There are lots of ways to present numeric information. In addition to just handing someone a big stack of numbers, you can create charts or graphs until the cows come home or the Tigers score five runs in a game–whichever comes first. In many circumstances, there will be some sort of an industry standard, and if you choose to diverge from that standard, you can bet that some of your very valuable time is going to be spent justifying your deviation from the norm. That’s what’s been going on in the baseball media and front offices for nearly a quarter century now–trying to change the norms of what information is used to evaluate players.
There are 30 teams in MLB, 25 players per team, for 750 roster spots total. We put out a book with about 1,600 players in it. You’d think we’d be able to cover those 750 roster spots, but no, every year MLB teams manage to find players we didn’t cover and give them uniforms on Opening Day. Right rude of them, we think. So here’s what we’ve been able to dredge up on the 37 guys we’ve identified as being on an Opening Day roster but not in Baseball Prospectus 2003.
Some time ago, I wrote a column on a few of the new ballparks, and using the available evidence on their dimensions, speculated on how they’d play. In response to that column, I got a particularly cool question from a number of different readers. That is: “What would the best pitchers’ park look like?”
I love the questions that stick in your craw. How far back do you push the fences before today’s home runs and many line drives become inside-the-park four-sackers, for instance?
In order to answer this question, I took the liberty of persuing our list of historical park factors, and did some sorting, some grouping, and some determining of thresholds.
The good word on Greg Maddux, precautionary MRIs, a clarification on pitcher abuse, and more developments in the Mysterious Case of C.C. Sabathia.