Is Josh Beckett tipping his pitches to the Yankees?

Another View from the Lone Red Seat It looks like the Yankees have figured out Josh Beckett, so much so that he’s tipping his pitches to them.  Over the last two seasons Josh Beckett’s ERA versus the Yankees is a lofty 7.45.  He has pitched into or beyond the 7th inning only twice and has [...]

Seamheads.com Boasts Most Comprehensive Ballparks Database on the Internet

We at Seamheads.com are proud to announce the launch of the new Seamheads.com Ballparks Database, created by Seamheads.com co-founder Kevin Johnson and designed for the Internet by Dan Hirsch, fellow Seamhead and founder of TheBaseballGauge.com. This database has been a long time coming and something Kevin and I have wanted to implement since the earliest [...]

The Catch-22 Of Baseball

For a non-baseball fan, it seems ridiculous that a bunch of men holding a wooden stick can make millions of dollars for hitting a piece of leather stuffed with yarn. For a baseball fan, on the other hand, it’s all relative. If Alex Rodriguez makes $32 million, that’s fine; but how does that affect, say, [...]

Murphy’s Law: 2 MVP Trophies, 4 Silver Slugger Awards, 5 Gold Gloves, and 7 All-Star Games May Not Get You Into the Hall of Fame

Introduction The purpose of this study is to compare Dale Murphy to other Hall of Fame position players from the same era (1976-1993). His .265 batting average, 2,111 hits, and 398 home runs seem to be on par with other Hall of Fame hitters. This study will identify how many Hall of Famers performed below [...]

The Favorite Toy and…Bob Feller

In the wake of Bob Feller’s death on Wednesday, many a tribute has been paid to the man they called “Rapid Robert,” including one by our very own Arne Christensen, who wrote “Bob Feller in His Own Words,” in which the Hall of Fame hurler states, “A lot of folks say that had I not [...]

Phils to Have Best Rotation of the Live Ball Era?

On my way in to work last evening, one of the talking heads on local sports talk radio insisted the 2011 Philadelphia Phillies have the best rotation he’s ever seen, and this before they’ve even thrown a pitch as a unit. Bringing Cliff Lee back to a threesome that includes two-time Cy Young Award winner [...]

The 1928 Negro Leagues – The Two Leagues

The Negro National League (1920-1931).   Also known as the Western League. The Eastern Colored League (1924-1928).   Also known as the Eastern League. The Product How they played the game: (Negro Leagues Data from National Baseball Hall of Fame) In the 1920’s, the two Negro Leagues had both Batting Averages and Slugging Averages slightly lower than [...]

The Favorite Toy and…Tony Conigliaro

Since I went with all-time greats, Babe Ruth and Grover Cleveland Alexander, in my first two articles in this series, I figured I’d shift gears and go with a should-have-been great in Red Sox slugger Tony Conigliaro whose potentially brilliant career was derailed on August 18, 1967 when he was struck in the face by [...]

The Favorite Toy and…Grover Cleveland Alexander

Those of you who read my last Favorite Toy article about Babe Ruth probably noticed that the second installment was supposed to be about Ted Williams. Well, after giving it some thought I realized that I wanted to go deeper with Williams than most of the others I have in mind, mostly because of the [...]

Who Were the Most Productive Offensive Players in 2010?

Numerous methods have been devised to measure offensive performance. The most common are batting average, on-base percentage and slugging average. Since none of these averages provides a complete picture by itself, a more comprehensive measure of offensive performance is useful. Such a measure would include the following elements: 1. The ability to get on base. [...]

The Favorite Toy and…Babe Ruth

With the 2011 season still a few months away, I thought it was too early to bust out The Favorite Toy to determine what milestones we might see next year, so I thought I’d go retro and look at some of the game’s greats, not-so-greats and what-might-have-beens to see what odds The Favorite Toy gave [...]

Goodbye to the Win

An important and long overdue message was sent to the baseball world the other day when Felix Hernandez, a 13-game winner, was announced as the winner of the 2010 Cy Young award over CC Sabathia, a 21 game-winner. The message was unequivocal. 21 of the 28 voters believed the 24-year old should win the award, [...]

Doubles, Two-Baggers, Halfway Home

Earl Webb: Doubles anomaly withstands history

Triples: The Forgotten Base

The art of the triple sculpted by the master, John “Chief” Wilson in 1912.

Triple Milestones – 2010

Offensive production in the major leagues in 2010 was down significantly from 2009. The number of runs per game has declined each year from 9.72 in 2006 to 8.77 in 2010. The home run rate of 1.90 per game was down from the 2.02 rate in 2009. The major league batting average, on-base percentage and [...]

Bill James’ World Series Predictor Goes With…

More than 25 years ago, Bill James introduced a prediction system that picked the World Series winner with 70% accuracy. He wrote about the system for Inside Sports magazine in 1982, then expounded on it in his 1984 Baseball Abstract. He developed the system in 1972 and it accurately predicted the World Series winner at [...]

The 2010 Pennant Winners (How They Came to Be)

Using Bill James’s Win Shares, I’ll take a look at how each World Series team was formed. The information can be found at my site The Baseball Gauge. This page compares all of the 2010 teams. The percentages refer to the team’s percentage of Win Shares that came from each category with their rank in [...]

The Late, Great Triple

Former Los Angeles Dodgers Executive Fresco Thompson is credited with saying that Willie Mays’ glove was where “triples go to die.”  Variations of the same quote have been attributed to other sources, talking about other players including Joe Jackson and Tris Speaker.  Mays hasn’t played since 1973.  Speaker last played in 1928 and Jackson’s last [...]

