Maximum Feasible Dunn

And all through the house not a creature was stirring, no baseball news from even a mouse.  Black Friday shoppers are out in force, but baseball has only the near silent whisperings of General Managers waiting to see which players accept arbitration before the Tuesday night deadline. One quiet household could be turned on its […]

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, […]

The Myth of the 300-game Winner

It has been often written that the 300-game winner will never exist again. This is a total fallacy.  There have been only twenty-four such occurrences in Major League Baseball history.  Did you know that there are more members in the 3000-hit club and the 500-home run club? The role of the starting pitcher has changed […]

LETTERS FROM QUEBEC: The Kirk Rueter Revelation

The most shocking and compelling conclusion … is that Kirk Rueter was the Mozart of fielding pitchers – John A. Knox. A Few Words Up-Front Baseball is a complex game. Unlike those other activities which dominate the Sunday sports pages, baseball’s very essence engenders a measureless range of options and possibilities. Rife with ageless imperatives […]

Doubles, Two-Baggers, Halfway Home

Earl Webb: Doubles anomaly withstands history

Touring The Bases With…Lisa Fegley

Lisa Fegley is Ticket Sales & Promotions Director for the Jupiter Hammerheads, an affiliate of the Florida Marlins.  She also works for the Palm Beach Cardinals – which is an affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals.  They play in Roger Dean Stadium, the only Stadium in the country with two minor league teams sharing a […]

Any Fish’ll Bite If You Got Good Bait

The Nationals continue to make notable progress in building their minor league organization.  Rated consistently in the bottom tier since the move from Montreal in 2005, the system is on the rise, but an acid test awaits. GM Mike Rizzo wants to trade for a starting pitcher. The rumor mill has the Nationals looking at […]

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 Yankees Answer the Bell in Game One

A look at the toughness of the Yankees just as soon as Smithers brings me my vest made from real gorilla chest.  After the jump.

LETTERS FROM QUEBEC: Induction Day at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, Part Two

In mid-summer I wrote about the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ontario, and the successful Induction Day ceremonies it held this past June. I mentioned that the new inductees included Canadian pitcher Paul Quantrill—his 14-season major league career took him to Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York (Yankees) San Diego and […]

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 […]

Subplots of the 2010 Postseason

Taking a look at two worrying subplots of the 2010 MLB Postseason after the jump…

Touring The Bases With…Jackie Kampf

Jackie Kampf is the Marketing Assistant for the Montgomery Biscuits located in Montgomery, Alabama.  They have been an Affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays since 2004 and are in the Southern League. SEAMHEADS: What does your job consist of? What are your responsibilities? JACKIE KAMPF: My title is Marketing Assistant for the Montgomery Biscuits.  My […]

Ranking the Goliaths and Davids

The 2010 playoffs begin tomorrow and at first glance you would assume that the Tampa Bay Rays were carrying the banner of underdog once again. That would be wrong. The most under-privileged team teeing it up will be the Texas Rangers. Does their cheap price tag limit them? How far can we expect the light-weights […]

Touring The Bases With…Mike Vaccaro

Mike Vaccaro is the lead sports columnist for the New York Post and the author of  The First Fall Classic: The Red Sox, The Giants, and the Cast of Players, Pugs, and Politicos Who Reinvented the World Series in 1912, 1941: The Greatest Year in Sports and Emperors and Idiots.  He has won more than […]

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 […]

Joe Girardi: The Perfect Modern Manager?

In our culture, villains are meticulous and cunning. Heroes jump off buildings and yell “yippee-kay-yay, mother-@#$%er!”

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 […]

Touring The Bases With…Courtney White

Courtney White is the Group Sales Account Executive for the Oklahoma City RedHawks located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  They have been an affiliate of the Texas Rangers since 1983 and are in the Pacific Coast League. Their website is: www.oklahomaredhawks.com SEAMHEADS: What does your job consist of?  What are your responsibilities? COURTNEY WHITE: Currently, I […]

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 […]

Who’s the Alpha?

The battle over who’s the alpha dog of the American League East has commenced, and the Tampa Bay Rays drew first blood.

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 […]

Touring The Bases With…Doug White

Doug White, the Pitching Coach of the Johnson City Cardinals talked with Alfonso Tusa about his pitching philosophy, great satisfaction in the 2010 season, how baseball has enhanced his life and his everyday work with the pitching staff. Alfonso Tusa: The JC Cards hadn’t won the Appalachian League Championship since 1976. Were you aware of […]

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 […]

Power Arms of the Future

The original habitat for this post can be found here. Remember last year, when we wrote a piece on BAseball Reality Tour called Power Arms of the Future?  We wanted to celebrate how impressed we were with performances from young pitchers like Mat Latos, Tommy Hanson, and Neftali Feliz. As something we hope will be […]

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.

Touring The Bases With…Doug Gladstone

Doug Gladstone is the author of A Bitter Cup of Coffee: How MLB and The Players Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve, in which he champions the cause of former major league players who don’t qualify for a pension because they didn’t meet the required service time.  An excerpt from an article Doug wrote for […]

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 […]

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