In case you hadn’t heard, The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2013 has hit internet bookshelves. You can read all about it here in Dave Studeman’s post, or you can listen to Carson Cistulli and myself discuss it here on the FanGraphs Audio podcast he posted earlier today.

Because we’re giving folk, and since it’s the beginning of the holiday season and all, we want to give you a chance to win yourself a free copy of the book. So each day this week, we’ll be running a trivia contest based on one of the articles in the book. The first person to post the correct answer in the comments will win a free physical copy of the book (sorry, no free Kindle or Nook versions). It’s just that simple!

Today’s question comes from the article entitled “The Giants and Scutaro Win, as Does Valverde (Sort Of).” Written by THT’s Brad Johnson, it looks at the postseason through the lens of The Hardball Times’ traditional postseason win probability metric, Championships Added. It’s one of the book’s annual articles, and as such it seems like a good place to start.

Read the rest of this entry »

When you go to the FanGraphs leaderboards, the first group of players that comes up are the “qualified” players. For position players, at the end of the season, that equates to the players who had 502 or more plate appearances. This year, there were 143 such position players. But there are plenty of players vital to teams that don’t show up on among qualified players. Whether you call them platoon players, role players or simply part-time players, they almost always find themselves out of the limelight. Today, let’s take a look at the ten best part-time players of the 2012 season.

We’ve already defined these players as those with less than 500 PA. But we need to go a little further. There are plenty of regular players who didn’t reach 500 PA, but were most certainly not part-time players. Guys like Joey Votto and Matt Kemp would have easily reached 500 PA had they been healthy. There are also players who didn’t reach 500 PA, but started more than 100 games — guys like Ryan Ludwick, Todd Frazier and Jeff Keppinger. It’s hard to call them part-time players as well. Finally, there are players who only seem like part-time players because they were called up in the middle of the season. A player such as Luis Cruz falls into this category. Cruz wasn’t called up until July 2, but from then on he started in 73 of the 77 games in which he played. That’s an everyday guy in my book. So I combed the list to try and strip some of those players out, looking at the percentage of games started to games played. Obviously, that leaves some gray areas, but I’m more comfortable parsing the list a little than I am just leaving it alone and calling guys like Votto part-time players because they didn’t reach 500 PA.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, the Oakland A’s traded for Chris Young, paying very little for an undervalued asset that gives them a leg up on the offseason. It also gives them an interesting set of permutations with which to arrange their lineup next season, given their current roster configuration.

Read the rest of this entry »

For a team that won 89 games, the Angels have a decent number of holes to fill this offseason. There is a good core there, but questions about the rotation and the kerfuffle about Vernon Wells could make this a particular trying situation for Angels’ fans.

Let’s start with Wells. Here’s what Alden Gonzalez had to say about it in his season wrap:

“[Torii Hunter] really wants to come back, and may do so for about half his 2012 salary ($18 million) on a one- or two-year deal. But his return will hinge on whether [Angels general manager Jerry] Dipoto is able to shed Vernon Wells, who’s owed $21 million over the next two seasons, and what he decides with regard to the young, high-upside Peter Bourjos.”

The Angels’ reluctance to kick Wells to the curb is maddening. That it could also cost them a chance to get back Hunter is downright infuriating. Not only is Hunter the type of team leader and universally regarded good guy that every team will want this winter, but he is also coming off a good season as well. And while he may want to come back, he isn’t going to need to wait by the phone all winter waiting for Dipoto to call.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers entered the offseason a little sooner than they expected, but they have already hit the ground running in terms of their offseason planning. While they must await the results of medical exams on both Matt Kemp and Chad Billingsley, they have a pretty good idea of how they expect to attack the offseason, and that is to get after starting pitching. That is a good goal — with Billingsley and Ted Lilly potentially unavailable at the start of the season, and Aaron Harang potentially not good at any time, Los Angeles could use some reinforcements. But general manager Ned Colletti is also planning, at this juncture, to run with the combo of Luis Cruz at third and Hanley Ramirez at shortstop next season. This is a mistake.

Read the rest of this entry »