30 June 2013

The Guns of August: Declaring the Wrong WAR

It was inevitable.

Seamheads like me lobby for years to get better measurements accepted into the game of baseball. Ditch the team metrics that accrue to individuals like pitcher wins, runs and RBI in favor of FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), OPS (On-base average plus slugging percentage) and VORP (batting value over replacement player).

Then, after repeatedly confronted with the vast utility advantage of the new stats, the guardians of baseball finally breakdown and adopt them. Haltingly. Gingerly. Slowly. But they do it.

So now even retrograde outlets like Fox Sports and my little hometown paper reference WAR (wins against replacement) on occasion. Yea!

...And they butcher it. Well, "butcher" overstates the error and understates the problem. Butchery would be easy to correct. They miss the nuance in WAR and as a result, misuse it, mis-perceive it and misunderstand it.

WAR (and its cousin, WARP) does yeoman's work. It purports to wrap a player's entire value -- hitting, pitching, fielding, base running -- into one stat, adjusted for ballpark and competition and defensive position. It's zero-calorie, no-fat, chocolate peanut butter coffee ice cream that's high in Vitamin D and anti-oxidants.

But about every fourth gallon, there's a rat hair in the ice cream. It's a problem. It should make us all skeptical of WAR. More on that momentito.

Now, when Fox Sports or my hometown paper allude to WAR, they do so with tongue in cheek. They don't understand the stat, can't fathom the math, and consequently want to distance themselves from its conclusions. They compare the WAR of two players, but when the results don't reinforce what home runs, RBIs and pitcher wins suggest, they giggle, turn crimson and change the subject.

Here's an example: Orioles shortstop JJ Hardy (.261/.298/.452 with 15 HR) is worth 2.4 WAR while Phillies outfielder Domonic Brown (.275/.323/.552 with 21 HR) is worth just 2.2 WAR. Because my local sports columnist isn't comfortable with the narrative, he mentions the number but examines other elements of their performance before shrugging his shoulders and calling it a toss-up.

Hardy is more valuable than Brown despite a 120-point OPS deficit because a) he's being compared offensively to shortstops, as opposed to corner outfielders, b) he's a good fielder at a higher premium position, c) he plays in a home stadium less conducive to hitting safely and d) playing in the AL East means he faces tougher competition.

Now back to the rat hair in the ice cream. It's the defensive metrics that comprise part of WAR. After a decade-and-a-half of trying, the best minds in baseball research have improved immensely on fielding percentage and eyeballs. The new defensive metrics can help us determine fielding acumen, but still only in the broadest terms. They work well when several different measurement systems are combined and their time horizon is long. 

One player, one season, one defensive measurement system -- that's asking for trouble. You can find dozens of ballplayers who are rated plus-plus fielders in a given year by FRAA (Baseball Prospectus's system) and below average by UZR (Fangraphs' zone rating system) or vice versa. This year, BP has Hardy at replacement level in the field while Baseball-Reference credits him with 1.2 defensive wins.

Consequently, the WAR of players at the margins -- whose defensive numbers are large -- can vary widely depending on whose defensive measures we're using. It can make the difference of two wins in a season, the gap between a 2.5 win regular and a 4.5 win All-Star.

It's even more problematic for pitchers, whose WAR is calculated by very complicated calculations that attempt to quantify the defense behind them and then strip it from their results. (This is what's called Fielding Independent Pitching.) The high margin of error in those equations can polish or stain a whole pitching staff.

We're going to hear a lot more talk of WAR as the season wears on. We should be wary of it, but not afraid of it. We should understand why its use requires a shaker-full of salt. And we should understand that for most players, particularly at high-offense positions, it's a very tasty new treat.

29 June 2013

Who Doesn't Belong On Your All-Star Ballot

Many Americans vote for their President, US Senator and House member without much thought. They vote for the guy they like, or listen to one speech and make up their minds or enter the voting booth not sure and pull one lever or another based on whim.

But the MLB All-Star ballot, that's a sacred rite! So, okay, there's not much point in treating the vote as if lives depend on it.

