Back in March, I did a column on the Arizona Diamondbacks that contained the following sentence: "The staff is the D’backs strength, but other than Randy Johnson, there’s no one here who’s a good bet for 200 innings of league-average ball." That generated a lot of reader mail, some of which sung the praises of…
Recently, I had the chance to speak extensively with Brad Humphreys, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Humphreys has spent several years researching the true economic impact of sports teams, particularly on the debate over the merits of publicly funding new facilities for privately-owned sports franchises. His most recent work,…
Davenport Translations: ERA BA OBP SLG Pacific Coast League 4.84 .277 .348 .435 According to Clay Davenport’s ratings in Baseball Prospectus 2001, the Pacific Coast League (PCL) is approximately as competitive as the Japanese professional leagues and not quite as challenging as the International League. The PCL is now and has always been a hitters’…