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BtB Hint of the Day - Don't leave your 1 year old alone with a laptop for 15 minutes.

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BtB Hint of the Day - Don't leave your 1 year old alone with a laptop for 15 minutes.

Updated CHONE Projections

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Sean Smith updated his 2010 CHONE projections, presenting what we should expect from position players the rest of the way. Some interesting WAR totals: Dustin Pedroia 4.1 WAR, Robinson Cano 4.0 WAR David Ortiz 2.2 WAR Albert Pujols 6.0 WAR Chase Utley 4.3 WAR Ryan Howard 2.6 WAR Alex Gordon 2.4 WAR Alex Rodriguez 4.0 WAR Evan Longoria 5.0 WAR Joe Mauer 6.6 WAR Ben Zobrist 3.6 WAR Derek Jeter 2.4 WAR Matt Holliday 3.6 WAR Jason Bay 2.3 WAR Hanley Ramirez 4.9 WAR Miguel Cabrera 4.4 WAR

Building on Jeff's graphical analysis of the Royals' bullpen usage, I put together a color-coded...

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Building on Jeff's graphical analysis of the Royals' bullpen usage, I put together a color-coded table of what optimal usage would have looked like (using my 20/20 hindsight glasses.) With seven colors, I picked out the 1/7 highest LI bullpen appearances (in different games, obviously), the next 1/7 highest, etc., until I had seven groups of nine appearances each. The average LI's of those seven bullpen roles are here: green: 2.87 orange: 2.25 purple: 1.75 blue: 1.28 pink: 0.71 grey: 0.28 white: 0.06 Obviously, there are some overly optimistic assumptions with thinking Joakim Soria could have a 2.87 pLI so far this year instead of his 2.17. Trey Hillman would have to be clairvoyant, for one. And Soria would have had to pitch on four of the first five days of the season. But this is a move in the right direction, at least. (Also, I'd rather use gmLI -- the LI when a reliever enters the game -- or innLI -- the LI at the beginning of each inning a reliever pitches -- because worse relievers will create more LI for themselves by allowing runners on base. But laziness trumped perfection this time.)

Dave Allen visualizes the linking habits of Ballhype's most popular baseball blogs. More cool...

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Dave Allen visualizes the linking habits of Ballhype's most popular baseball blogs. More cool graphs in the full article.

1.The pitcher is older than 25. 2.He's been in the major leagues five to seven years. 3.He's had no...

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1.The pitcher is older than 25. 2.He's been in the major leagues five to seven years. 3.He's had no DL trips in the past year. 4.He's had fewer than 30 days on DL time during the previous three seasons 5.He's had no shoulder or elbow injuries, or surgeries 6.He's pitched 200 or more innings each of the previous three seasons. 7.He's started 30 or more games each of the previous three seasons. 8.His conditioning meets club standards. 9.His biometrics meet club criteria. These include the measurements of his shoulder and his hip rotations, among others. 10.His intangibles, such as mental makeup and/or personality profile, are acceptable. 11.His Variability Index is low. This is a sign of good pitching mechanics.

This list was in ESPN The Magazine (paper edition) from Dodger's Trainer Stan Conte on what would make a durable pitcher. Of the factors I could find (no idea on the Variability Index with long Google search) only 3 pitchers make the cut: James Shields, Justin Verlander and Matt Cain.

Patented Baseball to Learn Pitching Grips

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Found this search for Variability Index. I actually want one for some reason

Jeff put together a sweet graph showing every leverage index where a Royals reliever has entered...

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Jeff put together a sweet graph showing every leverage index where a Royals reliever has entered the game this year, with Joakim Soria's situations highlighted. While Soria has the highest total leverage index this season, he hasn't been put into the most important situation yet this year. (A take-off on Steve's sweet idea.)

Quantifying Catchers: The best and the worst defenders

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I've calculated catcher's defense for all catchers from 2002-2009 (and am doing 2010). Unlike Fangraphs who still hasn't implemented wild pitches/passed balls, throwing, catching and fielding errors (why, I don't know), this method includes it. Here's a link to my 2009 post that I lay out the methodology more. Basically, I'm using Matt Klaassen/Justin Inaz' method. I did not include reputation runs.

Reasons To Make A Starter Into A Reliever

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Over at ESPN's TMI Blog, I wrote a post (with the great assistance of Sky) on five reasons to send a starter to relief duty. Following the "ESPN Loves Boston" thing, Dice-K is one of five guys mentioned.