On the other hand, it's reasonable to avoid blatant injustice if you can. So let's take a look at the All-Star ballot. Here's mine:

AL
1B - Chris Davis, BAL -- maybe the first half MVP
2B - Robinson Cano, NY -- the best player having the best season
SS - Jed Lowrie, OAK -- in a close vote
3B - Miguel Cabrera, DET -- any questions?
DH - David Ortiz, BOS -- there's really no one else
C - Joe Mauer, MIN -- no contest
OF - Mike Trout, ANA -- best in the majors
OF - Adam Jones, BAL -- because he slugs and plays center
OF - Alex Gordon, KC -- he does it all

NL
1B - Joey Votto, CIN -- the best player having the best season
2B - Matt Carpenter, StL -- No track record, but he's by far the best this season
SS - Troy Tulowitzki, COL -- he's hurt, but give him the honor and then replace him with Segura
3B - David Wright, NY -- head and shoulders above the crowd
C - Yadier Molina, StL -- his defense gets the nod over Posey
OF - Shin-soo Choo, CIN -- he just gets on and on and on
OF - Andrew McCutchen, PIT -- stud's getting it done again
OF - Domonic Brown, PHI -- gave him the nod over Gerardo Parra

Others whom you might have reasonably selected:
Paul Goldschmidt, AZ at NL 1B -- He's unlikely to maintain his .300+ average while Votto will
Jason Kipnis, CLE at AL 2B -- A breakout with the bat, but Cano does that every year
Dustin Pedroia, BOS at AL 2B -- He's got the track record but lacks Cano's power and durability
Marco Scutaro, SF at NL 2B -- Another nice season, but w/o power pales compared to Carpenter
Jhonny Peralta, DET at AL SS -- Hitting better than Lowrie and both are defensively suspect
Jean Segura, MIL at NL SS -- Hard to vote for a player based on 80 games when there's a real option
Buster Posey, SF at NL C -- You know he'll keep hitting like this; Molina probably won't
Brett Gardner, NYY at AL OF -- Splitting hairs left him off
Gerardo Parra, AZ, at NL OF -- See above note
Carlos Gonzalez, COL at NL OF -- Denver casts a shadow on his big numbers 
Michael Cuddyer, COL at NL OF -- The hitting streak will end for this .805 OPS lifetime hitter
Ryan Braun, MIL at NL OF -- missing the power and maybe the credibility
Torii Hunter, ANA; Coco Crisp, OAK; Michael Bourn, CLE at AL OF -- good players getting it done in '13.

Here are some players who will get votes but whom you can't reasonably vote for: 

Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Texeira, Curtis Granderson, Bryce Harper, Matt Kemp or anyone else who's sat this spring more than he's stood.

Yasiel Puig, because of the small sample size. The Puig phenomenon belongs at the game but he shouldn't replace someone who has earned the start all year.

Evan Longoria or Manny Machado. They're raking and deserve to be in Flushing, but voting for anyone besides Miguel Cabrera should freeze your account and void your ballot.

Edwin Encarnacion, James Loney or anyone at AL first base besides Chris Davis. If hitting .330/.404/.704 with 28 homers doesn't earn your vote, no one does.

Melky Cabrera because you thought M. Cabrera on the ballot meant Miguel and you don't know that Miguel isn't an outfielder.

Players batting .249/.298/.367 who are on your favorite team.

Albert Pujols. A vote for him indicates you are not paying sufficient attention to merit even one vote, much less the 75 cast from my computer. Long live democracy!

25 June 2013

Strange But True Baseball Facts


Mike Trout's 2013 is already the 42nd best age-21 season of all time by Wins Against Replacement. After the greatest age-20 season ever, he's on pace for the greatest age-21 season ever. That's despite stealing fewer bases, shining less in the field and losing 40 points on his BABIP. He's been Troutstanding. But his team is hampered by an Albertross and a Hamildone.

Heath Bell: Batters are hitting .324/.352/.574 against him. He's allowed more home runs and uncorked more wild pitchers this season than all of last year. Yet he's saved 13 in 16 attempts.

The Orioles' Adam Jones led the league with seven RBIs last week. He hit .240/.240/.400. Thhhpppp. Knocking in six runs were Carlos Pena (.150/.190/.450), Victor Martinez (.160/.290/.320) and Kendrys Morales (.200/.286/.320.) But I'm sure they're all clutch.

The Astros are now on pace for a record 1,535 strikeouts. Unless they get relegated to Triple-A in mid-season.

Rick Ankiel has whiffed 60 times in 136 plate appearances, the worst contact rate ever in that many trips to the plate. Which is why there probably won't be many more.

