Archive for the 'Sabermetrics' Category

Tango came out with his 2011 projections yesterday:

Marcel 2011 - Tango on Baseball

I'll probably whip up some team projections based on these at some point, like I did last year.

In his first SB Nation column, former ESPN analyst Rob Neyer introduces himself to a new audience and talks about the rapidly-shrinking gap between big-time sportswriters and bloggers:

Rob Neyer Joins SB Nation, Becomes Part Of 'Us' Not 'Them' - SBNation.com

Here's an outstanding piece from Yahoo's Jeff Passan on Voros McCracken, the progenitor of DIPS Theory. Why is one of the most influential baseball thinkers of the past decade not actually working in baseball, spending his days and nights analyzing European soccer instead?

(Hat tip to Brian Burke for the link.)

Here's a message from John, who wants to know whether Derek Jeter can break Pete Rose's hits record:

"After his fresh new contract will Jeter approach and pass Mr. Rose or will he fall short, he needs 1330 base knocks. That is an average of 222 hits over the next 6 seasons (he never has reached 222, EVER) or 190 hits over the next 7 season, Per Season.? What do you think ? Will Jeter hang on like Rose to be a player/manager, player/coach to reach the record? This is a revisit of your 2008 blog."

I don't think he'll be a player/coach, but we can judge his chances as a plain old player using what Bill James called the "Favorite Toy". This is how our Bullpen Wiki describes the methodology:

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After the news broke that Boston had signed Carl Crawford, I plugged their projected lineup (via MLBDepthCharts.com) into Baseball Musings' lineup simulator, using each player's OBP/SLG over the past 3 seasons. The result? This lineup...

1 CF Jacoby Ellsbury (0.339/0.395)
2 2B Dustin Pedroia (0.372/0.475)
3 LF Carl Crawford (0.349/0.454)
4 1B Adrian Gonzalez (0.387/0.523)
5 3B Kevin Youkilis (0.404/0.560)
6 DH David Ortiz (0.356/0.498)
7 RF J.D. Drew (0.379/0.495)
8 C Jarrod Saltalamacchia (0.317/0.364)
9 SS Marco Scutaro (0.351/0.385)

...would be expected to score 5.675 RPG.

The simulator also suggested the best Red Sox lineup for 2011 would be:

1 RF J.D. Drew (0.379/0.495)
2 3B Kevin Youkilis (0.404/0.560)
3 DH David Ortiz (0.356/0.498)
4 1B Adrian Gonzalez (0.387/0.523)
5 2B Dustin Pedroia (0.372/0.475)
6 C Jarrod Saltalamacchia (0.317/0.364)
7 CF Jacoby Ellsbury (0.339/0.395)
8 LF Carl Crawford (0.349/0.454)
9 SS Marco Scutaro (0.351/0.385)

Which would expect to score 5.754 RPG.

Obviously, this doesn't account for baserunning, injuries, aging, park effects for Crawford/Gonzalez, and a whole host of other variables. But Boston has definitely assembled what should be a potent offensive team next season.

It's rare that you see anyone in the mainstream media acknowledge the role of chance in the playoffs, so I was surprised to see this John Shea article on the Giants' good luck in the San Francisco Chronicle.

It's not like Shea directly addressed the .251 BABIP allowed by San Francisco pitchers during the playoffs or anything, but a major newspaper writer -- in the winning team's city, no less -- hinting at the randomness inherent in a 15-game sample is at least a start.

Keeping Score: In a Game 7, Lee Would Be No Sure Thing – NYTimes.com

Contrary to what you may have heard, the Yankees do have a fighting chance of beating Cliff Lee if they can force a Game 7 against the Rangers.

Keeping Score: What the Future May Hold for Giants’ and Phillies’ Pitchers – NYTimes.com

Following up on yesterday's post about "Future Wins", today's Keeping Score column uses Bill James' Similarity Scores to estimate how many more wins we can expect from the 2010 Giants and Phillies' starters.

Here's an interesting question sent to us by B-R reader Phil:

"I've been a Mets fan since 1967, when, as the youngest kid in my neighborhood, I needed something to differentiate myself from the older kids who grew up Yankees fans at the tail end of the dynasty. In 1969, God performed his last certified Miracle. As I've learned more about baseball over the last 40 years, I've come to wonder: did the Mets 1969 pitching staff have the best 'potential' of any staff? By that I mean, did they have the most wins left in them?"

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Last week I posted about how often the team with the best Game 1 starter by WAR wins the Division Series (only 55%, as it turns out), and with the League Championship Series coming up on us quickly, I wanted to do a variation of that study for best-of-seven series.

In the wake of the Phillies' sweep of Cincinnati, many are saying their top 3 pitchers (Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels) are all they really need to overwhelm an opponent, even in a 7-game series. How does that triumvirate stack up to other Top 3s since the strike? Combined, Halladay (6.9 WAR), Oswalt (5.1), & Hamels (4.7) posted 16.7 Wins Above Replacement during the 2010 season, a total that ranks 6th among LCS participants since 1995:

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