 0.0 59 4 Top Minor League GamesThe following list, provided by First Inning, includes the top minor league batting (based on Runs Created) and pitching (based on Game Score) performances from yesterday.ORG LVL PLAYER AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO Notes TEX AA M. Moreland....... 5 4 1 0 1 0 0 NYM A+ David Havens...... 6 4 1 0 1 0 1 4 RBI PIT AAA Neil Walker....... 4 3 2 0 0 0 0 COL AA Darin Holcomb..... 6 3 2 0 0 1 1 SD A+ James Darnell..... 4 3 2 0 0 1 0 TOR A T. Pastornicky.... 3 3 1 1 0 1 0 ARI AAA Brandon Allen..... 5 2 1 0 1 0 0 OAK AA Shane Peterson.... 4 2 2 0 0 1 0 DET AA Garth Iorg........ 4 2 0 1 1 0 1 SF AA Brandon Crawford.. 4 2 1 0 1 0 0 PHI A- Zachary Collier... 4 3 0 0 1 1 1 4 R TOR AAA Travis Snider..... 3 1 0 0 1 2 1 3 R ORG LVL PLAYER IP H R ER SO BB HR Notes TEX A Martin Perez...... 5 4 1 1 9 2 0 CLE AA Jeanmar Gomez..... 6 4 0 0 8 2 0 NYY A- Arodys Vizcaino... 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 SD A Simon Castro...... 5 4 1 1 6 1 0 STL AA Lance Lynn........ 6 6 1 1 5 0 0 CLE AAA Hector Rondon..... 6 4 2 2 7 2 1 HOU A+ C. Hicks.......... 6 5 2 2 5 2 0 MIN AA Carlos Gutierrez.. 3 1 0 0 5 1 0 CLE AAA Jesse Todd........ 2 0 0 0 4 0 0 TB A Joseph Cruz....... 5 4 3 2 4 1 0 10 GB BOS AAA Junichi Tazawa.... 5 4 2 2 3 1 0 TOR A+ Tim Collins....... 2 0 0 0 3 0 0
My favorite times on the baseball calendarThis was originally going to be a top-ten list. Then I thought I would be cute and have one item for each month of the year. Unfortunately, the only notable annual occurrence on my baseball calendar for May is "Royals go on a long losing streak and consign themselves to another wasted season", which is a more fitting item for this list's opposite. January: Lead-up to Hall of Fame vote I love learning about baseball history, and the discussion about the merits of various stars, newcomers, and last-chancers on the ballot is a great way to learn about baseball of yesteryear. I enjoy all the preliminary discussion much more than wondering afterwards why the BBWWAA didn't elect Tim Raines. February: Pitchers and catchers report to spring training This is a calendar favorite not so much for any particular event that happens. Instead, it's about the hot stove league talk simmering down and actual baseball getting underway along with the related discussions about who's gained or lost three mph on their fastball, who's added a new sinker or cutter, who's lost weight or added muscle or going to try stealing more bases this year, and who's going to win the second base job or the last spot in the rotation. Even if the games don't start or count yet, hope springs anew for the Royals and 28 other non-World-Champion teams. March: Fantasy league auction day I know I'm not as rotisserie-crazy as some folks, but I enjoy the one league in which I participate, and March is a time for evaluating and projecting players, choosing keepers, and drawing up a list for the auction. When auction day finally arrives, it's a day my wife graciously takes the kids and lets me spend eight hours glued to the computer (maybe one of these days I'll have an in-person league again) and the rest of the weekend mentally processing my roster and the chances for my team. April: Opening Day This one speaks for itself. "Play ball!" June: Amateur draft It's a grand celebration of over-hyping prospects, but everyone knows that here is where the vast majority of the stars of tomorrow find a major league organization to call home for a while. It's interesting to hear about up-and-coming prospects, even if many of them won't ever make The Show. It's also a revealing time for the business of baseball. July: Annual PITCHf/x Summit July baseball has a lot of goodies, but I chose this as a personal favorite. To me, it's a SABR convention on steroids--a highly specialized geekfest hosted by Sportivision, one of the coolest companies in America, and attended by some of the sharpest minds in baseball physics, engineering, and analysis. August: SABR Post-convention recap day We arrive at the occurrence that prompted this list. Every year I look expectantly for the online recaps of the convention. One of