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Joe Posnanski pens the best piece I've read about the aftermath of last night's Most Valuable Player Award announcement: Joe Blogs: MVP (The Aftermath)
But I will say that one thing that seems to happen when it comes to the MVP is that many people first pick the PLAYER they want to vote for and then pick the REASONS after that. With Cabrera, it became apparent to some people after a while that just repeating, again and again, that he won the Triple Crown wasn’t quite getting the job done.*
It's a yearly thing :It’s the 2013 Hardball Times Baseball Annual. If you have interest in baseball or sabermetrics (I'm guessing you do if you're reading this) then check it out. I may or may not have written a few words in it.
As usual, we've tried to include something that will appeal to all people, and lots of things that will appeal to most people. Hard-core sabermetricians will be happy with the articles by Sean, Matt, Dave, Chris, Jeff/Brian and maybe even myself. Historians will find plenty of new perspectives. If you're interested in the business of baseball, we've put a lot of good content in there for you. And if you're just a fan of baseball in general, I think you'll find plenty to make the Annual worth your time and money.
Bill Petti of FanGraphs writes about fly balls (with cool charts!) : When You Really Need a Fly Ball | FanGraphs Baseball
Generally speaking, ground balls are heavily dependent on their vertical location and vertical break. In terms of vertical location, ground-ball rates increase the lower the pitch is thrown. Pitches lower than two feet above the plate induce ground balls at a rate more than 50%
This Rob Neyer piece is linked in our discussion thread. I'm not sure I know how I feel about it, but it's still a must-read: Why I'm retiring WAR (but not what it stands for) - Baseball Nation
It actually makes more sense to round off Win Shares (Shares) than Wins Above Replacement (Wins) because Shares tend to be larger numbers, so rounding leads to less imprecision. But the principle is the same: Decimals imply a precision that is neither real nor credible. According to FanGraphs, Cliff Lee finished last season with 4.9 Wins (or fWins), Wade Miley with 4.8 fWins. Does anyone really want to argue that that's a meaningful distinction?