Sorry Albert, It’s Votto’s Time

Ranking the 2010 NL MVP Candidates [Author's note: Irony can be pretty ironic, I suppose. It's not the first time that an MVP favorite tanked in the post-season, but Joey Votto did just that, going 1-for-10 against the Phillies as his Cincinnati Reds went three and out. It's worthy to mention that the ballots from [...]

Breaking Down The MVP Candidates

While the Cy Young debate in the American League is getting a lot of attention, the Most Valuable Player award is not. Although it is discussed occasionally, people are not giving it the attention that it deserves. The front-runner(s) at this point are Robinson Cano, Miguel Cabrera, and Josh Hamilton. All have had incredible seasons, but [...]

Shouldn’t 1987 Raise Eyebrows Too?

There has been an increased raising of eyebrows when looking at or comparing statistics of players in the “steroid era,” which began in the early 1990s. Look no further than Mark McGwire to see how these allegations have hurt one’s Hall of Fame chances. We’ll get another example of this in the upcoming election as [...]

Yankees Should Avoid Using Burnett in the Postseason

Since 1920, 391 Yankees pitchers have had a seasonal ERA of at least 5.30. Of all those pitchers, no pitcher has been allowed to pitch as many innings as A.J. Burnett. Why? Because Burnett is on a five-year deal, and he is making $16.5 million this season. Essentially, he is here to stay and the [...]

2010 Season Presents Puzzling Mathematical Results

If you can understand correlations, you can begin to understand something essential to success in baseball. Why? Because correlations show how one variable affects another variable. For example, we can see how strikeouts influence runs scored, and we would find that there is no notable correlation (actually true). The dictionary describes a correlation as a [...]

CC Sabathia Does Not Deserve Cy Young

The 2010 Cy Young conversation had been a fascinating debate. It had raised questions about how to determine if a pitcher is successful, and the value of certain statistics. But, unlike other years, the 2010 debate has recently become quite a silly argument as the season comes to a close. The main discussion has been between CC [...]

Yankees: Why Losses Today May Mean Wins Tomorrow

Yankee fans were unhappy—to say the least—on Monday night, when the Yankees surrendered first place to the Rays for the first time since August 3. Tuesday night, the Yankees got first place back, and breathed a sigh of relief. Amidst all that anger came an interesting thought: what if, by some chance, the Yankees didn’t win [...]

Derek Jeter: The Curious Downfall

When you glance at Derek Jeter’s .261 batting average in 2010, the first thing you ask yourself is: do I need glasses. Why? Because, barring an extremely unprecedented surge, Jeter is on pace to hit below .300 since 2002. More concerning, it will be his lowest batting average since 1995, his first season, when he [...]

Joe Girardi’s Crucial Mathematical Error Costs Yankees Game

Picture this: a game lasts over four hours, uses 41 players, features 374 pitches, has two blown saves, and ends in a walk-off hit by pitch — by Mariano Rivera. Welcome to Yankees-Rangers, September 11 (and part of 12), 2010 It was a peculiar game to say the least, and it was no surprise that such [...]

Steve Phillips vs Omar Minaya

I was thinking that it’s about time someone compared the careers of current and recent GM of the Mets, Omar Minaya and Steve Philips.

Why Is A.J. Burnett So Inconsistent?

To say the least, 2010 has been a season of inconsistency for A.J. Burnett. After his first start of the season, his ERA was 5.40. By his sixth start, it was 1.99. 10 starts later, it was 5.25. Now, after his 27th start, his ERA stands at 5.15, and unless he can bring that down [...]

Aroldis Chapman’s Fantastic Pitch f/x

The last time I tried to copy and paste a graph from Texas Leaguers Pitch f/x database, the information didn’t translate.  Let’s see if this works. Here is supposed to be the side angle of Aroldis Chapman pitches from his Major League debut two nights ago.  Notice the excellent tumbling, downward action of his offerings. [...]

Is Robinson Cano Less Aggressive This Season?

Robinson Cano’s career has been a battle of improvement. And, for the most part, it has been extremely positive. After nearly winning the batting title in 2006, and hitting .306 in 2007, things looked pretty good for Cano. But, once he hit .271 in 2008, the Yankees needed an answer. The answer was Cano’s aggressiveness. [...]

Player of the Fortnight vol. 3

It’s been a few weeks since we handed out any hardware, so we’re excited to present our third edition of Players of the Fortnight. (All stats courtesy of the inestimably valuable Fangraphs.)

A-OK without A-Rod? Not quite.

The Yankees placed Alex Rodriguez on the 15-day disabled list Saturday. The move is looked at as a precautionary one; the Yankees want to make sure that the injury does not turn into a bigger problem as we approach the playoffs. With a win on Saturday, the Yankees improved to 11-0 when Alex Rodriguez is not [...]

The Kaline: Establishing a Mendoza Line For Hall of Famers

Introduction The purpose of this study is to establish a Mendoza Line for Hall of Fame hitters. After looking at the lifetime statistics of current Hall of Famers, Al Kaline began to stand out from the crowd. His .297 batting average, 3,007 hits, and 399 home runs seemed to be benchmarks for elite hitters. This [...]

Pressing Matter: A-Rod’s pursuit of 600

Watching Alex Rodriguez swing for his 600th home run has been a frustrating experience. “Strikeout, groundout, popout” seems to appear in the box score every night. As he approaches plate appearance number 50 since home run number 599, it has become more and more evident that A-Rod is pressing. Here are four of Alex’s five [...]

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