Adam Dunn, .184/.280/.447, is the fourth best hitter on the White Sox this year. You might want to take a pass on playoff ticket options.

Gerardo Parra has attempted 15 steals this year and failed nine times, a 40% success rate. The Major League average this season is 73%. Parra's career success rate is 62%.

Bryce Harper is rehabbing from a knee injury at Single-A Potomac. He is the youngest player on the team.

Dodger infielder Luis Cruz hits .125/.175/.169 in 148 plate appearances. He must be some fielder. (To be fair, he is; he plays second, third and short; and last year he hit .297/.322/.431 in 296 PA.)

The Cards' Edward Mujica is the only pitcher in baseball with more than one save but no decisions. He has 21 saves. #WhoCares

Forty-one-year-old Raul Ibanez leads the Mariners in home runs and RBI. He has a .282 OBP. Maybe they should bring back Junior.

Much of this came from Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus.

23 June 2013

17 June 2013

Who Has Quality Wins and Losses

Previous discussion in this space outlined the vast advantages of tying wins and losses to a matrix of what constitutes quality starts. Doing so demonstrates how Jason Hammel of the Orioles, who sports a 7-4 record, in fact has provided his team with only five good chances to win in 14 tries. Conversely, The White Sox' Chris Sale, whose 5-5 record suggests middling performance, should be 10-2 based on the quality of his starts.

Here are some other insights that Quality Wins provides on starting pitcher records:

The Phillies' Cole Hamels is 2-10. He should be 10-5. His won-loss record not only tells us nothing about his performance, it completely misleads us.
The Cardinals' Lance Lynn is 9-1. He should be 9-5. He's avoided four losses because his teammates have bailed him out.

Here are some other Quality Win revelations with the pitcher's name, his Quality Win record in bold and his actual W-L tally in parentheses.

Bud Norris 10-3 (5-6)
Patrick Corbin 10-3 (9-0)
The Astros' righty and D'backs lefty have performed similarly, but W-L aficionados would perceive them quite differently.

Joe Saunders, 8-6 (5-6) 
Yovani Gallardo 6-9 (6-6)
An above average Mariner has a losing record while a bad Brewer appears to be middling.

Stephen Strasburg, 8-5 (3-6)
Gio Gonzalez 9-5 (3-3)
Evidently the Nats' problem is more offensive than defensive.

Clayton Kershaw, 12-3 (5-4)
Jon Lester, 6-9 (6-4) 
The Dodgers' ace and the Red Sox' ace have similar records, but only because one has been victimized and the other propped up, by his mates.

Brandon Morrow 3-7 (2-3)
Phil Hughes 7-6 (3-5)
Again, similar records; divergent paths. 

Mat Latos 9-5 (6-0)
Shaun Marcum 3-7 (0-8)
The undefeated Red should have lost five times. The winless Met has pitched well enough for victory a few times.

Lucas Harrell 10-5 (5-7)
Ricky Nolasco, 8-6 (3-7) 
A.J. Burnett 9-5 (4-6) 
Marco Estrada 4-8 (4-4)
Estrada has the best record of the group despite the worst results.

This is based on a 2000-2013 standard, which includes a goodly chunk of the longball era. You might be thinking that had we limited the benchmark to 2011-2013, more of these wins would be losses, or put another way, a starter would have to pitch more innings per run allowed in order to notch the W.

Currently, this is the matrix:
Go at least five innings. Give up two or fewer runs.
Pitch 6.3 innings and give up three runs or fewer.
Pitch eight innings and give up four runs or fewer.
Pitch 9.7 innings and give up five runs or fewer.


Subtract three percent from the scoring and the matrix becomes this:
Go five innings. Give up one run or none.
Go at least five-and-two-thirds innings and give up two or fewer runs.
Pitch seven innings and give up three runs or fewer.
Pitch eight-and-two-thirds innings and give up four runs or fewer.


As it turns out, it doesn't make much difference. After recalculating the Quality Win records of eight guys listed above, a grand total of one win transformed into a loss. 

The bottom line is, if you're addicted to pitching wins, here's a formula that hews closer to the quality of the start. And as these examples attest, it can make a big difference in how you perceive a pitcher.

15 June 2013

A New Way to Credit Pitcher Wns

Pitching wins are a team event credited to an individual who may have actually inhibited a team win. They too weakly correlate to good pitching to serve as a proxy when pitching acumen is being analyzed.

