More photos » by Julie Jacobson - AP

Alex Rodriguez has proven that certainties in the playoffs are anything but. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Browse more photos »

Rob Neyer wonders:

The Yankees are overwhelming favorites because they're significantly more talented than the Phillies. If they'd played in the National League East this season, they'd have beaten out the Phillies for first place by a dozen games or more. 

Which doesn't mean they're going to win the World Series. But there's a reason why so many people who don't live in Philadelphia think the Yankees are going to win. And while I know that the numbers (and many of the same people) believed the Dodgers were going to beat the Phillies, I also know that the numbers (and the people) have done pretty well this month, otherwise. 

I would love to see an exciting World Series. I just don't see any reason to think I will.

Take his assertions as true: going by third-order wins or JinAZ's TQI, the Yankees would have won about 13 more games than the Phillies against a neutral schedule.

Given that, is he right about our likelihood of getting an exciting series?

Continue reading this post »

More photos » by Gene J. Puskar - AP

Goodbye, Eric Wedge. Rest assured, you didn't do much wrong. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Browse more photos »

Eric Wedge had been under some heat for a while for two straight disappointing seasons in Cleveland. The Indians were one game away from a World Series appearance two years ago, and two seasons later they were suffering from a 90+ loss season.

The Indians have racked up 31 WAR this season via FanGraphs' calculations, far more than any of the other 90-loss teams in baseball. This was achieved despite not having Grady Sizemore at full health and a set of starting pitchers other than Cliff Lee and Carl Pavano who could not strike out hitters. That 31 WAR should put them at 78 wins, but they currently stand at 65. There's your reason for firing Wedge right there; they're crazy underachieving. Next!

Well, I don't think it's actually so easy. Can Wedge really be blamed for these things? Is Wedge to be blamed for the team's poor defense (-35 runs by UZR, fourth worse in baseball)? Can he be blamed entirely for their lackluster pitching staff (22nd in baseball in WAR)? Probably not. So what can Wedge be blamed for this season? I'd say the two places where managers can be at fault are in bullpen management and lineup construction. Let's take a look at those and see ho Wedge managed (pun not intended).

Continue reading this post »

More photos » by Haraz N. Ghanbari - AP

Even if guys like Adam Dunn, left, and Cristian Guzman, right, keep producing the way they are, the Nationals can't afford to pay them free agent rates. Wonder if they're paying that batboy the market rate too. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Browse more photos »

In the first installment of the The Road to 100 Losses, I looked at the primary culprit of the Washington Nationals' consecutive 100-loss seasons, their pitching staff. Today, I'll look at some players who might also be worthy of blame, even though their play is helping the team's short-term production.

What am I talking about here? One of the things that has caught my interest since I began climbing my sabermetric learning curve is the value of a win, or in most of our analysis, a WAR. As of now, the rate most of us are using for WAR is $4.5M, as detailed here. This means that we would expect to pay around $4.5M per WAR to acquire a free agent. This last clause is critical because for many teams, contention cannot be solely bought on the back of free agent dollars.

Consider that a team can be considered a "playoff team" or "contending team" if it reaches 90 wins. If we consider a replacement level team to be capable of around 48 wins, that would mean a team would have to manufacture 42 WAR to be "in contention." At the going market rate for free agents, that 42 WAR would cost $189M of payroll, a salary currently only eclipsed by one team, the New York Yankees. In other words, successful teams need to find ways to build surplus value beyond free agent value to be a contending ballclub.

How do you build surplus value? The primary and simplest way to do this is to invest in the farm system and the draft, as cost controlled players in their first six years in the major leagues usually provide the most value, even at the lowest production levels. However, it seems like the Washington Nationals did not receive this memo.

Continue reading this post »

More photos » by Charles Dharapak - AP

"Natinals" third baseman Ryan Zimmerman tries to play through the pain of having a misspelled jersey and a hapless team season. If it makes you feel any better, Ryan, at least you've been pretty good this year. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, FILE)

Browse more photos »

Last Thursday, the Washington Nationals lost a 7-6 contest versus the Los Angeles Dodgers, sealing the team's second straight 100-loss season. As Justin Bopp highlighted last week, this is only the fourth season in which the Nationals/Expos organization has lost over a 100 games.

The futility of the organization hasn't just remained on the field. At the end of last season, the club was unable to sign top draft pick Aaron Crow on a disagreement of around $700K. At the start of this season, general manager Jim Bowden resigned while under federal investigation for allegations that he and special assistant Jose Rijo were involved in a bonus skimming scheme involving Dominican players. And among other things, there was the whole Natinals thing that made the organization the butt of many jokes over the following few weeks.

When faced with a stretch of futility like this, fans can only help but ask whether their team will ever get better. The good news is that the team probably is better than their win-loss record would suggest, though not by a whole lot. The bad news is the organization has not spent money in an efficient fashion in order to produce more wins.

Continue reading this post »

More photos » by Chris Carlson - AP

The Angels are once again overachieving and are on top the AL West.

