High & Inside: 11/19/11

by Julian Levine on Nov 19, 2011 11:00 AM EST in Daily Box Score

After a prolonged absence, High & Inside is back. And it's great timing, really. It's hot stove season, and a lot is going. So on to the links...

To get things started off, Bill at the Platoon Advantage explains why he doesn't like MLB's new postseason plan, and I agree with him. Under the new system, a team can play very well throughout the entire season, play against an inferior team in a one-game playoff, lose that one game, and that's it for them. It just doesn't sit right with me.

A few weeks ago, former BtBer Josh Weinstock looked at swing area for batters over at the Hardball Times. Josh then applied the same analysis to pitchers, and found that it "tells us much more about both a pitcher's overall ability and more specific ability to record strikeouts than O-swing does." Very interesting stuff.

Also at the Hardball Times is an intriguing post on players who received exactly one vote in a single year for the Hall of Fame. There are an unbelievable amount of eventual Hall of Famers who fall into this category: "Fifty-nine eventual Hall of Famers received one vote in a year from the BBWAA for Cooperstown, all of this coming in the 20 main elections writers conducted from 1936 through 1962."

Over at U.S.S. Mariner, Dave Cameron examined the effect that signing a marquee free agent has on a mid-market team's attendance. The results aren't all that surprising: "Fans come to see winning teams, not individual players."

Team-specific links after the jump...

Team-Specific

Royals Review interviewed Jin Wong, Director of Baseball Administration for the Royals.

Over the Monster looks at how Yoennis Cespedes would work for the Red Sox.

Fire Brand of the American League, meanwhile, offers up a few thoughts on the Sox' managerial situation.

Lookout Landing discusses Chone Figgins.

The Todd Van Poppel Rookie Card Retirement Plan breaks down Gio Gonzalez/Miami Marlins rumors.

Comment-starter: The Todd Van Poppel Rookie Card Retirement Plan: a great baseball blog name, or the best baseball blog name? It's certainly up there.

Oh yeah, and feel free to send any saber-links for inclusion here.

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The purpose of the new playoff structure is to increase the number of meaningful regular season games

by creating a tangible reward for division winners.

The playoffs have never been about having the better team win. Teams lose to clearly inferior opponents all the time, even in 5-game series.

Baseball plays so many games, there’s really no reason to even HAVE playoffs if you actually want to find out who the “best team” is. Just crown the regular season champ. As is, this system will do a far better job of rewarding teams who won divisions during the regular year, without removing the possibility of a cinderella run by a Wild Card team. What’s not to like?

"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.

by PaulThomas on Nov 20, 2011 2:43 AM EST reply actions