March 8, 2021

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A Fond Farewell to The Baseball Gauge

February 3, 2021 · by · 8 Comments 

Hello, friends and fellow Seamheads. As some of you have noticed our partner site, The Baseball Gauge, is no longer around. This has been in the works for a while, but only because our good friend and genius behind the goodness that was The Baseball Gauge, Dan Hirsch, has moved on to bigger and better things. He was hired by Baseball-Reference.com and a lot of his work on The Baseball Gauge will eventually be featured there or already has been. We’ll miss his site and working with Dan, appreciate his design and valuable contributions to our databases, and wish him nothing but the best.  Read More →

General

Southern League Shutouts: How Cannon Balls, Rubber Tax, Pelicans, and Hurricanes Made 1910 New Orleans The Shutout Capital of the World

January 4, 2021 · by · Leave a Comment 

Shutouts are so 1975, aren’t they? Well they’ve been on the steady decline since. Today, we see one every 150 games. But back in the day you could catch one every eight or nine games… some years even better. The 1908 National League holds the record: 160 shutouts. It is the only major league season with shutouts in over 25 percent of all games. The final two World Series clinching victories by the Cubs over the Tigers that Fall were shutouts. The final World Series game in 2020 was lost when a manager pulled a pitcher out of his own shutout because of a pitch count. Starting in 1906,... [Read the full story]

Features

NORMALIZING NEGRO LEAGUE STATISTICS

February 13, 2020 · by · 2 Comments 

Most baseball fans are familiar with the concept of ‘normalizing’ statistics. For MLB statistics, the most basic adjustment is to normalize for park effects. The simplest park normalization calculation takes the impact of a team’s park on runs scored then divides that number, either positive or negative, in half, and then that calculation is applied to a player’s OPS, ERA, wRC, etc. to get a normalized performance (usually indicated as OPS+, ERA+, wRC+). If you want to compare players from different leagues or seasons, add an adjustment for the individual league scoring... [Read the full story]

Hall of Fame

WAR and Win Shares and Charlie Blackmon

March 23, 2019 · by · 1 Comment 

It appears that WAR, in attempting to assign a single number to represent a player’s season, has a problem with fielding.   And the problem is not so much with the player’s defensive WAR score – but rather with trying to COMBINE this score with the offensive WAR.   A very good or very poor fielding score appears to seriously distort the player’s total WAR score. As an example, Matt Chapman had a great fielding season at third base in 2018 and his situation illustrates quite well why WAR does a relatively good job of evaluating his offensive value (oWAR) and his defensive value (dWAR)... [Read the full story]

Minors

Principal Park: Despite City’s Size, Ballpark Has Big Impact

June 30, 2018 · by · Leave a Comment 

Minor league baseball a Des Moines, Iowa, staple at same location since 1947 Submitted by Steve Dunn Located at the confluence of the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers in Des Moines, Iowa, Principal Park and its two predecessors have hosted professional baseball since Friday, June 20, 1947. One of the more unique games in minor league history was played nearly 61 years later at Principal Park on Saturday, June 14, 2008. With widespread flooding in central Iowa, the Iowa Cubs and Nashville Sounds played a Triple A Pacific Coast League game that drew an official attendance of zero. “The only other... [Read the full story]

General

Southern League Shutouts: How Cannon Balls, Rubber Tax, Pelicans, and Hurricanes Made 1910 New Orleans The Shutout Capital of the World

January 4, 2021 by

Shutouts are so 1975, aren’t they? Well they’ve been on the steady decline since. Today, we see one every 150 games. But back in the day you could catch one every eight or nine games… some years even better. The 1908 National League holds the record: 160 shutouts. It is the only major league season with shutouts in over 25 percent of all games.... Read more of this article

The Seamheads Negro Leagues DB: A Brief Introduction

December 28, 2020 by

In the wake of the recent announcement about MLB’s recognition of the Negro leagues, we prepared the following brief introduction to our work here. The Seamheads Negro Leagues Database is an in-progress statistical encyclopedia covering Black professional baseball players, teams, and leagues during the era of segregation. Our work was specifically... Read more of this article

Winter Ball: A History of Baseball, Cuba, and Race

December 4, 2020 by

In 2020, Cuban baseball players took center stage in the pandemic-shortened season. The Chicago White Sox, a team that won more than half its games just twice in the 2010s and not since 2012, finished the season with 35 wins, good for a .583 winning percentage (roughly a 94 win pace over a 162 game schedule). The club made the playoffs for the first... Read more of this article

Baseball’s Biggest Hypocrite

November 20, 2020 by

What if I were to tell you that there are 618 former players who aren’t receiving Major League Baseball (MLB) pensions? And that, of those 600+ retirees, many of them are persons of color, such as the Houston Astros’ Aaron Pointer — an NAACP award winner and diversity pioneer (he was the first African American referee in the PAC-10) who is... Read more of this article

