Beyond the Box Score

MLB Draft: First Ten Picks

wrigleyrocker12 — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:41:32 -0000

I found a first ten draft picks prediction on mlb trade rumors today . I figured I'd post this and see what you guys think.

1. Rays - Buster Posey, C.
2. Pirates - Pedro Alvarez, 3B.
3. Royals - Eric Hosmer, 1B.
4. Orioles - Brian Matusz, LHP.
5. Giants - Tim Beckham, SS.
6. Marlins - Kyle Skipworth, C.
7. Reds - Aaron Crow, RHP.
8. White Sox - Gordon Beckham, SS.
9. Nationals - Justin Smoak, 1B.
10. Astros - Tanner Scheppers, RHP.

Gagne Removed as Closer

R.J. Anderson — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:44:45 -0000

How big of a mess is the NLC closer ranks right now?

AP:

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Brewers yanked Eric Gagne from the closer's role on Sunday after the reliever called his latest performance embarrassing and said he didn't feel he deserved to pitch the ninth anymore.

Manager Ned Yost said he read Gagne's comments and will use a closer by committee approach while Gagne takes what Yost called a "mental break."

"He's really pushing himself really, really hard and taking it really, really hard," Yost said. "We'll probably just mix and match, I'm not going to do anything crazy."

Gagne, who signed a $10 million, one-year contract with the Brewers days before the Mitchell Report on performance-enhancing drugs included his name, said after Milwaukee's 5-3 loss on Saturday that he wanted to keep pushing through, but he didn't deserve to close.

"It's mental, I think it's negative thinking that creeps back in your mind," Gagne said Saturday. "It's a matter of going out there and executing your pitches, not thinking results and I'm thinking results. I'm going out there thinking three outs before I can even get one."

Gagne was gone from the clubhouse immediately after Milwaukee's 5-3 win over St. Louis on Sunday, but Yost said he hopes his reliever works his way back into the role.

Welcome to the new Beyond the Box Score and SB Nation

clockwerks — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 04:18:06 -0000

Hey Beyond the Box Score,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

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Useful blogs

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:05:21 -0000

Link

How good are the Tigers?

em3 — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:41:41 -0000

How good are the Detroit Tigers?

Yes, the lineup is great and I don't doubt that they will lead the league in runs. Even before Cabrera, they had a great lineup.

But what about the pitching? The top 3 guys (as per the article linked below) have logged WAAAY too many innings for their ages. I worry about them. The other two guys are Rogers and Robertson - who have issues of their own.

And then there's the bullpen.

Anyway, the poll in the article has 72% of respondents saying they'll win the Central. I find this number a bit high? Are they really that good??

http://mlbfleecefactor.com/2008/01/21/the-2008-detroit-tigers/

Boras' 2000 A-Rod binder

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:07:42 -0000

A-Rod Binder

Are middlemen the key in the World Series?

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 21:05:21 -0000

The Wall Street Journal had an article yesterday called "Going to the Middleman" By ALLEN ST. JOHN. It is at

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119335329621572171.html?mod=at_leisure_main_reviews_days_only

He shows how the Red Sox have an OPS differential of .153 in the 7th and 8th innings this past season while the Rockies only have .089. That is, the Red Sox had an OPS .153 better than their opponents and the Rockies were .089 better. The edge for Boston is .064. But in all innings the Red Sox had an OPS differential of .101 while the Rockies had .038. That means the Red Sox had an edge of .063 overall. So their edge in the 7th and 8th innings is no more than their edge any other time.

Certainly each team probably benefited by having such a big differential in the late innings, but it confers no special advantage for the Red Sox over the Rockies right now.

The big source of the advantage for each team is their pitching. The Red Sox hitting OPS in those innings is just .010 higher than it is overall and the Rockies is actually .005 lower. The Red Sox OPS allowed is .042 lower than overall and for the Rockies it is .056.

The Red Sox had an overall hitting OPS of .806 this year while it was .816 in the 7th and 8th innings. They allowed a .705 OPS overall and allowed .663 in the late innings. For the Rockies hitting, it was .791 and .786. For their OPS allowed it was .753 and .697.

How Good is Brian Bannister?

royalsreview — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:01:01 -0000

Over at Royals Review one of my members tried to gaze into the future regarding Brian Bannister, coming to this conclusion:

That makes it look like Bannister should be headed for a career as an average to above average pitcher and that is quite possible. But I think we need to recognize that Bannister managed this in his rookie season (career numbers span 203 innings pitched in two seasons) none of the above pitchers were able to do this in their rookie season. In addition, Bannister is only 26 and I think it is reasonable to expect that he will improve somewhat over the next 2-3 years.

