The internet has decided this year’s IBA Players of the Year.
The Internet has decided this year’s Pitchers of the Year.
American League Perhaps not everyone considers him a rookie, but 32-year-old Kazuhiro Sasaki convinced enough voters to win the 2000 IBA Rookie of the Year award in the American League. The voting pattern indicates that Sasaki’s age and experience in the Japanese Leagues may have been a factor. He appeared on 57 fewer ballots than…
Rany Jazayerli: Civilization is ending as we know it, a plague of locusts has hit the Midwest and the sun rose in the west this morning. What bothers me most about watching everyone on TV pat themselves on their back for a job well done, is that everyone acts like the Mets and Yankees deserve…
Tough Cops… and Other Ones I just finished reading your article about umpires and stolen-base percentage. I just want to point out one factor that you did not consider in your article which throws all your statistics out the window. You did not mention whether they made the right call or not. If Chuck Meriwether…
Catching The Damn Ball Where are Vizquel and Ordonez on your list of top shortstops? And 20-30 runs possible difference from one position is high, isn’t it? Can the range be that large? –ZR Well, you can figure out the possible range of effects within a reasonable bound pretty quickly. Range Factor (RF) is a…
Lowering the Bar As far as Tony Perez’s Hall of Fame credentials go, here’s another way to look at it: Was anybody outside of Cincinnati a Tony Perez fan while he was active? You know, little kids emulating his stance around the schoolyard? Cherishing his baseball cards? I don’t think so. The same goes for…
At the midway point of the season, BP’s staff sees four awards as runaways and two as crapshoots. Here’s a look at our panel’s voting for the big six honors. AL MVP (5-3-1, first place in parentheses) Alex Rodriguez 46 (8) Pedro Martinez 15 (2) Jason Giambi 9 Ivan Rodriguez 9 Carlos Delgado 5 Edgar…
Orthodoxy I enjoyed your idea about a weekly schedule for pitchers, although I’m not convinced. I just don’t see it becoming a norm because it would be hard to groom youngsters in this fashion and I think limiting pitch counts would just be an effective way of keeping your starters healthy, though the all-closer staff…
The Strike Zone Revisited Your response to the mailbag question on umpires included a thought I’ve been having regarding the use of technology in calling games. I was actually getting ready to mention that to several friends when I saw your answer. It seems to me that some pitchers get the "close" calls near the…
The Strike Zone Not that I care about increased offense (I love baseball all the same), but no one in baseball looks at the strike zone, or how it is called. It’s obvious some umpires have a more liberal strike zone than others, and I was wondering if any of you know of any empirical…
The Yankees and The Red Sox In your most recent AL East Notebook you compared the Wiltons of the Yankees lineup to their current Equivalent Average. The overall Yankee lineup is 125 points of EqA behind what was expected, and this may indicate some more run production in the future. Have you checked the Red…
Wrigley Field You know, you’re absolutely right when you said that the Cubs should have been punished because of the lax security around the bullpen, which could have prevented the brawl. You’re right the Cubs shouldn’t allow their fans to get hammered beyond comprehension (maybe instituting a "No Beer after the Seventh Inning" rule at…
Pat Burrell The recent injury to Rico Brogna highlights a baseball development that, until now, has been only surmised: Terry Francona and the Phillies front office are hopped up on goofballs. Are they waiting for Ron Gant to break his leg before announcing that Kevin Sefcik will now be the full-time starter because he can…
Keith Law: According to ESPN.com, Baylor just pinch-hit for Scott Downs … with Daniel Garibay. This, on top of a lineup without Eric Young, Henry Rodriguez, Mark Grace, or Shane Andrews, and that had Jeff Huson leading off until Nieves subbed for him in the third. Jeff Erickson (of Rotonews): Ugh… my guess is that…
Scary. That’s the only word to describe the imaginations of the Baseball Prospectus readership. When we announced Big Exciting Contest #3, "Pick the player you will not have on your fantasy team," we certainly had no idea we’d see the kind of responses we did. So, a couple rounds of therapy and some shock treatment…