these days I am going to make it in person. I love baseball history and research. What better way to spend a weekend than with a bunch of other people who think the same way? And what better consolation prize for those of us who can't to read about it from those who do? September: Pennant races One of these years this is going to credibly involve a Royals team again, and it will quickly shoot to the top of the list. The last time that happened was 1987 (we're not going to talk about 1994, are we?). The Royals swept the Twins in a bittersweet season-ending series that didn't matter behind Bret Saberhagen, Charlie Leibrandt, and Mark Gubicza to finish two games behind the eventual World Series champions. The Royals had also been only two games back of the Twins and A's on August 29. They stayed in the race as late as September 17, when they split a four-game series with the California Angels (who were also part of a tough four-team division race) to stay within three games of first. However, a three-game sweep at the hands of Oakland and their new closer, Dennis Eckersley, quickly dashed the Royals' (and my) hopes. It's been a long 22 years... October: World Series Baseball on the grand stage for all the marbles. American League versus National League. Managers dueling. Outstanding pitching performances. Yep. November: Hardball Times Annual arrives Okay, maybe I'm a little biased. But the last two years as my childhood sabermetric interest has reawakened, this has come the closest to that moment when my brother or I would first find the new Bill James Baseball Abstract available in the sports section at Waldenbooks. December: Winter meetings and Rule V draft The Rule V draft is where gems like Joakim Soria and Johan Santana come from. The winter meetings themselves are lots of baseball-related sturm und drang at a time when everyone is talking about the BCS or some other non-baseball-related nonsense. Apparently they're also becoming quite a meet-and-greet. Who'da thunkit? Honorable mention: January: Next-season projections released for CHONE, Oliver, Marcel, PECOTA, etc. Oh, yeah! You know you love it, too. June: College World Series Even better when my Oklahoma Sooners or the local Texas Longhorns are involved. July: All-Star Game This would be high on the list if it didn't involve a three-day cessation in real baseball games. That's a serious drag on an otherwise fun event. July: Non-waiver trading deadline See my previous comment on the winter meetings and substitute "twitter" for "meet-and-greet". Random notes from SABR 39Today, my recap of the 39th annual SABR convention goes up here at THT. I like it, but there are some random notes/news I didn't have a place in the article. (Well, I could've put them in, but it was running long enough as is). Without further ado, here are some minor, random notes from this year's SABR-dom. Beginning with SABR 34 in Cincinnati in 2004, the BTF contingency annually shows up in force for the convention. The youngest member has always been Aaron Gleeman. That's finally no longer the case, as young'uns Jeremy Heit and Anthony Milazzo helped prevent the graying of the BTF crowd. Speaking of young'uns, there was a kid there barely in his teens. He looked just like shorter version of Phil Birnbaum, one of the big wigs in the stats analysis committee. (He produces its By the Numbers online newsletter). Ever since Cincy, the BTF crowd has noted how Anthony Giacalone (one of the BTFrs) looks a lot like Kiefer Sutherland, most famous for playing Jack Bauer on the TV show BTF. Well, this year life of the crowd Chris Dial saw Giacalone wearing a Gary Bauer shirt and lost it: "BAUER!??! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU'RE WEARING A SHIRT THAT SAYS BAUER ON IT?!?!?" He hunched over and all but wet himself it tickled him so. Wanna hear a bit of news no one cares about? THT founding writer Steve Treder apparently shaved his beard in the last year. He let his normal whiskers run raggedy for the San Jose Sharks annual playoff run (apparently playoff beards are a tradition among NHL stalwarts), and when they fell out he cut it all. Typically, a research presentation at SABR consists of 20 minutes of talking, 5 minutes of questions, and 5 minutes for people to come/go to the next event. Well, one presenter who shall remain nameless told his audience it was OK to interrupt him with questions during the presentation. Huge mistake. After an interesting start, it quickly bogged down into a group discussion in which the presenter only sometimes played the lead role. He would get it back on track only to go off the rails all over again. Worse, he didn't have a watch, so didn't realize how far behind he was getting. Eventually, the guy in charge of the room had to walk up and tell him he was done. (They room runners held up signs telling you how much time was left, but 1 minute meant 1 minute until questions should begin, so you could go a bit over, but it would shorten the time for questions). In the baseball trivia contest, Michael Caraglino defeated Cliff Blau in the final. I'm stunned anyone could know more baseball trivia than Blau. He served as one of the key proofreaders for the manuscript of my book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers, where he had the knack for catching errors that a whole tribe of Treders wouldn't even notice. Most memorably, he noted I misspelled the last name of Roarin' Bill Hassamaer. Who the hell had ever even heard of Roarin' Bill let alone could correct the spelling of his name? Cliff Blau, that's who. Yet someone else knows baseball trivia better than him. Actually, Blau proved to be part of a proud tradition of Evaluating Baseball's Managers coming second in the trivia contest. Three years ago, Steve Treder (who also was very helpful behind the scenes with my book), came in second. All I can say to Cliff is just what I told Steve when he came up short. I looked him right in the eye and said: "Don't worry about the results. As far as I'm considered, you have the most trivial mind of them all." That'll go on the tombstone, I'm sure. THT founding writer Joe Dimino got a random baseball trivia question texted to him by a friend of his while we were at the bar: which catcher caught the most Hall of Fame pitchers. We weren't really sure who the answer was, and various guesses were made. Joe asked his friend for the answer only to find out that guy didn't know. He was just bored sitting in a traffic jam and thought Joe might know. (Pause for a second to ponder: what does it say about Joe that his friends think he would know this off the cuff?) Joe checked online and found the answer: Jim Hegan, who one person at the bar (Jay "no relation" Jaffe, I believe), had guessed. Hegan caught seven Hall of Famers. I'll list the seven HoFrs at the end of this piece. See if you can guess any. The hotel the convention stayed at was next to a theater playing "Jersey Boys." The theater played the same half-dozen sound clips from Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons 24/7 and you heard it every time you left the hotel. I'm sure "Jersey Boys" is a great show and I the songs are really good, but...it got old. And I doubt I'm the only SABR member who felt that way by the end. The hotel had interesting elevators. You walked up to the elevator bank, and typed in your floor number, and it would tell you which specific elevator to stand by. It took some getting used to, but it really helped minimize elevator traffic jams. It's probably the wave of the future with elevators, but it's my first experience with them. On a personal note, I bought "This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones" by Bill James. This gives me the complete collection of his six main books: the original Historic Abstract, the New Historic Abstract, Win Shares, Politics of Glory, the Bill James Guide to Managers, and Bones. I also got a new copy of the funniest baseball book of all-time: "The Umpire Strikes Back" by Ron Luciano. My old copy was falling apart from repeated readings. More personal junk: somehow, when changing my watch to Central to Eastern Standard Time, I put it in military time. It doesn't make much difference, but it was weird to look down at see the time as "13:25." and even weirder after midnight to see the time as