One could argue that the above cases, including Bannister represent exceptions to the general rule that in order for a pitcher to succeed, he has to have a fairly high strike out rate. Therefore, perhaps it is unlikely that Bannister will be such an exception and will fall victim to the fate of most non-strike out pitchers in the majors. This generally described strike out rule has seen some exceptions recognized in recent years. Knuckleballers and extreme sinkerballers can and often do succeed despite low K-rates.

Could Banny become the next Jamie Moyer, or will he just be the next Aaron Small?

http://www.royalsreview.com/story/2007/10/11/192941/55

Are you a Sabermetrics expert?

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 13:48:08 -0000

I am doing a high school research project on sabermetrics and i need to have an expert in the field. All the expert has to do is answer ten questions about sabermetrics via e-mail. I really need someone to do this. I will be forever grateful. The questions won't be too complex and should just be a way for me to learn more. I will be making brochures also, so if you'd like i could give you credit and mention you there too. If you are not sure if you want to or not please reply here anyway, i will e-mail you the questions when i come up with them and you can take your time answering them as it is not due for a while.

Chicago has no "grander son"

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:12:18 -0000

As many of you probably know, Curtis Granderson of the Tigers stole his 20th base to get 20 or more in 2Bs, 3Bs, HRs, and SBs, to join Willie Mays (1957) and Frank Schulte (1911) as the only players to achieve those milestones in a single season.

Granderson is from the Chicago area. He was born in a town called Blue Island, which is near Chicago and he played college ball at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was right under the noses of the Sox and Cubs.

For the sabermetrically oriented, he is 4th in the AL this year in "runs created," according to ESPN. He has only been thrown out trying to steal once.

Here are the guys the White Sox drafted ahead of him in 2002

Royce Ring
Jeremy Reed

The guys the Cubs drafted ahead of him

Bobby Brownlie
Luke Haggerty
Chadd Blasko
Matt Clanton
Brian Dopirik
Justin Jones

I suppose you could say that at least the Sox traded Reed to get Freddy Garcia. Are any of these other guys still prospects or did any of them get traded for someone important?

Schulte played for the Cubs. 21 HRs in 1911 was very good and he hit 11 on the road. Ryne Sandberg missed joining the group by 1 HR and 1 3B in 1984.

HW Top-50 Prospects

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:19:58 -0000

The HARDBALL WARRIORS Top-Prospects line scores weren't published early this morning as advertised due to technical difficulties. The list is posted now, but it's probably too late to care looking at it.

Darren Amarelo & Ben Burkley combined their Top-50 prospect lists and published the #31 through #50 prospects a few days ago.

The #11 through #30 prospects were just published.

The Top-10 will be posted on Monday.

Please, check out the LIST and give us your feedback over on the sites forum.
We'd really appreciate your constructive criticism.

Please, contact me if you or someone you know would like to jump on board and contribute to
the Hardball Warriors site.

We're looking for anything baseball. If you have the passion to write & you love baseball, then send us material to publish on the site.

MiLB, MLB & Fantasy pieces are all welcome.

We accept weekly, bi-weekly contributors as well as the occasional contributor.

Thanks again!

Lists

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:46:28 -0000

Well, the HARDBALL WARRIORS site has been revamped.

The Top-Prospects line scores have been out very early the past two nights. Please, check it out on a daily basis. Darren is taking requests on the forum for players you may want to see on the list.

We had our very first article published today. Thanks to Ryan Vachon for hooking us up with his piece. It's a very good read, so please give it a read and leave your feedback on the forum.

Darren & Ben Burkley combined their Top-50 prospect lists and published the 31st through 50th prospects. 11 thru 30 will be posted tomorrow & the top-10 will be posted on Friday. Most of us like lists. Again, please check out the list and give us your feedback.
We'd really appreciate your constructive criticism. The site can only grow with you guys at least giving us a try.

Please, contact me if you or someone you know would like to jump on board and contribute to
the Hardball Warriors site.
We are looking for weekly, bi-weekly contributors as well as the occasional contributor.

Thanks again!

An Asterisk For Babe Ruth?

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:28:07 -0000

I wrote an article about this and it is online. You have to go to page 23 of the PDF file.

http://csweekly.com/CSWEEKLY/august29.pdf

I also have a more technical explanation at

http://www.geocities.com/cyrilmorong@sbcglobal.net/RuthAsterisk/RuthIntegration.htm

What I basically have found is that if baseball had been integrated before 1947, Ruth's HRs would be reduced by about 5%. I estimate that about 15% of the pitchers would have been non-white and as a group would have been as good as the 85% of white pitchers who would still have been in baseball. Removing the bottom or worst 15% of the pitchers reduces the league HRs per IP by 5%.

