Oops, looks like I missed a week of the Weekly Box Score. I'll double-dip this time, highlighting the best of BtB from the past two weeks, in case you missed anything the first time around. You did hear about the mobile commenting and Twitter software upgrades, right?
- Harry's research on the best pitches, as judged by whiff rate, made an appearance in the Wall Stree Journal (with a sweet graphic) and we presented more of the data here at BtB.
- If you account for the fact that more people go to baseball games on weekends and in the summer, attendance at interleague games hasn't been any better than at intraleague games, except for the first season. Eric also shared data on the most popular interleague rivalry games.
- Graham made his BtB debut by comparing his Pitch f/x-based scouting report of Tommy Hanson (based on one start, nonetheless) to a Baseball Prospectus scouting report. He did pretty well.
- Jeff presented an initial look at predicting injury rates for starting pitchers based on age, injury history, and BMI. He also shared his comments on a couple New York Times injury articles.
- Graphs of the Day highlighted the longest home run hitters, two overrated trade "targets", Home Run Baker's seasonal home run totals and WAR on the same scale, the different location preferences for Rich Harden's and Zach Greinke's fastballs, average hitter and pitcher ages over the years, career WAR for some pitching greats, career WAR for SABR's top five players of all time, the positional advantages by WAR for the AL and NL in the All-Star game, UZR by position for 2008 playoff teams, and the shocking possibility that David Wells has been just as valuable as Mariano Rivera over their careers.
- No major trades yet, but there were a few interesting ones within 24 hours of each other. The Mariners were able to shed Yuniesky Betancourt's contract, the Braves finally upgraded from Jeff Francoeur, and the Mariner's replaced Adrian Beltre's glove (although certainly not his bat.) Oh, Tony Pena (relief pitcher, not junior) was traded to the White Sox, too. And Scott Hairston to the A's.
- Harry live-blogged from the Pitch/Hit/Baseball F/X Summit in San Francisco, highlighting presentations dealing with the future of baseball data.
- Jonathan Sanchez's no-hitter ranked in the top 15 no-hitters since 1953 in terms of Game Score.
- Justin's Power Rankings saw the Braves shoot up seven spots, while the Mets and Pirates both dropped four spots. Dan updated his standings "projections".
- You think young players are flukey? A lot of veterans make us scratch our heads, too.
- Is Dustin Pedroia struggling because he can't hit the high inside fastball or because he's struggling with pitches right down the middle? The answer will surprise you. Well, it would have if I didn't just say that.
- Jack ranted (logically) about the inability of human umpires to call balls and strikes accurately enough and presented an original idea about translating the average win-value of a missed ball/strike into monetary terms. Some of it evens out, but it's still a large number. Tommy B. countered by saying the goal in baseball isn't fairness, it's entertainment.
- Javier Vazquez is not an All-Star, but he's been one of the best pitchers in the major leagues. Uh, ok.
- Dan kicked off a series rummaging through the BtB archives by looking at the besty left-handed starters of all time. It's a brilliant idea and expect us to
stealquote more of Marc Normandin's stuff in the future. - New arms of the week: Fu-Te Ni and Clayton Mortensen.
Ok, that's not actually everything, but I got tired.