The folks at Fangraphs have developed, and are advocating the use of, stats that seem to me to represent a major improvement, in evaluation accuracy, over the “save” and the “blown save” as methods for ranking relief pitcher performance.   The Fangraphs concept of the “Shutdown”, as a replacement for the save, is very simple in concept if you  understand the idea of “Win Probability Added” (WPA), which itself has been much discussed over the years at the baseball-reference blog that spun off into High Heat Stats. Continue reading →

In his age 20 season, 2010, Jason Heyward produced 5.2 Wins Above Replacement, according to baseball-reference’s formula (5.1 using the fangraphs formula).  That’s All-Star level production for a player of any age, and extremely high production for a twenty-year-old. More on high-WAR 20-year-olds, and their future, after the jump. Continue reading →

(1)  The Cards’ win over the Marlins was the first Opening Day game since 2008 in which neither team had a homer or a triple.  In ’08, both the Angels/Twins and Padres/Astros Opening Day games saw no triples or homers. 

(2)  Yoenes Cespedes had an extra-base hit in each of his first two major league games this past week.  Going back to 1918, the record for most games with an extra-base hit from the beginning of a career is held by — I’ll tell you after the jump — Continue reading →

Since 1918, career leaders in Opening Day games:

Home Runs
8, Frank Robinson and Ken Griffey, Jr.
7, Adam Dunn, Eddie Mathews, Willie Mays and Babe Ruth Continue reading →

I recently posted on the very long-term and continuing growth in the prevalence of the strikeout in the major leagues over many decades. For example in 1982, there were an average of 5.04 strikeouts per game in the major leagues, as compared to 7.10 strikeouts per game in 2011. All the more remarkable, then, that Reggie Jackson has continuously held the all-time career strikeout record for a hitter since 1982, with the 30th anniversary of his setting the all-time record coming up in August. Details, and challengers to his record, after you click that clever little “Read The Rest of This Entry ” line. Continue reading →

Livan Hernandez was cut by the Astros, but then immeidately signed by the Braves, a result that seems to represent progress for any player looking for a greater chance of being on a successful team in 2012. Livan has had an interesting enough career that it is quite easy to find statistical oddities about him. A few of those after the jump. Continue reading →

When the door opened for formal guests at British estates like Downton Abbey, the first face seen would be the butler’s.  On Opening Day, the first face in the batter’s box for a team’s new season is the visiting team’s starting leadoff batter.  A Butler has performed that duty in his team’s first game of a season more times than anyone else, going back at least to 1919:

Most “First Batter of the Game” Appearances by a Hitter on His Team’s Opening Day (1919-2011):
Brett Butler 10
Tim Raines and Kenny Lofton 9
Lloyd Waner and Delino DeShields 8
Rickey Henderson, Ray Durham and Johnny Damon 7

More on Butler and Opening Day greetings after the jump. Continue reading →

Bobby Valentine is near the top of the list of guys who have managed the most major league games without ever finishing in first place. Could Valentine eventually climb to the very top of the list? It’s hard to imagine his being allowed to manage the additional five full seasons he would need without finishing first at least once. Unless he wins a World Series as a wild card, which is certainly within the realm of possibility. Bobby will presumably pass Frank Robinson for number 2 on this list around the end of May of this upcoming season, and with Jack McKeon and Jim Riggleman out of the current managing ranks, Bobby will have that #2 spot to himself for a long time — unless he can get off the list entirely with an AL East championship. The “leaders” in this category are listed after the jump. Continue reading →

Mel Ott, along with Bobby Orr, Ernie Els and Brian Eno, is a core member of the Hall of Fame of Crossword Puzzle Answers. The Polo Grounds had one of the most evocative names for a ballpark in all of baseball history. Together, Ott and the Polo Grounds (which was a ten- or fifteen-minute walk from Yankee Stadium) produced the greatest combination of home run hitter and home park that the major leagues has ever seen. The stats to prove it are after the jump. Continue reading →

It has been widely noted that some of the trends associated with the immediate post-baseball-strike period (1995 through the early years of the 21st century) have abated over the last few seasons. Home runs and run scoring are both down from their peak, as are walks and hits.

Average home runs per team per game 2000: 1.17
Average home runs per team per game 2011: 0.94

Average runs per team per game 2000: 5.14
Average runs per team per game 2011: 4.28

Average hits per team per game 2000: 9.31
Average hits per team per game 2011: 8.70

Average walks per team per game 2000: 3.75
Average walks per team per game 2011: 3.09

But one stat that was also historically high in the heavy run-scoring period that peaked around 10 years ago has continued to climb ever higher. That’s strikeouts. More details after the jump. Continue reading →