Rock Cats @ Fisher Cats

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 07:16:08 -0000

Anthony Swarzak pitched a very nice game last night.

Bonds Aging vs. Aaron Aging

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 17:38:01 -0000

The chart below shows by what % Hank Aaron exceeded the league average in SLG from age 21-39 (pitchers were excluded from the average).

Now the same for Bonds. I think this shows that Bonds has a more dramatic and sustanied improvement in his late 30s than Aaron had.

Existential Barry Post: Read It

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:19:55 -0000

Here's a link to a good "beyond the boxscore" post on Barry and his "achievement" -- some good photo-shopped pics on it, too. It's entitled Barry In The Sky With Diamonds

Here's a preview:

It was the summer of 1967 when The Beatles took it to another level. Already the best-selling band in the world, the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band represented a stunning, quantum advance from the group's previous, otherwise impressive body of work. The White Album, Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road, and Let It Be followed before it ended, cementing the band's legendary status as the greatest rock `n' roll act that ever was. Celebrated, lionized, from coast-to-coast and around the world, the Fab Four were inducted into the industry's Hall of Fame in 1988, their inaugural year of eligibility. Time's passage has only enhanced the legend. They remain the most revered music group in history.

A couple of weeks after Sgt. Pepper was released, Paul McCartney confessed to Life Magazine what everyone who had even casually scrutinized the album surely must have suspected: The Beatles were users of LSD. A psychedelic drug that unlocked the mind's creativity, acid aided them in the creation of their transcendent art. It was illegal, having been banned in the United States eight months prior.

To my knowledge, nobody ever asked The Beatles if their music was tainted.

So why are we so hard on Barry?

How bad was the White Sox offense in the first half?

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:21:51 -0000

After 81 games, the White Sox were last in the AL in runs scored per game with 3.95. The next lowest is the Royals at 4.44. So the Sox are about half a run below the next worst team. The league average is 4.87, so the Sox are about .9 runs below average and they scored only 81% of the runs per game that the average team did (take the Sox out and the other teams are scoring 4.93 runs per game, almost a run more). That would tie for 10th worst from 1993-2006. The 2003 Dodgers were the worst, scoring on 73% of the league average (from the Lee Sinins Complete Baseball Encyclopedia). Of course, the Dodgers have an excuse: they play in a bad hitters park. The White Sox can't make that claim.

The Sox tream OPS is .722 at home and only .678 on the road (as of now). After 81 games, the Sox were last in batting average (.237, 13th was .257), last in OBP (.312, 13th was .323), last in SLG (.370, 13th was .387), and last in OPS (.682, 13th was .710). Their team OPS was 90.4% of the league average. That would be tied for 10th also from 1993-2006.

Getting back to runs per game in the AL this year, the standard deviation of runs per game in the AL for the other 13 teams is .42. So the Sox are a full standard deviation below the next worst team.

They have scored 43 runs in their last 7 games since the the half way mark, so maybe things will pick up (although they were shut out twice). Their team OPS is up to .699, too. Their OPS has been about .896 in those 7 games.

Help me write Bobby Grich's Hall of Fame plaque

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 20:57:30 -0000

Looking at Grich's record, it seems hard to write something impressive enough to go on his plaque (even though he may be good enough-see link below). But I will give it a try. If you read this, you probably are bored and have too much time on your hands.

"Retired with the highest career fielding pct for a 2B man (.984, as of 1986, 1000+ games). Only 5th 2B man to reach 200+ HRs. One of only 3(?) 2B men to lead league in HRs. Only 5th 2B man to hit 30+ HRs in a season. Set AL record for fielding pct at 2B in 1973 (.995). Led league in put outs 4 times, assists 3 times, and double plays 3 times. Played in 6 all-star games and won four gold glove awards. Led AL 2B men in SLG 3 times and OBP 3 times. Had highest SLG among AL 2B men during his career."

Besides Sandberg, Grich and Hornsby, which 2B men have led their league in HRs?

