Archive for January, 2011
Trevor Hoffman’s Place Among Hall of Fame Relievers
Trevor Hoffman decided to call it a career yesterday, exiting the game as the all-time career saves leader with 601. Hoffman’s career was no doubt one of the best reliever careers of all time, as Hoffman appeared in over 1,000 games and compiled a career ERA of 2.87. But Lee Smith, the last career saves leader to hit the Hall of Fame ballots, is still waiting for a call to Cooperstown that likely will not come at this point. When it comes to evaluating career performance and particularly when it comes to the Hall, relievers are an odd bunch. Let’s examine Hoffman’s spot among relievers and among the best players in Major League history.
Sam Fuld Is Baseball’s Most Fascinating 4th OF
For all the analysis of Matt Garza’s potential impact with the Cubs, and the skillsets of new Rays prospects Chris Archer, Robinson Chirinos, Brandon Guyer, and Hak-Ju Lee, the most interesting character in the eight-player deal may well be Sam Fuld.
The 29-year-old native of Durham, New Hampshire is a walk-taking speed merchant, a Stanford economics grad, pursuer of a Masters degree in statistics, fighter of diabetes, and lover of pizza bagels. Fuld took a few minutes to chat about his expectations with the Rays, his keen interest in stats and baseball analysis, and the value of playing the game without thinking. (You can listen to the full interview here.)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Rafael Soriano’s Quest For Treasure
Analyzing baseball players through the five-tool prism is no longer accurate. Some players can do it all, but lack one skill crucial to their playing careers: not playing the offseason game well. Rafael Soriano stands as the next possible victim of this skill set deficiency, and for the second time in as many winters.
Worst Bunts of 2010
I wrote about the most effective bunts of 2010 (according to Win Probability Added [WPA]) in a previous post. I had planned on leaving it at that, but one commenter asked about the worst bunts of the season. Despite my goal of trying to be “more positive” this year, I can’t say no to my millions of adoring fans. So, along with a couple responses to comments, here are the five worst bunts of the 2010 regular season.
Payroll Amounts for Players on the DL in 2010
Teams lose players to the disabled list every year, but which teams had the most money tied up with these injured players in 2010? The following list ranks the teams that had the most dollars spent on players on the disabled list and the percentage of total payroll allocated to these days lost:
Do Not Let the Big Numbers Blind You
The Texas Rangers finally found a player in Adrian Beltre to take their obscene amount of money this winter. Throughout their pursuit of Cliff Lee earlier and Beltre recently, writers mentioned the new cable television contract that the Rangers locked in this winter as a motivator for the Rangers to spend money this offseason. Knowing how persuasive initial reports can be in forming long-term memories of facts, I wanted to address this deal by itself. The first news came from USA Today and stated that it was $3 billion over 20 years. That turned out to be grossly inflated, and, within a few days, we had multiple reports of a more reasonable figure of actually about $1.6 billion.
That is still a very large number and easily sticks in your mind. Furthermore, it seemed to represent a dramatic increase in revenue for the Rangers. A number I saw quoted often was that the Rangers currently make only $20 million from television right now, which would make this new deal a fourfold increase. That certainly would be a huge raise, but it does not appear to be accurate.
Iwakuma and the Inefficiency of the Posting System
It’s been a while, so let me refresh your memories: Hisashi Iwakuma and Oakland were unable to come to terms on a contract, and the righty will remain in Japan next season. Iwakuma earns the somewhat dubious distinction of being the first posted NPB player not to sign with the team that had won his rights.
Tigers Add Brad Penny for Rotation Depth
Although they upgraded their offense and bullpen earlier in the off-season, the Tigers still have a few weaknesses. Chief among them is the starting rotation. While Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer represent a quality one-two punch, the rest of the rotation remains a question. The Tigers helped strengthen the crew today by signing Brad Penny to a one-year, $3 million deal that could become $6 million if he reaches certain milestones. The move means the Tigers will be a bit stronger at the back end of the rotation.
The Success Cycle is Full of Crap
We’re pleased to welcome our newest addition to the FanGraphs team – Jonah Keri. You may be familiar with his work, as he’s written for every publication known to man. We’re thrilled that he’s going to be writing for us going forward.
My name is Jonah Keri, and I am a fraud.
Nine years ago, I penned my first-ever article as a professional baseball writer, entitled “The Success Cycle”. The premise of the article was that every MLB team falls into one of three categories:
Competing teams feature enough talent on the major league roster to make a run at the playoffs. They should add win-now veterans and give themselves the best chance to win immediately.
Building teams own a solid core of major league talent, but still need to add a few pieces and wait another year or two to make a playoff run.
Rebuilding teams have already had their run at glory, and now must trade away veterans for prospects, bide their time for a few years, and take a shot at another run then.
The labels were all horribly wrong, and not just because the article referred to Luke Prokopec as an example of a desirable young talent.