Baseball Reference has a free trial for their Play Index, so I’m giving it a whirl. Who are the worst hitting pitchers of all time? I’ve got no magic criteria, but it’s easy find some guys who were epic fails at the plate. Rob Herbel pitched in 332 games in the 60s and early 70s, [...]

I was curious about the chances playoff teams have of getting to the Bambino Cup Finals and their chances of being crowned ABL champions. The playoff structure itself has a big impact, for example, the division champions have shorter roads to the cup. Of course, the relative strength of each team is very important, but [...]

I was watching a Cardinals game the other day—can’t remember exactly which one—and after a few innings the only runs were off solo homers. I hate games like that. I don’t mind a few taters, but small ball is more fun. It got me wondering: How many games have all their runs knocked in by [...]

The Pythagorean winning percentage is a measure developed by Bill James to estimate a team’s winning percentage based on runs scored and runs against. (It was named after Pythagoras, the famed Greek Sabermatrician.) At the half-way point of the ABL regular season, the Pythagorean winning percentages are listed below. (I used the 1.83 exponent used [...]

This has come up twice this season. A runner steals second, then, with the same batter at the plate, the runner wants to steal third. The Commish sent out a clarificaiton on 2/13/2008: Can you steal 2nd base and before the batter swings, steal 3rd base? ANSWER: No. If the offense attempts a jump for [...]

The SOM basic fielding chart seems to produce a lot of errors, at least compared to TPB. Reality check: what’s the average number of errors per game in MLB? A quick Retrosheet hack gives the average over the years. It’s not a perfect count—multiple errors during one play are all counted as one. Is the [...]

A Brief History of Run Estimation: Estimated Runs Produced Offense vs. Defense in Strat-O-Matic Linear Weights + variations

More data from the Deep Engine. All results are based on ten million trials. Here’s the results for all 30 parks from the TPB 2007 data: power: 5 4 3 2 1 homerun: 48.55% 32.38% 19.18% 9.26% 3.11% caught: 47.55% 63.72% 76.92% 86.84% 92.99% foul: 3.90% 3.90% 3.90% 3.89% 3.90% As expected, no significant changes [...]

Another critical parameter: the average deep range on a pitcher’s card. I looked at the 59 franchise pitchers and found an average of 18.7. (19.9 vs. L, 17.5 vs. R.) The largest range is found on Tom Gordon’s card, which has a 71 range, all vs. L.

To assess deep ranges I need stats on the power ratings. The breakdown for the 212 franchise players: power # pct —– — — 5 60 28% 4 50 24% 3 33 16% 2 33 16% 1 36 17% The average is 3.31 (3.29 vs L, 3.32 vs R). These numbers are likely inflated, as [...]

Another vital parameter: How often does a batter face a righty/lefty pitcher? From the 2007 ABL stats: 78.3% of innings pitched were by right-handers, 21.7% of the IPs were from lefties. I had guessed it would have been about a third lefties. Another way to figure this is to figure the total splits for 2007 [...]

The Bill James Handbook lists Range Factor, which is the number of Successful Chances (Putouts plus Assists) times nine divided by the number of Defensive Innings Played. Does this statistic correlate with the TPB range ratings? I picked a couple of the more important defensive positions and compared the 2007 Range Factors for starters with [...]

At the ABL Winter Meetings on the 16th I needed to select a team to bring into the league. Going in, I figured it would be between Boston & Philly. Here’s how I decided. Fifteen players can be selected, so I made up lists of nine position players (eight from each non-pitching position plus a [...]

From a Newsweek article about an upcoming jounal article by a couple of psychologists: If the preference for people, places and things that share one of your initials is conscious, then it shouldn’t work if the thing you’re choosing is basically undesirable. Strikeouts are undesirable. Yet based on data from 1913 through 2006, for the [...]

This time I looked at how often runners on first were thrown out at third on a single. Again, no other baserunners. Not counted: Error on the play at third. (Errors allowing the batter to advance past first are OK.) Runner on first out at second or home. Runner safe at home. Baserunner hit by [...]

Previously I looked at the frequency of runners advancing from first to third on a single during the 2006 & 1973 seasons. I extended the analysis by looking at all seasons available from Retrosheet (1957-1998, 2002-2006). A slight change: now I’m counting plays during which the batter went to second on the throw (error or [...]

The ABL simplifies runner advancement on singles. I think the only way to go from first to third on a single is on a hit-and-run. This made me wonder about how often runners advance past second on a single. Here’s what I got from the Retrosheet event files for 2006. (single_first.pl) These are singles with [...]

One thing caught my eye in the Curve Ball book: batters playing at home hit 12 points better than on the road. Makes sense, but it’s almost as big as the lefty/righty match-up difference, which they say is 15 points. And yet, AFAIK, there are no adjustments in TPB to take home-field advantage into account. [...]

Didn’t expect it, but this book starts out with a simple analysis of All-Star Baseball, APBA, SOM & Sports Illustrated Baseball! Interesting point about the SOM method of splitting the rolls: the batter’s ability is purely additive, that is, there’s no direct interaction with the pitcher. You can get some of that with pitcher symbols [...]