Touring the Bases with…Jack Perconte

On October 2, 1983, Red Sox legend and Lynch family hero Carl Yastrzemski lofted a high pop-up to the right of second base in his final major league at-bat, the ball finally settling into the glove of Indians second baseman Jack Perconte.  Only a few months later, Perconte moved west and spent the next two […]

A View from the Capital–The Party’s Over

“The party’s over..” for Jim Bowden that is. “Turn out the lights…tomorrow starts the same old thing again.” Thank you Willie Nelson, but there will not be the same old thing again in Washington, DC tomorrow. Nor will things remain the same in Viera, Florida where spring training for the Nats may see some fresh […]

Touring the Bases With Brian Bannister

In an industry that’s getting brainier by the day, Brian Bannister is the epitome of the thinking man’s pitcher. After an unexpected breakout season in 2007, he shared an interesting sabermetric theory to which he attributed some of his success. Unfortunately, his sophomore campaign did not go quite as well, as he lost 16 games. […]

A View from the Capital–General Mismanagement

There is not much to recommend Jim Bowden in a baseball era dominated increasingly by successful General Managers with Ivy League pedigrees. The issue is not how many of the best GMs in the game are smarter than Bowden, it is how with so many capable candidates to choose from the Washington Nationals cannot find […]

Marriage of Convenience

Adam Dunn’s move to Washington has the freshness and surprise of new stuff in the compost bin, but it nonetheless has provided spark and spirit for the Nationals as spring training camps open next week.

Touring the Bases With… the Veterans Committee

Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak with two members of the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee about the selection process and the thought that went into it. Both men declined to disclose their votes, but were forthcoming about other aspects of their involvement. Here are the edited transcripts of my conversations with […]

An Inaugural View from the Capitol

The excitement that has gripped Washington for the past few days is difficult to describe. Change brought with it a concert by Bruce, Bono, Stevie Wonder and Garth Brooks, as well as a new president who is not a former owner. Yet as I stand listening to Barack Obama’s inspiring inaugural speech on the Capitol […]

2008 Viewed from the Capital–Take a Sad Song and Make it Better

Baseball’s newest franchise took one step forward in 2008 and then promptly took three to the rear. A Washington Post online survey rated the opening of the new Nationals Stadium as the top event for the team and the 102 losses as the second most notable event. That is a fair summary of how it […]

Rating the 2009 Hall of Fame Candidates Based on Win Shares

One of the first items of business in baseball each year is the announcement of players elected to the Hall of Fame. This leads to lots of speculation and a little analysis prior to the announcement which is scheduled for January 12, 2009.

The Favorite Toy and the Home Run King Revisited

Last year I wrote an article about the top home run hitters and their chances of eclipsing Barry Bonds’ 762 circuit clouts.  Here’s a look at their chances after putting up another season’s worth of four-baggers.

What Teixeira is Worth in the Capital

Mark Teixeira did not sign with the Red Sox when they drafted him out of high school. With Scott Boras already in hand and providing excellent career advice he ignored the $1.5 million dollar offer and went to Georgia Tech where he got seven times as much when he signed his first pro contract three […]

A View of Bailout Field from the Capital

Mets CEO Jeff Wilpon and CitiGroup demurred when asked if taxpayers–now part owners in CitiGroup after the federal bailout–could participate in re-naming the new Mets Stadium. The “public” in public financing of new stadiums has been abused for decades by MLB, Inc. It is a radical idea, but maybe the financial meltdown is a unique […]

Hot Stove from the Capital

Washington GM Jim Bowden has his own transition going on in the Capital. His ambitious trade with the Marlins stoked a DC hot stove that had been stone cold. Change is the watchword in Washington these days and it could be washing over the baseball fortunes of the Nationals.

How the Home Team Wins

In baseball, the home field advantage is relatively small compared to professional football or basketball.

A View from the Capital

Bad boy behavior disappeared as an issue in Washington with the departure of Jose Guillen whose tempestuous relationship with Frank Robinson and Brad Wilkerson became grounds for divorce in 2006. Guillen is a baseball archetype whose corrosive effects are tolerated only by teams in dire need of the talent they bring. Now GM Jim Bowden–who […]

More On Reinventing the Quality Start and How It Looks Historically

On Friday, on MVN Outsider (on a different site), I wrote an article called “Revisiting and reinventing the ‘Quality Start’”.  In the article, I took a different approach to the definition of a Quality Start and established new criteria.  Since then, after some other discussions, I have revised the criteria, making it a bit easier […]

