The New York Daily News recaps Kerry Wood’s incredible 20 strikeout performance all the way back on May 6th, 1998. The SportsCenter highlights are a must watch: (hat tip: Baseball Think Factory)

All win probability stats, game graphs, and play-by-play are now available for the years 1974 through 1980.

The most productive batter in terms of WPA over those 7 years was Rod Carew with 28.9 wins, closely followed by Mike Schmidt with 28.6 wins. Jim Palmer led all pitchers with 23.2 wins, with closer Goose Gossage not far behind with 22.1 wins.

I’m hoping to have 1981 – 2001 available soon.

On a side note: FIP is now correclty adjusted by year and FIP career totals are also weighted appropriately.

All the stats made available yesterday in the player pages are now on the leaderboards.

Interesting to see the afore mentioned Nick Johnson with the second best O-Swing% (percent of pitches swung at outside the strike zone) this season. He truly does have great plate discipline.

Cust Cussing (Dave Cameron)
– Dave takes a look at Jack Cust’s off the charts performance.

Is Willingham Ready to Bust Out? (Eric Seidman)
– Will Willingham continue his terrific season for the first place Marlins?

Keeping a Rookie Pitcher Grounded (Marc Hulet)
– What’s so special about top Red Sox prospect Justin Masterson?

Maximizing Potential (Dave Cameron)
– It looks like Chien-Ming Wang has a new trick up his sleeve.

Plate Discipline Stats
– Go look at them in the player pages!

Pitching Trio of the Month (Eric Seidman)
– It’s probably not any three pitchers on the Pirates’ staff.

About two years ago I attempted to delve further into plate discipline with two articles: Dissecting Plate Discipline Part 1, Part 2.

And then a year later I took an additional look at plate discipline: More on Plate Discipline

All batters now have plate discipline stats available dating back to 2005. Here’s what they are:

• O-Swing%: The percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone.
• Z-Swing%: The percentage of pitches a batter swings at inside the strike zone.
• Swing%: The overall percentage of pitches a batter swings at.
• O-Contact%: The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with outside the strike zone when swinging the bat.
• Z-Contact%: The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with inside the strike zone when swinging the bat.
• Contact%: The overall percentage of a batter makes contact with when swinging the bat.
• Zone%: The overall percentage of pitches a batter sees inside the strike zone.

What you’ll want to know is the major league averages for each stat:

Season O-Swing Z-Swing  Swing  O-Contact Z-Contact Contact   Zone
2005     20.3%   68.0%  46.0%      51.8%     88.3%   80.8%  53.8%
2006     23.5%   66.6%  46.1%      57.4%     88.5%   81.0%  52.6%
2007     25.0%   66.6%  45.9%      60.8%     88.2%   80.8%  50.3%

All the location data is from Baseball Info Solutions and you can find all these stats in the player pages at the very bottom: Vladimir Guerrero

Whoops – You Aren’t Good, Are You? (Dave Cameron)
– Jon Garland is taking the term “contact pitcher” to new extremes.

A WPA Look at the Houdinis (Eric Seidman)
– Just how valuable is it to get out of that bases-loaded, no-out jam?

Robinzon Diaz… Not Your Typical Catcher (Marc Hulet)
– The Blue Jays have themselves a catcher who can hit.

Extra Base Hit Monsters (Dave Cameron)
– Utley may be #1 in extra bases, but there’s a tight race for #2.

Banking on a Fresh Start (Marc Hulet)
– The Padres might have just picked up another diamond in the ruff.

Rich Lederer over at Baseball Analysts asked me to write their “DH” guest column for today and I decided to take a look at the ever controversial “Clutch” statistics of starting/relief pitchers using Leverage Index.

You might be surprised who’s been “clutch” and “un-clutch” over the past 6 years, so go check it out!

Win Probability: 1974
– Who knew Richie Zisk should have won the 1974 NL MVP?

The Most Underrated Player in Baseball (Dave Cameron)
– Say hello to the next Tony Gwynn (maybe).

BrewCrew Win an Odd One (Eric Seidman)
– Check out Gabe Gross’s last hurrah in Milwaukee.

Snider Movin’ On Up to the East Coast (Marc Hulet)
– Marc begins his week long trek through Blue Jays prospect land.

Snakes Made Of Leather (Dave Cameron)
– Why are those DBacks 15-5?

Welcome to the Club, Smoltz: Who’s Next? (Eric Seidman)
– Maybe it’s Glavine? He could pitch another six years!

Good news! We have 1974 play-by-play data with all usual goodies including all 1,945 game graphs and the leaderboards.

And I bet you thought that 22 inning game was long:

Jed Lowrie made his debut on April 15th for the Red Sox. He started at third base in place of the injured Mike Lowell and went 1-4 with 3 RBIs that tied a 61 year old record for most RBIs in a Red Sox debut. Baseball America listed Lowrie as the 5th top prospect in the Red Sox organization for 2008. Although he started at third base in his debut, he typically plays shortstop, which is where he got his second start.

Alex Serrano debuted on April 16th for the Angels in the top of the 9th inning of a 2-3 game. He allowed 1 hit and struck out 1 in a scoreless inning. In AAA last season, Serrano struck out 46 batters and only walked 10 in 69+ innings of work.

German Duran got the start at third base in his debut for the Rangers on April 17th. He had 3 plate appearances and struck out in all of them. He was called up to fill a roster spot for the injured Marlon Byrd. John Sickels over at Minor League Ball projects Duran will have a long career as a “really good bench guy“.

David Purcey made his first major league start for the Blue Jays and allowed just 2 hits and 1 run in 4.1 innings of work. He also allowed an uncharacteristically high 7 walks. In AA last year, he allowed just 16 walks in 62+ innings of work. The Mockingbird did a full writeup on his Pitchf/x data and uncovered a mid 90’s fastball with good movement.