Around the SaberSphere 12/14: Hamilton's Power in Anaheim, Trade Bourjos, Pythagorean Records

ESPN Stats & Info analyzed how Josh Hamilton's move to Anaheim could affect his home run numbers: Ballpark move may not hinder Hamilton HR - Stats & Info Blog - ESPN

In 2012, Hamilton’s home runs averaged of 415.7 feet, second to former teammate Nelson Cruz (among those with at least 10 home runs). New teammate Mark Trumbo was third, at 414.7 feet per home run. Hamilton could also be helped by the difference from right-center to center in the two ballparks.

Dave Cameron of FanGraphs looks into some trade options for the Angels moving forward: Hamilton Fallout: Trade Bourjos, Trumbo, or Morales? | FanGraphs Baseball

With both Bourjos and Trumbo, the Angels would be selling four years of team control for above average Major League players, including one league minimum year and three arbitration years. For a team with a hole in center field — hello, New York Mets — Bourjos is probably the better player, and the Angels can point to what Ben Revere just cost the Phillies as evidence that speed-and-defense center fielders are getting more valuable every year. With R.A. Dickey as the #1 trade candidate on the starting pitcher market, the Mets are almost certainly going to be team most heavily linked to the Angels, and which player gets moved might depend on their player type preference.

Dave Studeman of the Hardball Times goes into great detail about regression to the mean and variance in pythagorean records: Of runs and wins--THT

The problem these days is that people tend to throw the two forces together. When people say that teams tend to "fall back" toward their pythagorean record, they're really combining the two ideas. Pythagorean variance has become sort of a lazy man's regression term. Today, I've tried to separate the two more distinctly for you.

In a Fantasy, but yet sabermetric piece, Jason Collette of Baseball Prospectus discussed one of my favorite topics, Jeremy Hellickson's FIP-ERA gap: Baseball Prospectus | Fantasy Beat: Jeremy Hellickson and Defying Regression

Asking Hellickson to strand at least 80 percent of his runners for a third straight season is asking him to defy history and everything we know about regression of statistics. Just because something has never been done, however, does not mean it cannot be done, but there appears to be a good mix of process and luck with what Hellickson has done so far in his career. In just over 400 innings of work, hitters have a .244 BABIP against him, and he has stranded 82 percent of his runners

Also at BP, Sam Miller has some fun with the different wins above replacement implementations: Baseball Prospectus | BP Unfiltered: Which WAR(P) Are You?