baseball notes

Outstanding high-res gallery of baseball-themed tobacco ads here.

Round/Overall

 1/  7  Andrew McCutchen CF
 2/ 17  David Freese 3B
 3/ 27  Alex Avila C
 4/ 33  Vance Worley SP/RP
 4/ 37  David Hernandez RP
 5/ 47  Joe Smith RP
 6/ 57  Jim Johnson RP
 7/ 67  Nelson Cruz RF/LF
 8/ 77  Daniel Descalso 3B/SS/2B
 9/ 87  Adam Jones CF
10/ 97  Carlos Villanueva SP/RP
11/107  Marc Rzepczynski RP
12/117  Wilson Betemit 3B/1B
13/127  Alexi Casilla 2B/SS
14/137  Will Venable LF/CF/RF
15/147  Yoshinori Tateyama RP

Just missed out getting Ellsbury in the first round. Didn’t really need a catcher, but Avila too good to pass up in third round. Stocked up on relievers early, because that’s where the value was this draft. Late bargains: Adam Jones & Betemit.

01. Ernie Harwell’s Tribute
02. Bill Akers
03. Breaking In
04. Cantaloupes
05. 1921 Cleveland Series
06. 20-Win Season… NOT!
07. 1926 World Series Game 7
08. What Really Matters to a Pitcher
09. 300 Years From Now

On this 1963 LP, Hall of Famer Waite Hoyt spins yarns during rain delays over his long career as Reds broadcaster. The last track ends abruptly, but that’s the way it is on the wax. There was a volume two in the series, which was devoted to Babe Ruth.

Book #1 was based on test23.ps. Copy to test29.ps & make changes: /cyanIntensity from .65 to .85, /altShading from .04 to .06.

The Cardinals’ championship made the papers in Gothenburg Sweden!

St. Louis Story Ends with Victory
“Left for dead in August. Setback after setback. Now the St. Louis Cardinals are American baseball’s most unlikely winners in living memory.”

(Thanks, Anders.)

A caption writer fell asleep during Game Six.

This appeared in Friday’s Alton Telegraph. (Thanks, Arnie.)

Finally found some info on MLB’s study of broken bats a few years ago. I would have never guessed that grain direction was a prime factor.

From a stack of ticket stubs. Might have missed one or two.

1. April 14, New Hampshire, L
2. April 20, Portland, W
3. April 30, Akron, W
4. May 1, Akron, L
5. May 9, New Britain, L
6. May 21, Harrisburg, L
7. May 28, Altoona, L & L
8. May 30, Altoona, L
9. June 7, Harrisburg, L & L
10. June 18, Trenton, W
11. June 19, Trenton, L
12. June 30, Bowie, L
13. July 1, Bowie, W
14. July 5, Portland, L & L
15. July 14, New Hampshire, L & W
16. July 17, New Hampshire, W
17. July 26, Portland, L
18. August 5, Reading, W
19. August 12, Richmond, L
20. August 16, New Britain, W
21. August 24, Erie, W
22. August 25, Altoona, L, Jose Reyes rehab
23. August 26, Altoona, W, Jose Reyes rehab
24. September 2, Reading, L
25. September 3, Reading, L
26. September 4, Reading, L
27. September 5, Reading, L, final game

I didn’t bring ‘em any luck. They were 10-21 (.323) when I was in the stands, 65-76 (.461) overall.

Results from last night’s (2011-09-03) jersey auction. The B-Mets wore 1992 throw-backs from their inaugural season. $80 minimum bid.

Commish & I were speculating about the amateur draft. How many guys make it to the big leagues? How much more likely is a first-round pick to reach the majors compared to, say, a tenth-round pick?

I collected stats from the 2002-2005 June drafts, figuring that almost everyone from the 2005 draft that would ever reach the majors would have already had some time there by the end of the 2010 season. (Maybe that’s a bit optimistic.) BR has a nice draft section that goes all the way back to the beginning. (Rick Monday in 1965, remember?) The graph below (click to enlarge) shows the percentage of players with MLB appearances for each round of the draft. (Again, 2002-2005 drafts only.)

I see about three distinct sections in the graph.

1. From rounds one to ten, there’s a pretty good correlation between the round and the number of guys who make it. That tells me that the scouts make pretty accurate predictions for the first 320 or so amateurs each year. A little over half the guys who make the big leagues from the draft are selected in the first ten rounds.
2. Rounds 11 to 20 send about the same percentage of guys to the bigs: 12%, which is also the overall big-league rate for the entire class. These rounds account for about a quarter of the big leaguers from the draft.
3. There’s a big drop-off for rounds 21-50, with only about 5% of the guys making the show. These rounds provide the other quarter of the drafted MLBers.

I also collected some WAR stats, but you can’t draw too many conclusions from these, as all of the players are still young and will rack up lots more over the coming years. Still, from the 2002-2005 drafts, counting WAR through the 2010 season, it appears that the first-rounders account for 45% of the total WAR accumulated by all draftees. (The supplemental picks, usually about ten a year, are classified as first-round picks, so this inflates the first-round WAR figure compared to other rounds.) The first ten rounds account for 81% of the total WAR. It’s actually probably more than that, because many of the guys picked in the later rounds (Lincecum 48th round 2003 & 42nd round 2005) get credit there, even though they didn’t sign. (Lincecum signed after getting picked in the first round in 2006.)

A list of all players ever on the Perfectos roster. (A rainy Sunday afternoon activity.)

The outstanding Inside Pitch game offers cards in PDF format.

Just some personal notes here. (I hate perforations!) The goal is to remove the cut lines and get a nice 9×9 grid that minimizes cutting.

Continue reading →

A must-have for Gameday Audio listeners: an AppleScript that mutes the audio during a commercial break or pitching change. Mac only, natch.

How long do starters go, how many relievers, etc.

Here’s the simplest measurement, one obtainable from Retrosheet game logs: the average number of pitchers used in one game by one team.

The DH is certainly a factor from 1973 on, but it looks like it was falling anyway in the two seasons prior.

I wonder if we’ve reached a limit at 4 per game. Might be the max for a 25-man roster.

More to come…

I used to play this back around ’80. Fun stuff.

Check out the video.

They don’t make ‘em like this any more!

Here’s a short demo video from the ABL League Office.

1. Hunter Pence
2. Tommy Hanson
3. Martin Prado
4. Shaun Marcum
5. Delmon Young
6. Jose Veras
7. Bill Hall
8. Danny Valencia
9. Asdrubal Cabrera
10. Travis Snider
11. Brandon Lyon
12. John Jaso
13. Michael Cuddyer
14. Ricky Romero
15. Matt Capps

Tough draft. Hitting very scarce. Ended up with a weak platoon patchwork. Many picks are really for 2012. Counting on good 2011 MLB performances from the youngsters.

The new yearbook is available. 137 sides of paper for a sawbuck or the PDF for a fin. Contains a history of the league, records, and a statistical review by yours truly.

With Breen. Cliff Lee shut down the Yanks 8-0. Stats rated it the worst Yankee shutout loss in post-season history. Ouch.

[Box Score]

Bud Weiser was from Shamokin. Played 41 games for the Phils in the teens and a couple of seasons with the Triplets in the 20s. The marketing possibilities boggle the mind.