Sabersphere 1/4: Offensive Volatility, Koji Uehara, and the D-Backs Outfield

Bill Petti of Fangraphs looks at offensive volatility: Offensive Volatility and Beating Win Expectancy

In general, the literature has suggested if you’re comparing two similar offenses, the more consistent offense is preferable throughout the season. The reason has to do with the potential advantages a team can gain when they don’t “waste runs” in blow-out victories. The more evenly a team can distribute their runs, the better than chances of winning more games.

Doug Wachter of The Hardball Times looks at Koji Uehara and limiting walks: Koji Uehara: the Cliff Lee of the bullpen?

Since entering the league in 2009, Uehara has been one of the best relievers in baseball at preventing the free pass, sporting a career walk rate of 1.23/9 IP and coming off season in which he allowed a miniscule 0.75 BB/9. Uehara’s no slouch at punching batters out, either, with a career rate of 9.82 K/9 despite averaging only 89 MPH on his fastball.

Paul Swydan wrote a piece on ESPN explaining why the Diamondbacks should trade Jason Kubel: The D-Backs Crowded Outfield ($)

When the Arizona Diamondbacks signed Cody Ross last month, they created a situation where they have six players worthy of regular reps in the outfield: Adam Eaton, Jason Kubel, Gerardo Parra, A.J. Pollock, Ross and Justin Upton. They probably can only carry five, and while knocking Pollock down to the minors would seem to solve the problem, there's this little matter of playing time.

John Perrotto of Baseball Prospectus shows us who he voted for in regards to the Hall of Fame: On The Beat

However, this piece is about this election, and I ultimately decided to vote for Bonds and Clemens. I am sure when the voting results are released Jan. 9 that a vast majority of the 600-plus voters—all of whom have had at least 10 years of active service in the Baseball Writers Association of America—will decide to go the other way.

If there is anything you would like to have included in Sabersphere, e-mail Spencer at SpencerSchneier22@gmail.com Spencer will be back with Sabersphere on Monday.

Today's BtB retro is an old post about Adam Darowski's Hall of wWAR in regards to pitchers (Now called the Hall of Stats): wWAR Part II: The Pitchers List

So, let's adjust WAR to favor peak years. We already track Wins Above Excellence (single season WAR above 3.0) and Wins Above MVP (single season WAR above 6.0). We'll apply the extra credit there. We'll count WAR above 3.0 twice and WAR above 6.0 three times. Let's call it Weighted WAR (wWAR). The formula is simply WAR+WAE+WAM.