Efforts to find a single statistic that encapsulates good pitching have proved elusive and have been completely disengaged from the ultimate goal of a starting pitcher -- winning the game. They've also become a tangle of higher mathematics incomprehensible to the average fan.

Suppose we could invent one simple statistic that credited pitchers when they pitched sufficiently long and successfully to give their team a better-than-even chance of winning? That would trump mere pitching wins and be easy to use. You can see the whole discussion here in Matt Hunter's piece in Beyond the Box Score. We'll call his stat Quality Wins.

We know that since Year 2000, teams whose starting pitcher goes at least six-and-a-third innings and allows three runs or fewer win their games more than half the time. It's the reason that six-and-three is considered a quality start.

We can expand that matrix, starting with at least five innings of work, to create a continuum of Quality Win performances:

Go at least five innings. Give up two or fewer runs.
Pitch 6.3 innings and give up three runs or fewer.
Pitch eight innings and give up four runs or fewer.
Pitch 9.7 innings and give up five runs or fewer.

Keep in mind that this is runs, not earned runs. Defense is an issue on every ball hit, not just the errors.

Let's examine how that might have worked in the games of of June 14:

In the Brewers-Reds tilt, decided in the 10th inning, neither starter was credited with a win, though Cincinnati starter Bronson Arroyo earned one. He got through two outs in the eighth inning and surrendered three runs. His opponent, Kyle Lohse, pitched six full frames but allowed three runs to cross the plate, saddling Milwaukee with a better-than-even chance of losing (which they ultimately did.) He would be charged with a loss.

Chris Sale threw an eight-inning complete game for the White Sox in their 2-1 loss to Houston, allowing five hits and one walk while fanning 14. Under the Quality Win system, he gets a win for his effort. His counterpart, Eric Bedard, also earns a Quality Win for lasting six frames of one-run ball.

No Quality Win for either starter in the Phillies' come-from-behind 8-7 win over the Rockies. Kyle Kendrick and Juan Nicasio escaped without losses despite four-inning, seven-run and six-inning, five run debacles. Under the new system, each is charged with an L. 

In four other games the losing pitcher would get credited with a Quality Win and in the Indians-Nationals contest, where both starters were gone when the outcome was settled, each would be credited with a Quality Win.

In all, on this low-scoring Friday night:
Five starters charged with losses would instead get credit for pitching well and giving their team a good chance of winning.
Three hurlers who no-decisioned would instead get wins.
Three others with no decision would instead take responsibility for a loss. 
 

The seamheads would justifiably complain about various shortcomings of this statistic. 
  • First, it fails to credit a pitcher any more for giving his team a 97.6% chance of winning (nine shutout innings) than for giving them a 50.5% chance (six and a third innings; three runs). 
  • Second, it is divorced from actual wins, so a pitcher could be credited with 20 "wins" even if his team ultimately lost every game. (And both starters could be credited with wins or charged with losses in the same game.)  
  • Third, it fails to take into account all the other elements that affect run scoring, like defense, ballpark, relief pitching, weather conditions and luck. 
  • Last, it has no predictive value because it doesn't examine how the pitcher performed, just what resulted.

All true. This is not a leap towards the Holy Grail, just a refinement that gives us won-loss records that relate to actual performance. 

Since no pitching stat is foolproof, and since this is replacing pitching wins, which is nearly useless, the standard is not perfection but mere relevance and ease of use. Moreover, statheads can refine it to account for many of those issues. For example, a pitcher could be credited with only the percentage of a win he provides in every game he starts. And the stat could be adjusted for ballpark, defense, etc., just as others are. These enhancements would strengthen the "win" statistic but render it difficult to calculate. The result would be a fielding-independent stat represented not as ERA, as is currently the case, but as a won-loss record.

It's a small step, but it would expose the starters with great records despite lousy performances (I'm looking at you, Jason Hammel of Baltimore, 7-4, 5.24 with a 1.5 WHIP; would be 5-9 in Quality Wins) and exonerate high achievers with bad teammates (Chris Sale, 5-5, 2.43 and a 0.9 WHIP; would be 10-2 in Quality Wins).

13 June 2013

Is It Time To Give Up On the Blue Jays?

Sabermetricians expend a lot of electrons discussing the stabilization of batting and pitching statistics. It's helpful to know how long players can be "hot" or "cold" before the record reflects their actual ability.

