Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, Dave put forward a proposal about how Major League Baseball could possibly improve its pace of play and run scoring in one fell swoop: limit the number of pitchers allowed per game to four. He couched it by saying that it was an admittedly crazy idea. But after compiling a grid of how many pitchers are used per game, I’m not so sure that it is.
What I wanted to see is a grid of how each team used its pitchers. How many games with two pitchers, three pitchers, etc. Thankfully, Baseball-Reference’s pitching game logs are very accommodating in this regard. In order to get a representative sample, I scrubbed out extra inning games, as well as games that were shortened for some reason (most likely rain). That leaves just the games where the pitchers threw eight to nine innings. Now, there’s certainly a chance that there was some weird game that was stopped for rain after eight innings, but barring that, this should be a sample of all the “regulation” games from last season. No team had fewer than 141 of these games, and no team had more than 154. Most of the games removed were extra-inning games, there were just a handful of shortened games.
Enough talk, let’s get to the grid:
| 5:34 |
: Hi everybody! I’m flying solo tonight. Jeff is having some computer trouble. Sorry to postpone last night, but after three hours of the snowblower vibrating my hands, the last thing I was up for was rapidly typing for an hour. Hopefully you understand.
But I’m here tonight, and starting at 9 pm ET we can talk all the baseball talk you can talk. Or something. See you soon |
| 9:00 |
: OK, let’s do this.
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| 9:00 |
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| 9:00 |
: This was more or less me yesterday.
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| 9:01 |
Whatcha think about me trading a $17 Carlos Gomez for $17 Hanley and $5 kris Bryant? These values would be set for 3 years. |
| 9:02 |
: I think that if you can make up the steals elsewhere then this is a no-brainer.
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Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Rockies are always in a weird spot. No matter what they do or don’t do, no one ever really seems to care about them. They’re just kind of there. They maintain a low profile, and even if they never spend big, their payroll is not so low that it sticks out. Most stories that gain traction are “oh, those crazy Rockies” sorts of stories. The Four-man rotation, the GM with an office in the clubhouse, the two-headed GM, the humidor, the Giants whining about the humidor, and altitude, altitude, altitude. Rarely do we just focus on what’s going on in between the lines with the Rockies. But this season, that may change, as there is a legit case to be made for the Rockies as sleeper team.
Based on our projected standings, which are a combination of Steamer’s projections and our playing time manipulations from our depth charts, there are two definitively good National League teams — the Dodgers and Nationals. At 91 wins apiece, they pace not just the NL but all of baseball in our projected standings. But aside from them, the league doesn’t have any real standouts, and the teams sort of congeal around two spots on the win curve:
So, if we accept that two playoff spots are tied up by LA and Washington (a big assumption, obviously, but go with it for now) then these 10 teams are vying for the other three. To be clear, the Rockies are pegged at 77 wins. You might think that sounds about right, or even generous. But, let’s roll through a few reasons why the Rockies could clear that bar and swaddle themselves in the middle of the playoff pack.
| 8:26 |
: Hi everybody! Jeff and I will be here to cram some baseball down your cramholes at 9 pm ET! Or, at least I will be. To be fair, I haven’t talked to Jeff yet, and he’s a busy guy. While we’re sorting that out, take a look at some polls.
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| 9:00 |
: Whattup peeps! Long time no chat. Let us remedy this!
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| 9:01 |
Dean Anna should be a verb |
| 9:01 |
: Definitely let us know which players you think should be verbs.
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| 9:01 |
: Carson agrees
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| 9:01 |
How was Banknotes Harper not in the verb poll? |
Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
The St. Louis Cardinals have had pretty good starting rotations in the recent past. In 2012 and 2013, they were exceptional. The rotation finished third in FIP- in 2012, and second in 2013. They were still pretty good last season, but not quite as good — they finished 11th in FIP-. That underscores a little bit of the tumult that the rotation experienced though. They needed 12 starters to get through the season, and as such it’s not all that surprising that they’re at least thinking about making a splash in the starting rotation market. But, do they need to?
There are two ways of looking at this. The first way is through the prism of last season. They had 11 guys make at least four starts, and needed a 12th starter overall. It was the first time since 2007 that they needed 12 starters, and the first time since 1999 when they need 11 guys to make four or more starts. So, it’s easy to see why they would want to build in some stability. Especially when some of the pitchers that they’re counting on have some question marks.
Adam Wainwright was not nearly as good in the second half as he was in the first, collapsed in October, and then had minor elbow surgery following the season. It’s folly to use the second half of a season to predict the next one, but it’s also hard to look at that and not be a little concerned. Especially when the pitcher in question has the age of 30 firmly in his rearview mirror and recently had Tommy John surgery.
Locations: Minneapolis, Minn. or Bristol, Conn.
Description:
Inside Edge, a leading scouting service and provider of data and analytics to MLB clubs and media, is looking for ambitious individuals to work in our baseball operations department during the 2015 baseball season. Former pro players and/or high-level college players preferred. Many of our employees move on to jobs with MLB organizations. Training for this position begins in February. The position will last until at least the end of the MLB regular season (October 4), with a possibility of extending through the offseason.
Responsibilities:
Qualifications:
Compensation:
This position is compensated.
To Apply:
Send a resume to Andrew Pautz at Inside Edge.