Browse more photos »

If you'll head over to Halo's Heaven and search for "Pythag", you'll be greeted with much disdain for the word.  The most recent example of that is a FanPost which laments the fact that, once again, the Angels are being called lucky this year. 

The author of the FanPost is right; a lot of people consider the Angels to be getting lucky.  According to Justin's most recent Power Rankings, the Angels have been playing like a .529 W% team within league, compared to an actual W% of .609.  So I wanted to take a look at whether this was a skill, or if the Angels are just getting lucky.

First, how rare is the Angels current feat?  To answer I went into Baseball Databank and figured out the disparity between PythagenPat W% and actual W% for each team since 1960 (/random arbitrary date).  That's returned a total of 1236 separate teams, which seems like a pretty good sample. 

Continue reading this post »

More photos » by Lenny Ignelzi - ASSOCIATED PRESS

Jake Peavy's contract has 52 million dollars remaining on it. Will his contract, along with the 62 million remaining on Alex Rios's contract, bog down the White Sox, or will they be able to win with them?

Browse more photos »

The White Sox have arguably been the biggest movers and shakers of this year's soft trade deadline, adding two gigantic contracts in the forms of Jake Peavy and Alex Rios.  The White Sox, through these deals, have added over 110 million dollars of salary between 2010 and 2014.  There's no question that Jake Peavy and Alex Rios will provide some sort of production over the course of these contracts, even if it's not the level of production that the White Sox are paying for.  The question for the White Sox is whether or not they can still manage to operate from under the burden of these and other large contracts.  Before adding Peavy and Rios, the White Sox were already at a $96MM payroll entering the season - 12th highest in the league, but the 13th highest was $82MM.  The White Sox certainly belong to that second tier of large-market teams, behind the New York teams, the Cubs, and the Tigers, but more in line with the L.A. teams, Seattle, and Philadelphia. 

It's possible that the White Sox could afford to add payroll because they subtracted over 25 million dollars in payroll over the 2008 offseason.   Still, these additions have pushed them right back into that 120 million dollar range.  With the economy as it is, I find it more feasible for the White Sox payroll to remain in the 100-110 million range as it did in 2006 and 2007.  Let's take a look at the team that the White Sox will have under control for the 2010 season.

Continue reading this post »

New to Beyond the Box Score and like what you see?  Subscribe to our RSS Feed or Sign Up for an account to jump into the discussion and start posting your own FanShots & FanPosts.

Team Marketing Research has released their annual Fan Cost Index (FCI) comparisons of major league teams.  From their publication, Fan Cost Index is a measure of the "prices of two (2) adult average-price tickets, two (2) child average-price tickets, two (2) small draft beers, four (4) small soft drinks, four (4) regular-size hot dogs, parking for one (1) car, two (2) game programs and two (2) least expensive, adult-size adjustable caps."

Better teams should be able to charge their fans more, as they're providing a better product and thus have greater demand.  Bad teams should charge less, as their product on the field isn't a good and they thus have lower demand.  I'm sure MSA Population size, population average income, etc, all matter too.  But today I just want to compare how much value fans are getting--i.e. how good are the teams relative to how much fans have to pay to see them.

First, FCI vs. Actual Winning Percentage

 

Points above the line represent a "bad value," whereas points below the line represent a "good value."  The best value this year (largest negative residual) is the Los Angeles Angels--while not the cheapest in baseball, you get to watch an excellent team for a very good price.  Interestingly, when I did a similar comparison several years back, the Angels showed up as the best value then as well.  Other excellent values are the Angels' division rival Rangers, the Diamondbacks, the Brewers, and the Rockies.

"Bad" values, in order of how far off the line they are, include the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Nationals, and Mets.  Frankly, those teams are so far off the line that they're in another league in terms of fan fleecing.

Two more graphs below the jump!

Continue reading this post »

More photos » by CHRIS YOUNG - AP

Who would be of more value to a run preventing team like San Francisco? Halladay and his pitching? Scutaro's solid run production and run prevention? Or some pure, unadulterated run production like an Albert Pujols?

Browse more photos »

NOTE: This was written before the Giants acquired Ryan Garko. Still, the main point of this article still holds, and it is largely theoretical in nature.  While considering the already hypothetical situations, ignore the acquisition of Garko.  

Here at Beyond The Boxscore, we've found some interesting ways to evaluate trades, such as Sky's Trade Value Calculator.  In many cases, context-neutral analyses like these accurately represent, at least in terms of wins, the value being returned to the team.  However, some teams are simply too abnormal for the value calculator to truly show us how many wins a team can expect to add from adding a certain asset.  

The best example of this kind of team in the trade market of 2009 is the San Francisco Giants. Most teams show at least a little bit of balance between their run production and run prevention.  The Giants show no balance whatsoever.  Looking at pRAA (based on tRA) and bRAA (based on wOBA) from StatCorner, and UZR from FanGraphs, we can see how the Giants have performed relative to average.   Here are the 2009 numbers for San Francisco as of July 26.

Continue reading this post »