In other words, we know that when a player goes yard thrice on Opening Day it's unlikely he's going  yard thrice-a-night. But if he hits 15 home runs in the season's first half, is he a good bet to hit 15 in the second half?

Well, the answer happens to be yes. In fact, the research says home runs tend to stabilize after about 50 games. A hitter with two long balls in 50 games (assuming he's actually getting his at-bats in those games) is probably a seven homer weakling, more or less. A hitter with 15 jacks in 50 games is generally a 49-homer slugmeister, again more or less. (Not all players are the same. Your mileage may vary.)

Similar research has been done on a variety of statistics for hitters and pitchers. For batsmen, BABIP is the most volatile -- that is, it has the least to do with the innate ability of the hitter and takes years to normalize. Strikeout and walk rates are among the quickest to reach their "natural" state because batters tend to be inclined toward or against them in every plate appearance.

Fair enough, but what about teams? At what point is an unheralded team that's piling up the wins no longer streaking but actually performing at a higher level? At what point is a promising squad with a bad record no longer just slumping but actually over-rated? 

I'm not aware that there is any research on this. It makes sense that this is geometrically harder to determine. After all, a team comprises many players each of whom may be slumping or streaking beyond their natural ability. Injuries can prevent the best players from contributing their talents, while unexpected call-ups can reveal talent hitherto unrecognized. Teams change their player mix, so that the Mudville nine that dropped eight straight in May may bear little resemblance to the Casey-led behemoths winning 11 consecutive in August.

This question is of massive gravity to the management of franchises in Southern California and Southeastern Canada, and in the case of the squad in Ontario, 64 games may be that point. It may be time -- indeed, I'm asserting that it is time -- to determine that the Blue Jays are, in fact, their record, and management should expand its time horizon beyond this season.

"Calm down; it's a long season," you're muttering to yourself, or perhaps to your dog, or your autographed photo of Ron from Boston. It's all too true, and it's ointment for the pain being felt in Los Angeles and Los Angeles of Anaheim. The Angels and Dodgers are counting on returns to form or from injury by the likes of Josh Hamilton, Jered Weaver and Albert Pujols; and Matt Kemp, Zack Greinke and Hanley Ramirez.

It's different in Toronto. The culprits for a last place start in baseball's toughest division are a 37-year-old, league-switching, scroogie-thrower with a questionable pedigree (R.A. Dickey); a speed merchant with recurring leg issues (Jose Reyes); a once-promising young hurler who missed most of 2011 and didn't fully rebound in 2012 (Josh Johnson); and a chemical-fueled batting titlist who's returned to his pre-drug career norms (Melky Cabrera). There isn't much untapped upside in that crowd.

Moreover, the key cogs imported from Miami crashed and burned together last year. Had they flipped the pancake this year we would have dismissed 2012 as a fluke. But having thrown another third-of-a-season on the funeral pyre they have demonstrated that this group is not playoff material. The record suggests that combining a failed trio, a couple of questionable assets and a 73-win squad isn't the formula for triumph.

If you accept the premise that it's over north of the border, what now? Most of their players have long and expensive contracts that will be hard to move. Several of them are getting on in years. The Blue Jays were built to win for a year or two while Boston and New York took a breather, (the second part of that equation also hasn't added up) so where does re-tooling get them?

Alex Anthopoulos has his work cut out for him -- again. He might be able to flip Johnson and Mark Buehrle to contenders for some prospects, but after that it's pennies on the dollar. In a division pregnant with talent it sure sucks to be Toronto right now.

07 June 2013

Dipping Their Toe In Knowledge: The Kansas City Royals Shake Up Their Lineup

In 2005, after 35 years as a Kansas City Royals fan, I renounced my affiliation and took up with the Washington Nationals. It had finally become evident that while I cared for the team, the owner, David Glass, did not. He operated the franchise like a WalMart, of which he had been CEO, which is to say his primary concern was earning a profit.

So Glass sucked the franchise dry and ran it on the cheap, relying on low-cost young talent to induce the flipping of turnstiles before earning their freedom.

In the ensuing eight years, KC is 506-685, a .425 winning percentage. This year, their 25-32 record is mostly attributable to their work in the batter's box: seven of their 11 most-used batters sport OPS+ of 80 or less. In other words, much of their starting lineup is at least 20% worse than average, including keystoner Chris Getz, who, at .207/.267/.289, is only the second-worst regular in the lineup. 

