Breaking Balls

Breaking Balls: Fly Catching

Outfield defense is, at first glance, one of the easier things to measure. If there's a fly ball and an outfielder catches it, they get at least one out, which is recorded statistically as a putout. But outfielders will almost never get a putout on a ground ball--the best they can do is pick it up and throw it to someone who will touch the base, or tag the runner. Can something that easy provide useful information?

Breaking Balls: Owner for a Day (or Longer)

by Derek Zumsteg 3/24

People sometimes ask Prospectus writers what we'd do if we had $500 million, and they're surprised when we say we wouldn't buy a baseball team. Gary would become a scratch golfer. Jonah would build his dream house, with a gigantic rotating wheel he could run in that would power the neighborhood. I may be one of only a few who'd actually try and buy a baseball team.

Breaking Balls: Forecasting the Future

by Derek Zumsteg 3/20

I love prediction season. Right now, every sports media outlet in the country is running endless NCAA brackets, bracket-picking advice, and studies of past bracket upset patterns--and while I'll take it, I'm still scouring baseball pages to see what writer was foolish enough to put his name to the fortunes of only 30 teams, predicting the outcome of the 2003 baseball season. We do it every year here at Prospectus, and getting my predictions is like trying to get me out of the bar before I've finished my beer.

Breaking Balls: Profits and Losses

by Derek Zumsteg 3/17

Mariner president Chuck Armstrong was quoted on MLB.com this off-season, mentioning "I haven't attended an arbitration hearing in my 11 years with this ownership, but this one is too important. (Garcia's request) is way out of line...If I'm going all the way to Florida," he said, "I'm going there to win." He lost. Now, I'm all for an owner aggressively pursuing team goals and trying to keep the budget down, but if you think you've got a star young pitcher, and you're concerned about his emotional maturity, perhaps the best way to handle a situation like this would be to give it to some competent representatives and let it go. Make some noise about how it's all business, nothing personal, and how you look forward to having Freddy back no matter what the outcome of arbitration. The Mariners had very little to gain and much to lose by making this such a high-profile, confrontational issue in front of the public.

Breaking Balls: Success Cycles Revisited

by Derek Zumsteg 3/13

A little over a year ago, Jonah Keri wrote an article for BP on the concept of "success cycles." In that article he described the apparent cyclical process of team-building--that organizations rebuild, contend, get old, and rebuild once more--while making the point that successful organizations recognize where they are on the success cycle, and make decisions accordingly. I was excited by this concept, at first, as it was both logical and intuitive, and began to do some charting of it. In the end, however, I have come to the conclusion that success cycles do not exist.

Breaking Balls: Changing the Rules

by Derek Zumsteg 3/11

The new Hall of Fame Veterans Committee didn't elect anyone this year, despite having a number of excellent candidates in Ron Santo, Minnie Minoso, and the always-controversial Dick Allen. Because of this, it's likely that the rules will be tweaked in the future, lowering the threshold for induction. Never mind the fact that the Hall of Fame has much bigger problems on its hands, small induction classes mean small revenue for the folks in Cooperstown, New York. The more serious issues will have to wait. And the serious issues I'm referring to? How about the fact that the Hall of Fame needs to tweak its electorate as well as its rules in the future? Comments by some of the voters have made it clear that the Hall of Fame would be better served by new voters.

Breaking Balls: Getting Defensive: Advanced Concepts

by Derek Zumsteg 3/07

In Part One, I took a walk through the big fielding stats: errors and fielding percentage, Range Factor, and Defensive Average/Zone Rating. Here, we'll talk about three of the more advanced fielding statistics: Pete Palmer's Fielding Runs, Clay Davenport's Fielding Translations, and Bill James' Win Shares.

Breaking Balls: Getting Defensive: The Basics

by Derek Zumsteg 3/04

The greatest change in baseball thought over the past 20 years has been the shift of focus from one offensive statistic (number of hits / number of times to plate that did not result in a walk) to a better one (number of times reached base / number of times at the plate). Granted, I realize that I'm omitting sacrifice flies and catcher interferences there, but that's the essence of batting average and on-base percentage. If you only knew on-base percentage, you'd do pretty well comparing players. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do this with fielding statistics--a fact that results in a disagreement between our eyes, instincts, and what we read. I've been trying to educate myself on fielding statistics for the last couple years, and I want to admit up front that I have not been able to reconcile them with my own evaluation. When I see Mike Cameron rated as a slightly above-average center fielder last year, I roll my eyes, because I have in my head a mental image of how far he can go to get a ball--a massive expanse few visiting outfielders can cover. The issue, though, is that it's not an accurate picture or particularly useful in evaluation.

Breaking Balls: Your Spring Training Update

by Derek Zumsteg 2/27

Here are some of the storylines you are bound to read during spring training.

Breaking Balls: Your Spring Training Update

by Derek Zumsteg 2/27

No Job is Safe in Camp This Year, Manger Declares As players trickle in to camp, the manager has a message for them: There are no guarantees this season.

Breaking Balls: Portland’s Gamble Might Pay Off

by Derek Zumsteg 2/24

In Portland, Oregon (where Jeff Bower and I will be for a BP Pizza Feed in March), there are some developments that have suddenly made Portland the front-runner in convincing baseball to move another team to the West Coast.

Breaking Balls: Portland’s Gamble Might Pay Off

by Derek Zumsteg 2/24

Last week I talked a little about possible homes for the Expos, profiling a number of cities often included in discussions about relocation. Well, according to reports, the big three contenders--Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, and Portland, Oregon--are slated to make presentations to Major League Baseball on March 20th and 21st. MLB's major priority in selecting a place to move the team is not long-term viability, or strength of ownership, or anything like that. No, as you'd expect, it's the funding, location, and construction of a new ballpark. (Sigh.)

Breaking Balls: Possible New Homes for the Expos

by Derek Zumsteg 2/20

Where do the Expos go after this year, or next yea

Breaking Balls: La Regle du jeu

by Derek Zumsteg 2/14

Early last week, ESPN.com published a column by Jayson Stark that proposed 20 rules changes for MLB, ranging from the cosmetic ("Toughen up the save rule") to the crazed ("But add the designated fielder"). Now, I'm not going to talk in particular about Stark's column today, except to say that I think many of his suggestions sound good until you give serious consideration to how they would affect the way the game is played.

Breaking Balls: Playoff Baseball in April

by Derek Zumsteg 2/11

No regular season at all. Instead, a round-robin tournament.

Breaking Balls: Breaking Balls: Jack Quinn

by Derek Zumsteg 2/07

Minding my own business while doing research the other day, I came upon one of the weirdest, coolest pitchers ever. Looking into Tom Glavine and his 242 career wins--which puts him at No. 50 all-time--I found a guy named Jack Quinn, at No. 44 with 247. I love these kinds of random findings; you could be talking to someone you know about Gaylord Perry, and he might in passing mention the last legal spitballers, Quinn being among the best of 'em. I had no idea Quinn was so interesting. He wasn't a star, and he pitched from 1909-1933, pre-dating my baseball consciousness by about five decades.