just "4." Not 12:04, just 4. Hegan's seven HoF pitchers: Bob Feller, Satchel Paige, Early Wynn, Bob Lemon, Jim Bunning, Robin Roberts, and Hal Newhouser. Final personal info: normally I suffer from chronic minor insomnia. (I'll almost always get at least four hours of sleep, but it's rare I fall to sleep in less than an hour of going to bed unless I'm really exhausted). My insomnia is worse at hotels. Yet the first night, I slept fine. The second and third nights were average, which is above average for me at hotels. Then on the last night, something that almost never happens to me occurs: no sleep at all. None. I gave up around 4:30 and went to the airport to get an earlier flight back. (Of course, had I known the DC public transportation system is shut down until 7 AM I might have tried a bit longer for some shuteye. Whatever its faults, Chicago's CTA runs 24/7 and has apparently spoiled me). Ultimately, I did get the first flight to Chicago, and after 26 straight hours of wake-titude, took a nap. And what's the first thing I did after napping? Wrote my SABR39 recap! Boy, and some of you thought you were pathetic. Sunday, August 02, 2009New day coming for SABR?Late Saturday night, SABR member Paul Brewer had an intriguing idea: why not establish a non-geographic chapter of SABR. Existing chapters are geographically centered because traditionally notions of community are centered at fixed locales. The internet has changed the equation, and Paul thought maybe Baseball Think Factory, which has herded numerous members into the organization in recent years, can be a chapter. After Paul's spark of inspiration, SABR member and BTF poster Chris Dial provided the perspiration. Knowing that creating a non-geographic chapter would require a pigeonholed some veteran SABR members and leaders, getting their opinions on the matter. Once he found out they were supportive, he rallied a dozen or so BTFrs to think through what they could say. This all had to be done in one night, as the Board of Directors meeting was the next morning and after that the convention would end. Thanks largely to Dial's energy and leadership, a fairly effective presentation was made to SABR leaders, who responded very positively. The Board unanimously approved a resolution stating: Move that the board looks favorably on the application of the Baseball Think Factory for recognition as a ‘community of interest’ functioning as a SABR Chapter, but, recognizing the need for bylaws modification to achieve this and understanding that this will establish a new model for chapter-like entities asks Chris Dial to develop a plan and directs the Executive Director to investigate implications for SABR within the next 60 days. I didn't include this in my recap because I left town before the meeting and only knew it was intended to be presented before the Board. I think this is tremendous news as it could transform the never nature of SABR. Speaking as a sample size of one, I'm far more plugged into the BTF contingency at SABR than I am to my locale chapter (Chicago). There's nothing wrong with geographic chapters, but this plan could augment the existing ones as it does mirror some of modern American communities. Here's hoping this bold new plan succeeds. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
BOS 62 42 .596 0.5 61 1 
TB 57 48 .543 6.0 60 -3 
TOR 51 54 .486 12.0 57 -6 
BAL 44 60 .423 18.5 45 -1 
American League Central
DET 54 49 .524 0.0 54 0 
CHA 54 52 .509 1.5 54 0 
MIN 52 53 .495 3.0 52 0 
CLE 44 61 .419 11.0 50 -6 
KC 41 63 .394 13.5 40 1 
American League West
LAA 63 40 .612 0.0 59 4 
TEX 59 44 .573 4.0 56 3 
SEA 54 51 .514 10.0 47 7 
OAK 44 60 .423 19.5 47 -3 
National League East Pwins Diff
PHI 59 44 .573 0.0 58 1 
FLA 55 50 .524 5.0 52 3 
ATL 53 52 .505 7.0 54 -1 
NYN 50 54 .481 9.5 49 1 
WAS 33 72 .314 27.0 42 -9 
National League Central
STL 58 50 .537 0.0 58 0 
CHN 55 48 .534 0.5 55 0 
HOU 52 53 .495 4.5 47 5 
MIL 52 53 .495 4.5 50 2 
CIN 45 59 .433 11.0 43 2 
PIT 45 59 .433 11.0 50 -5 
National League West
LAN 65 40 .619 0.0 64 1 
COL 58 47 .552 7.0 58 0 
SF 58 47 .552 7.0 56 2 
ARI 46 59 .438 19.0 49 -3 
SD 43 63 .406 22.5 39 4 