The entire team has struck 30 home runs, three fewer than the Orioles' first baseman and shortstop.

Their manager, lightly-regarded Ned Yost, has not wasted any time perusing the newest research on game strategy. So, for example, he's given sabermetric punching bag Jeff Francoeur 167 plate appearances despite a predictable .213/.246/.319 performance. (Actually, it's not the batting average or lack of power that are so lamentable, since both of those can increase over the course of the season. It's the 3% walk rate, which tends not to change much over time and which would keep his OBP below average for an outfielder even if he batted .300.)

When it comes to lineup construction, it's no surprise that Yost has clung to the old ways. Before there was research that could muddy the waters with annoying "facts," managers arranged lineups by folk wisdom, some of which proved wanting. They batted a punch and judy lightning bolt first, a speedy bat handler second, the best hitter third and the slugger fourth.

Hundreds of studies later, covering tens of thousands of games, there is a whole matrix of rules for optimal lineup construction, which can be summarized this way:
1. Bat your best hitters at the front of the order so they get to the plate more.
2. Table-setters in the first two positions need high on base percentages.
3. Alternate handedness as much as possible.
4. Beyond that, it doesn't matter much.

Managers still walking among the great lizards fail the test most often with respect to Rule 2 (and by extension Rule 1). For example, throwback strategist Dusty Baker bats shortstop Zach Cozart and his .270 OBP in the two spot, costing the Reds bits of runs every game.

That's exactly the error Ned Yost makes, albeit with fewer options than Baker has. Yost hits the Royals' best player, Alex Gordon (.315/.360/.468), at the top of the lineup and then follows him with speedy, punchless shortstop Alcides Escobar. The Gordon choice is defensible because he's likely to author the top OBP on the team. 

As for Escobar, remember him from his Milwaukee days? His Kansas City glory? I didn't think so. He might not be the worst hitter in the Royals' starting lineup, but if you made the case you wouldn't get an argument. That's the guy Yost sends to the plate the second most often. 

But! Earlier this week, Yost finally caved to the seamheads employed by the team (though one wonders why it bothers) and allowed them to re-arrange the order. Against a RHP, they dropped Escobar to the nine hole and moved first baseman Eric Hosmer, a .273/.332/.440 lifetime hitter against righties, up to second.

When asked whether he'd extend the experiment following a four-run effort the first night, Yost replied, "We'll see how it works tomorrow." (They scored seven the following night.) Yost is understandably wary, in as much as the new lineup represents a repudiation of everything he's believed for all his decades in cleats, but even a stubborn innumerate should be able to understand that a game or two is an insufficient sample size for testing a strategy that might boost scoring by a run every few games.

Obviously, optimal lineup construction is only optimal for the lineup in question. No batting order rife with dead weight, like KC's, can be transformed into the '27 Yankees simply by rearranging the uniforms. The improvement on offense that a more rational batting order conveys might bump the Royals to .500, but no further, and only if they improve elsewhere as well. But the decision to start listening to what the research says could transform the entire organization and produce occasional contenders.

The likes of Ned Yost probably won't be there to experience it. And I'll stick with my Nats all the same.

06 June 2013

100-Game Suspensions? Yeah, Sure.

If you want to see sports journalism in all its raging, frothy, fulminating glory, take a peek at the coverage of Biogenesis frontman Tony Bosch's upcoming testimony before the sachems of Major League Baseball.

The Story: Twenty-two ballers, most of them Major Leaguers, may be named in documents that Bosch could provide to MLB that would suggest that they had purchased banned performance enhancing drugs. If the evidence is sufficiently strong, baseball could seek to suspend those named for as much as 100 games under the provision that they had committed two offenses -- procuring the banned substances and lying about it. The players' union would inevitably fight the unilateral punishments with all their considerable might, questioning the process, the evidence and the rationale in an appeal that would be arduous and uncertain.

The Broadcast Coverage: ARod. ARod. ARod. ARod. ARod. ARod. Ryan Braun. 100-game suspension! ARod choking. ARod lying. ARod cheating. Ryan Braun. 100-game suspension! ARod. ARod choking. ARod lying. ARod cheating. Ryan Braun. 100-game suspension! ARod talking to pretty women. Ryan Braun. 100-game suspension! 

If Bosch's testimony is worth the receipts he'll allegedly hand over, there will be intrigue aplenty in this story, with all the twists and turns of the Amanda Cox murder case. So we'll all be following it. But we're a long, long way from any 100-game suspensions. 