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1926 NNL Fielding & Pitching, 32 Home Runs for Suttles

November 9, 2020 by

We’ve added newly audited and expanded statistics for the 1926 Negro National League, including fielding statistics, complete pitching statistics, batters’ hit by pitch, and a handful of new games and corrections to the record. While I don’t think that counting stats are, by themselves, a particularly good measure of the quality of Negro league... Read more of this article

The Return

November 3, 2020 by

November 2, 2020 The Dead Don’t Die We have always wanted to meet Mario Andretti because he was, is, and likely always shall be, the coolest dude on wheels. Andretti can drive any car, anywhere, at any time. He can ride a bike, play poker, and swim with dolphins. Mario Andretti doesn’t really even drive. He commands. But Mario is now 80... Read more of this article

State of the Game – Mike Port on Umpiring, Rule Changes and Analytics

October 14, 2020 by

Mike Port’s professional baseball career spanned more than four decades, from 1969 to 2011. When his aspirations to play in the big leagues ended with an injury shortly after signing with San Diego, he accepted a position in the Padres’ minor league system and worked his way up to the role of Farm Director. In 1977 he began a 14 year stint with... Read more of this article

We’re Back (At Last)

September 18, 2020 by

We’re Back White Sox 4, All You Assholes Who Don’t Like The White Sox, 3 September 17, 2020 Two thousand eight. The world has changed a bit since then. Two thousand eight was the last time the Chicago White Sox made the playoffs and now they’re finally back, braving into the postseason based upon a regular season and year unlike any other. The... Read more of this article

From the Archives: “The Mysterious Floating Sensation”

August 11, 2020 by

The following was originally posted on October 6, 2008 and an abridged version appears in Baseball’s Untold History: The Wild Side published by Summer Game Books in 2017. Did he or didn’t he? That’s the question. Eddie Cicotte is widely recognized as the inventor of the knuckleball, earning his nickname “Knuckles” around... Read more of this article

Negro Leagues DB Update: 1924 NNL Fielding & Pitching + 1921 Tesreau Bears

July 13, 2020 by

A brief note on an update we made a few weeks ago. We have added: 1) Fielding statistics, full pitching statistics, and batters’ hit by pitch for the 1924 Negro National League, along with games involving one new independent team, Charlie Mills’s St. Louis Giants; 2) 1921 games between Black teams and a very good white semiprofessional team,... Read more of this article

More Posts From General

Features

NORMALIZING NEGRO LEAGUE STATISTICS

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Most baseball fans are familiar with the concept of ‘normalizing’ statistics.... 

Major League Equivalencies for The Negro Leagues

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Major League Equivalents (MLEs) are a series of calculations designed to take non-major... 

Negro League Great, Spottswood Poles, Honored by his Birthplace

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The city of Winchester, Virginia honored early 20th century Negro Leaguer, and native... 

Trevor Bauer, Sam McDowell, and A Rod’s Birthday Cake

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So, in a fit of anger or frustration or both, Trevor Bauer heaved the baseball over... 

Ryan Westmoreland: Former Boston Red Sox Top Prospect Talks Playing Career and New Focus

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For serious fans of the Boston Red Sox, Harry Agganis and Tony Conigliaro are... 

More Posts From Features

Hall of Fame

WAR and Win Shares and Charlie Blackmon

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It appears that WAR, in attempting to assign a single number to represent a player’s... 

The BBWAA “Report Card” for the 21st Century

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The CAWS Career Gauge (CCG) has ranked all of the outstanding players of the modern... 

WAR and JAWS – Exaggerating Fielding Value

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In an earlier post, I pointed out that Matt Chapman’s WAR value for 2018 (8.2)... 

A Problem with WAR = Defensive Value

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My primary research interest has always been determining which players had the best... 

The Four CAWS HOF Benchmarks for Pitchers

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In a previous post re Koufax and Kershaw, I mentioned one of the benchmarks created... 

More Posts From Hall of Fame

Minors

Principal Park: Despite City’s Size, Ballpark Has Big Impact

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Minor league baseball a Des Moines, Iowa, staple at same location since 1947 Submitted... 

Max Watt: The Boston Red Sox’s Power Pitching Prospect

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Scouting is an integral part of professional baseball. Teams employ and send out... 

Suns’ First Pitch Thrown By Suns’ First Pitcher

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The Hagerstown Suns of the South Atlantic League asked the retiring sheriff of nearby... 

An Interview with Boston Red Sox Prospect Nick Longhi

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Growing up rooting for a baseball team, and striving to get into position to one... 

Carroll enjoys staying on his grind

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ROCHESTER, NY – More than a decade has passed since Brett Carroll roamed... 

More Posts From Minors

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