Mark Kotsay, “The Cycle,” and a Look at Rarities

We’re no Elias Sports Bureau here at Seamheads but thanks to Baseball-Reference’s Play Index, this week, I decided to look at how rare hitting for the cycle is. On Thursday, Mark Kotsay became the 123rd player since 1956 to hit for the cycle and it was the 132nd time since 1956 someone has accomplished the […]

Olympic interview: Scott Crawford, Canada

Olympic interview: Peter Bjarkman, Cuba

The Decline Of 20-Game Winners: A Lack Of Quality Not Quantity

Last week, Padres’ Greg Maddux registered his 350th win.  There’s a good chance we won’t see that again in our lifetime.  While I still hold to my earlier posts that 300-game winners are not dead yet, there is serious cause for concern with the disappearance of consistent, high quality starting pitching.

Was Clemente Really Slighted by MVP Voters in 1960?

Roberto Clemente called the 1960 N.L. MVP voting an “injustice,” but was it really?

Touring the Bases with…Bill Nowlin

Matt Sisson recently sat down with Bill Nowlin to talk about his recent trip to see the Red Sox play in Japan, Japanese players in Major League Baseball and his books on Boston’s favorite team.

Touring the Bases with…Rob Neyer

Matt Sisson recently sat down with Rob Neyer, ESPN columnist and author of the new book Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends, to talk baseball.

Touring the Bases with…Frank Russo

Matt Sisson recently sat down with Frank Russo, Author of the book Bury My Heart at Cooperstown: Salacious, Sad, and Surreal Deaths in the History of Baseball, and creater of the website thedeadballera.com to talk baseball.

Can the Rays Survive Without Kazmir?

What is Tampa Bay not telling us about Scott Kazmir and how will the Rays do without him?

Is Piniella’s Decision on Fukudome a Mistake?

Cubs skipper Lou Piniella recently unveiled a new lineup that would be more productive with Kosuke Fukudome leading off instead of hitting fifth.

Touring the Bases with…Gene Carney

Matt Sisson recently sat down with author, Gene Carney, to talk about his love for baseball writing, his new book, A Baseball Family Album, and the opening of a Shoeless Joe Jackson museum in Greenville, SC.

Touring the Bases with…Cory Schwartz

Matt Sisson recently sat down with Cory Schwartz, Director of Statistics for Major League Baseball and host of the show MLB Fantasy 411, to talk about his background in statistics, the 2008 Major League Baseball season and fantasy baseball.

MAJOR LEAGUE EQUIVALENCIES

Major League Equivalents (MLEs) are a series of calculations designed to take non-major league baseball performance and estimate what that performance’s results would look like statistically in the context of the Major Leagues. Bill James gets credit for being the inventor of MLEs, as he outlined his method for batters in the 1985 Baseball Abstract. […]

WHAT’S ON SECOND? The Japanese are Coming, Part III

I never like to assume, so once again a quick clarification from the previous segment: In Step #4, Leagues Park Difference, the 13% Park Difference will expand or contract depending on the SPECIFIC parks a player is coming from and going to. For example, if a Japanese player is moving from pitcher-friendly Koshien Kyujo in […]

WHAT’S ON SECOND?: The Japanese are Coming Part II REDO

Before moving on to Part III, there’s a clarification I need to make regarding Part II. In addition to factoring in the difference in league parks between any two leagues when doing MLE’s, you must also factor in the difference between league SCORING environments. In the previous Part II, I ‘plugged’ a 7% difference into […]

WHAT’S ON SECOND? The Japanese are Coming, Part II

As was mentioned in Part I, over 600 (664 by my count) players have played in MLB and NPB. Out of that 664, 32 of those have been native born Japanese players. If we break out the numbers by batters and pitchers, we get: Japanese Pitchers to MLB – 23 Japanese Position Players to MLB […]

The Favorite Toy and the Home Run King

I have a list of articles I intend to write, most about players who toiled long before any of us were a gleam in our parents’ eye (hell, long before our parents were gleams in their parents’ eyes), but sometimes events collide and new ideas crop up and articles seemingly write themselves. With the recent […]

What’s On Second? The Japanese are Coming, Part I

  Here on seamheads.com at “What’s On Second?”, we’ll be doing various ‘statistorian’ types of analysis, looking at the history and past statistics of baseball, hopefully with the goal of understanding the present a little differently.   Japanese baseball continues to have a bigger impact on U. S. baseball each passing year, with this year […]

Touring the Bases with…Jim Bouton

“You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.” Former major league pitcher Jim Bouton ended his controversial book Ball Four with those lines in 1969 and the nation has been in his grip […]

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