For ARod. Or Ryan Braun.

02 June 2013

Amazing But True Statistics At the One-Third Mark

Baltimore's Chris Davis has hit 20 homers and slugged .766. That's more home runs than the entire Seattle Mariner infield, including the catcher. It's a higher slugging percentage than any two Mariner infielders.

The Marlins are on pace to draw fewer than 1.5 million fans. In a new stadium.

The Cardinals have 10 pitchers with sub-3 ERAs. The Astros have none.


Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown last year. This year, he's hitting more line drives, walking more, striking out less, hitting for a higher average, getting on base more often and hitting for more power.

The Reds' Shin-Soo Choo is on pace to elicit 42 HBP. That's as many or more than 13 entire teams.  

Kyle Lohse's 4.37 ERA (feeding a 1-6 record) is still a run better than the Brewers' team average.

The A's have drawn 231 walks this year. Chicago has drawn 245 walks this year.  That's the Cubs and White Sox combined.

Pittsburgh's Jason Gilli has been credited with 22 saves in the first third of this season. He tallied five saves in his 10 Major League seasons prior.

Oriole sophomore Manny Machado is on pace to hit 72 doubles. The team in Miami has 73.

Phillies outfielder Domonic Brown hit .303 in May and slugged .688. He did not draw a single walk. 

Remember when David Ortiz was done? He's hitting .326/.400/.596. Again.

D-backs' catcher Miguel Montero is hitting .077, and slugging .077, on three-ball counts. 

Pirate hurler Jeff Locke is 5-1, 2.25 despite a weak 42/26 K/BB ratio.

Royals' savior James Shields has a 2.83 ERA in a league-leading 86 innings, a K/BB ratio of nearly four and a pair of complete games. And KC remains in the cellar.

Props to Baseball Prospectus, Fangraphs and other baseball bloggers for much of this information.

01 June 2013

Youth Will Be Served

The best shortstop in the National League so far this year is leading the circuit in batting average, hits and triples, sports a .945 OPS and entered the season with all of 44 games jammed into his MLB toolbelt. He's Milwaukee's Jean Segura, a 23-year-old Dominican and odds are you don't even know how to pronounce his name. (It's Gene.)

Segura is part of a wave of accomplished preemies in the Majors this year. Indeed, he's ranked just 22nd on Athlon Sports' list of the best players under 25 even though he's raking at the prime defensive position and posting three wins of value in just 52 games. Keep in mind that four wins over a full season is star level.

Amid the waning dominance of one-time stars Roy Halladay, Tim Lincecum, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and others (though not Miguel Cabrera or Mariano Rivera), it's nice to have new perennials like Strasburg, Trout and Harper to take their place.

You've heard of those three and will continue to for a decade, at least. They are likely to be transcendent even among the sport's celestial bodies. But a quick glance through the names listed ahead of Segura suggest we're in a Renaissance in the game. 

Orioles hot cornerman Manny Machado is living up to his highbrow pedigree (.877 OPS) at age 20. Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo at short and first respectively, give Cubs fans hope for, say, 2015 and beyond. Rizzo, 23 sports an .813 OPS with 25 homers and 32 doubles in his 140 games with the Cubs. Castro, also 23 and in his fourth full season, boasts two All-Star berths and 10 wins of value. And big Cardinal hurler Shelby Miller has just 16 MLB starts, but he's already overpowering the best hitters in the world (7-3, 1.89, more Ks than innings.)

Miller shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, inasmuch as he's a Cardinal. The Redbirds have a long history of churning out fine moundsmen like ice cream. Indeed, recent St. Louis draftees now in the rotation, like Miller, Lance Lynn and Trevor Rosenthal, are a combined 16-4, 2.54 with nearly a strikeout-per-frame. 

For the last few weeks we've been treated to another potential phenom as Rangers' middle infielder Jurickson Profar, just two years removed from high school, is hitting .333 in his first 10 games. Teaming in the Texas infield with Elvis Andrus, a worldly 24-year-old five-year veteran, this pair is demonstrating that youth will be served.

It's not the number of prodigies that feels unusual; it's their raw youth. Among the most promising of those named, Machado, Trout, Harper and Profar can't legally drain a postgame brew. Look for several of these names to get called again in a couple of decades -- five years after they retire.