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 (8) 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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Wednesday, August 26, 2009He’s got the scoopBaseball Info Solutions tracks the number of bad throws a first baseman saves, as well as the number of good throws he misses. According to John Dewan's latest Stat of the Week, the difference between the best first baseman (Casey Kotchman, nine scoops above average) and the worst (Joey Votto, six below average). If you spread these out over a full season, you might say that the difference between the best scooper and the worst is about 20 saved throws. The difference between a single and an out is roughly .6 runs. 20 times .6 is twelve runs. So twelve runs—a little more than one win—is a rough estimate of the difference between the best and worst first basemen in this one particular aspect of their fielding skill. This is all extremely rough, of course, but it's probably fair to say that the impact a first baseman's ability to save (or miss) errant throws is generally worth a little less than the impact of an outfielder's arm. Graph of the dayI hope that you visit our Teams page on a regular basis to check out the statistical details of your favorite team. I also update the team standing graphs each day (though I'll be out of commission the next couple of days and won't be able to update them until next Monday). The last month of the season is a particularly good time to be looking at the graphs. For instance, here's today's graph; check out the Rockies:  Create your own Pitch f/x databaseA couple weeks ago at Beyond the Boxscore, I re-posted Mike Fast's old tutorial on how to create a PItch f/x database with some commentary of my own. The purpose of this was to illistrate a layman's point of view, when dealing with scary computer related stuff. Mike was also kind enough to drop by, and answer a lot of my/our questions. You can all see the post here: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/8/19/994666/saberizing-a-mac-4-pitch-f-x And also take a look at some of the comments by Mike at the bottom of the page. I hope you guys drop by and try to create your own database, because it really is an awesome resource to have if your interested in analysing baseball. I also encourage you to ask questions in the comments section, as I'm sure that Mike or one of the other excellent commenters will be able to help you out. You should also check out BtB's series on how to set up and use MySQL to analyze stats from the Baseball Databank and other things: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/tags/saberizing%20a%20mac Tuesday, August 25, 2009Can the Royals win in WAR?A thought occurred to me as I was looking at the online box score for the Tigers-Angels game in progress tonight. The benches of the two teams looked pretty solid. I had just finished watching the Royals beat Cleveland (great game by Greinke!), and I wondered if the Royals' starting lineup was as good as the benches of the two division-leading teams playing each other tonight. The Royals lineup was a fairly normal one, but the Angels bench did include a couple starters getting a breather--Kendry Morales and Mike Napoli. In order to compare the two lineups I'm going to use each player's 2009 wins above replacement as listed on Fangraphs. This is a fun exercise, so I'm not going to worry about things like playing time differences or true talent versus 2009 performance. Which lineup comes out on top? Pos. Player WAR C Gerald Laird 0.7 1B Kendry Morales 3.0 2B Maicer Izturis 2.2 SS Adam Everett 0.1 3B Ryan Raburn 0.4 LF Marcus Thames 0.0 CF Gary Matthews -1.9 RF Clete Thomas 1.6 DH Mike Napoli 3.1 Pos. Player WAR C Miguel Olivo 1.3 1B Billy Butler 1.6 2B Alberto Callaspo 0.9 SS Yuniesky Betancourt -1.9 3B Mark Teahen 1.0 LF David DeJesus 2.7 CF Josh Anderson -0.1 RF Mitch Maier 0.2 DH Mike Jacobs -0.1The Tigers-Angels bench lineup totals 9.2 wins above replacement in 2009. I put Ryan Raburn at third base and Maicer Izturis manning second. Both have played each position in their career, but Izturis has played more at second base this year, so I put him there and Raburn at third. This is actually a pretty decent lineup, except for Gary Matthews, Jr. The Royals starting lineup totals 5.6 wins above replacement. Yuniesky Betancourt's a black hole at shortstop, continuing a fine Royals tradition at that position, and the only real bright spot is David DeJesus, a solid defender whose bat has revived after a poor April. Wow. It wasn't even close. I didn't expect the Royals' lineup to win out when this first popped into my head, but I thought it might at least be a battle. No such luck. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||