I made the sabermetric case for Grich at

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/story/2006/1/8/20133/13493

Bob Feller's Amazing Strikeout Exploits

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 04:03:24 -0000

Of course, it is no surprise that he had them I have compiled some facts about this. Maybe someone has done something like this before but I have not seen it. My compilation is in a Microsoft Word file at

http://www.geocities.com/cyrilmorong@sbcglobal.net/Feller.doc

If you click on the link you will probably be asked if you want to open it in MS Word, so you should say yes. Here are some of the facts I compiled using the Lee Sinins Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. My link has a bunch of lists related to what is below

In 1936, Bob Feller struck out 11.03 batters per 9 IP. The league average was 3.32, so his rate was 3.32 times the league average. He pitched 62 innings that year and his relative rate of 3.32 is the highest ever for anyone with 50+ IP. He had not yet turned 18 nor graduated from high school. Feller faced 279 batters in 62 IP that year and struck out 76. So he struck out 27.2% of the batters he faced. The league average was 8.16%. So his strikeout per batter faced rate was also about 3.33 times the league average. The number two guy in relative strikeout rate, Dazzy Vance, had a strikeout per batter faced rate about 2.98 times the league average. I looked at strikeouts per batter faced because Feller walked alot guys and therefore it seemed possible that he might slip if we looked at it that way. But he is still well ahead of Vance.

In the top 25 in strikeouts per 9 IP from 1876-1960 with 50+ I, only a guy named Porter, who pitched in the Union Association, a league which only lasted on year, was higher than Feller's 11.03 with 12.53. Before Feller came along, only 4 pitchers even reached 9.00 strikeouts per 9 IP. After Feller’s 1936 season, it would be another 21 years until a pitcher reached even 10.00 strikeouts per 9 IP.

The next year, in 1937, Feller had 9.06 strikeouts per 9 IP in 149 innings. The last time someone had more in 100+ IP was Bill Bailey (of the Federal League) in 1914 with 9.16. It would be another 18 years until another pitcher had 9 or more strikeouts per 9 IP in 100+ innings (Herb Score, 1955 9.71). There were only 7 seasons of 100+ IP and 8.00 or more strikeouts per 9 IP from 1900-1950. Feller and Rube Waddell each had 2.

In the top 25 seasons in strikeouts per 9 IP with 50+ IP from 1900-1950. Feller has 7 of the top 25. He has 3 of the top 5 and one of the others is Bailey from 1914. Before Feller came along, only 4 pitchers even reached 9.00 strikeouts per 9 IP in 50+ innings. Feller has 5 of the top 13 single season strikeout totals from 1913-60. I know I am cherry picking the era, but that still is amazing.

From 1885-1962, he has the highest strikeouts per 9 IP for pitchers with 300+ IP(1946, 8.44). He has 3 of the top 13. In the top 25 seasons in strikeouts per 9 IP with 200+ IP from 1915-54. Feller has 4 of the top 8 and 5 of the top 12. I also have two time line charts which show how the strikeouts per 9 IP for the league leader spiked quite a bit when Feller came into the league.

When You're Wrong, You're Wrong

Mike Pindelski — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 20:42:00 -0000

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/story/2007/3/5/11735/47786

Remember that Five Cy Young Sleepers for the N.L. Cy Young Award piece I posted back in March? Here's the #4 candidate:

4. Anthony Reyes, St. Louis Cardinals

This might just be another gut-feeling I have, but many projections systems around like Reyes.

Reyes only pitched 85.1 innings for the world champs last year. He showed both strengths and weaknesses last season, posting above average strikeout and walk rates while struggling with groundball tendencies and home runs.

I find it quite odd however that Reyes' HR/9 mark was almost 2.0 at home in the 37.2 innings he pitched at the new Busch Stadium. Last season it was a bit tough to hit home runs at Busch (0.887 park factor) and I think in a full season Reyes will pitch better at home. The sample size of 37.2 innings is quite small, and one year's worth of park factor data for Busch Stadium is hardly sufficient, but Reyes may have just had a little bad luck at home even with the high flyball rate.

It's also important to mention the quality if the Cardinals outfield defense. Last season Cardinal outfielders were great on the defensive end (+19 from John Dewan), so being a flyball pitcher for St. Louis might not be all that bad after all.

PECOTA, Bill James, CHONE and ZiPS all project Reyes' ERA under the 4.00 mark, but none of our projection systems call for 200+ innings.

I don't think it's too silly to think Reyes can reach the 200 inning mark however. The Cardinals still lack rotation depth and if Reyes can stay healthy, 25+ starts aren't out of the question, if anything they're a certainty.

Reyes is far from a perfect pitcher, but if he can increase his groundball tendencies a bit, you have to like his upside.

Reyes in '07 so far:

ERA: 6.08
W/L: 0-8
VORP: -4.3 runs
SNLVAR: -0.4

And as I write this Reyes is facing the Oakland A's.

His line so far:

1.0 IP, 4H, 5R, 5ER, 1BB, 1K, 1HR allowed.

Ouch.