The first in a series(?) reviewing random games from the season just past. We begin at the beginning:

April 6: Arizona 5, San Francisco 4. The Opening Day starters were Tim Lincecum and Ian Kennedy, a pair of righties taken 10th and 21st in the pitching-rich 2006 draft. (Brandon Morrow went 5th, Clayton Kershaw 7th, Max Scherzer 11th … and alas, Luke Hochevar went #1.)

The shape of things to come: Tim Lincecum yielded 3 runs on 2 HRs in the 1st inning and 5 runs over 5.1 IP, taking the first of his league-high 15 losses. The two-time CYA winner would stumble into the All-Star break at 3-10 with a 6.42 ERA, reviving memories of Denny McLain‘s rapid descent. Few could have dreamed that The Freak’s stellar postseason work — out of the bullpen, no less — would help key another title run.

Continue reading →

The Dec. 26 edition of Jim Caple’s CSI: Box Score (spoiler alert!) featured the only home run ever hit by Steve Christmas, who had a brief career as a catcher and first baseman with the White Sox from 1983-86. That got me reminiscing….

Continue reading →

Upon hearing that Francisco Liriano had signed a 2-year deal with Pittsburgh, I checked his recent stats and guessed that he was the wildest starting pitcher over the last two years.

My guess was off by one spot. But look at the across-the-board closeness of these two-year stats:

What’s more:

Continue reading →

Since 1890, these are the largest annual changes in strikeout percentage:

• 1893, -38%
• 1901, +32%
• 1903, +21%
• 1946, +20%
• 1918, -17%

Continue reading →

Josh Hamilton‘s new contract covers age 32-36. So I set out to find players from the live-ball era who were comparable to Hamilton from age 26-31, and see how they had performed at age 32-36.

Before proceeding, there’s one point that I failed to state clearly in the Greinke post: I am not analyzing the financial side of Hamilton’s contract. It’s too soon to gauge the impact of the recent revenue surge on the average cost per WAR on the free market, and there are too many other value factors specific to the situation. I’m just looking at on-field performance.

Continue reading →

Over the last 5 years combined (age 24-28), Zack Greinke pitched 1,036 innings with a 123 ERA+, amassing 23.0 WAR by the Baseball-Reference method (rWAR) and 28.4 by FanGraphs (fWAR). His new 6-year contract covers age 29-34. I’m no forecaster, but I thought it would be interesting to find pitchers who were broadly similar to Greinke during age 24-28 and see what they did over their next six years.

Continue reading →

There’s a player who’s not in the Hall of Fame, even though his career Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is: six more than the average HOF position player; more than 13 of the 18 HOF second basemen; and more than any other eligible HOF reject besides PED suspects.

The reason usually given for his exclusion is that he had no great years and few truly outstanding ones. I’m not here to dispute that point, and this article is not an argument for putting him in the Hall.

Instead, I’m exploring whether Lou Whitaker was the most consistently “good” position player in MLB history.

Continue reading →

Before Monday’s Nets-Knicks battle (for first place?!?) that was settled in OT at the Barclays Center, the last game in a major pro sport between a team from Brooklyn and one from Manhattan was September 8, 1957. And just like that, the strains of Neil Young fill my ears, and “I’m driftin’ back….”

Continue reading →

Boyd Gail Harris, Jr., who played in the majors from 1955-60 and hit 20 HRs as the regular first baseman for the 1958 Tigers, died last week at the age of 81.

My first knowledge of Gail Harris came from a passage in The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book, by Brendan Boyd and Fred Harris. But the Associated Press report of his death noted that Harris hit the last home run by a New York Giant. I thought I’d flesh that out with a few more game details and other notes:

Continue reading →

WAR and OPS+ Leader

Buster Posey led the NL in WAR (both Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs; all further cites are to the B-R version). He’s just the 3rd catcher ever to lead his league in WAR (7.2), joining Johnny Bench (7.1, 1970) and Gary Carter (8.3, 1982). No American League backstop has ever led his league in WAR, and no catcher has ever been the MLB WAR leader.

Posey’s 7.2 WAR tied for the 7th-best ever by a catcher. The #1 figure was 8.5, shared by Bench ’72 and Mike Piazza ’97. Half of all 7-WAR years by catchers came from Bench (3) and Carter (2) combined; Joe Mauer, Darrell Porter and Carlton Fisk join Piazza and Posey with one apiece.

Posey is also the 3rd catcher ever to lead his league in OPS+, joining Mike Piazza (1995, ’97) and Joe Mauer (2009). Posey’s 172 OPS+ (tops in both leagues) was the 2nd-best by a catcher in modern history, trailing only Piazza’s 185 from 1997 (and tied with Mike’s 172 in ’95).

Continue reading →