I thought Matt Hunter’s FanGraphs debut article last week was really interesting.  So interesting, in fact, that I’m going to rip it off right now.  The difference is I’ll be using a Monte Carlo simulator I made for this sort of situation, which I’ll let you play with after you’re done reading (it’s at the bottom).

Matt posed the question of whether inconsistency could be a good thing for a pitcher.  He brought up the example of Jered Weaver vs. Matt Cain in 2012 — two pitchers with nearly identical overall stats, except that Weaver was a lot less consistent.  However, Weaver had a bit of an advantage in Win Probability Added (WPA), Matt points out.  WPA factors in a bunch of things, e.g. how close the game is and how many outs are left in the game when events occur.  Because of that, it’s a pretty noisy stat, heavily influenced by factors the pitcher doesn’t control much.  It’s not a predictive stat.  For that reason, I figured simulations might be fun and enlightening on the subject.  They sort of accomplish the same thing that WPA does, except that they allow you to base conclusions off of a lot more possible conditions and outcomes than you’d see in a handful of starts (i.e., they can help de-noise the situation).

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As some of you might remember from previous articles, velocity trends in July provide the strongest signal in terms of whether a pitcher is likely to experience “true” velocity loss over the course of a full season.

Yes, I know, we are more than halfway through August. However, between work, vacation, and Saber Seminar (which, if you didn’t attend you really missed out. You can still purchase posters and t-shirts, so get on that. It’s for a good cause) I’ve struggled to sit down and run the numbers. Better late than never.

Again, for reference, the table below breaks out the percent of pitchers who experience at least a 1 mph drop in their four-seam fastball velocity in a month relative to that same month a year ago and who also went on to finish the season down a full 1 mph. It also shows the relative risk and odds ratios for each month — meaning, the increased likelihood (or odds) that a pitcher will experience a true velocity loss at season’s end when compared to those pitchers that didn’t lose 1 mph in that month.

So while the overall rate of velocity loss based on a loss in June and July look pretty even, the relative risk and odds ratios increase by a solid amount in July.

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In a sense, Clayton Kershaw is pretty easy to understand. He’s a big lefty with power stuff and multiple breaking balls to go along with a changeup he’ll mix in from time to time. He dominated in high school before getting selected early by the Dodgers, and after a few years in the majors of showing flashes, Kershaw decided he didn’t want to walk batters anymore, and now he’s probably the best starter in baseball. His next contract could break records for pitchers, and if the 2013 season were to end today, Kershaw might well win the National League Most Valuable Player Award. He’s amazing and he’s 25.

The last time I personally addressed Kershaw, I essentially made love to his curveball. Since then he’s allowed 30 runs in 17 starts. It’s tempting and easy to break Kershaw down to his component pitches, because it’s upon those pitches that Kershaw’s made his name. His curveball’s great. His slider’s great. His fastball’s great. It’s all great. But it’s also probably worth taking a moment to speak to that which might tie everything together. That which is unique to Kershaw, that which comes before he makes his pitches dart and dive.

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Another day, another wrinkle in the Alex Rodriguez-Biogenesis-MLB-Yankees-Hip-Injury Saga. Some days, there are multiple wrinkles. It’s not easy to keep it all straight.

The main event, of course, is Rodriguez’s appeal of his 211-game suspension. MLB handed down that suspension on August 5. Rodriguez appealed the suspension two days later, and the matter is now pending before baseball’s arbitrator, Fredric Horowitz. Rodriguez may continue to play while the appeal is pending. No hearing date has been set. MLB is pressing for a hearing by the end of August; Rodriguez and the Major League Baseball Players’ Association — which is supporting A-Rod’s appeal — seem less interested in a quick resolution.

Five days after MLB suspended Rodriguez, the Yankees notified their $275 million third baseman that he would be disciplined for seeking a second medical opinion on an injury without permission. The nature of the discipline hasn’t been disclosed. You can be sure A-Rod will file a grievance.

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The Giants have not had a great year, to put it plainly. In first place as late as May 26, things went south in a hurry, and they have spent most of August in last place. The race for the bottom in the National League West remains tight — only two games separate the third-place Rockies and last-place Giants. Still, the team’s predicament begs the question of whether or not San Francisco will be the next member in the selective first-to-worst club.

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The Major League season ends in about five weeks, which means that voting members of the BBWAA will have to submit their awards ballots during that same time period. While there isn’t any award that is going to be as divisive as last year’s AL MVP — thankfully — race, there are some interesting decisions to be made this year. So, let’s do a quick rundown of where we stand now, and who the leading contenders are as we head down the stretch.

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We’ve heard different approaches from different players, and different levels of familiarity with the statistics so far this year, but it looks like Oakland’s Josh Reddick might be in a niche of his own. He knows about these things, and yet he shrugs — he is who he is, and he can’t change himself on a fundamental level. Doesn’t mean he can’t try to get most out of his skill set.

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Any other year and Jose Fernandez would be getting a lot more attention. The Marlins’ rookie starting pitcher recently turned 21 years old and he was promoted to the major straight from Single-A. It was, at least, advanced Single-A, but his experience there was all of 55 innings. Now he’s up to 24 big-league starts, and he has baseball’s third-lowest ERA. Worse than Matt Harvey and Clayton Kershaw but not worse than any others. Fernandez has averaged better than a strikeout an inning, and he’s seen the Marlins go 15-9 in his starts. In all other starts, they’ve gone 33-66.

Young and dominant, Fernandez regularly runs his fastball up to the plate in the mid-90 mph range; occasionally, he scrapes 98 mph and 99 mph. Off of that heat, he throws a breaking ball he’s in love with, and he also mixes in a changeup that’s generated strong results through its first several months. Fernandez was promoted with more or less a complete, big-league-caliber repertoire, so you wouldn’t think he’d need to add yet another weapon. But starting against the Dodgers in Miami Monday night, Fernandez threw a thing he hadn’t thrown before, to the surprise of many.

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You’re making decisions all of the time, even if you might not realize it. You decided, for example, to click on this post. You’ve decided, for another example, to continue reading this post, despite the first couple sentences. You decided where to browse, and what to wear, and when to scratch your neck, and when not to get up to take a walk to get a break from the computer. You are a decision-making machine, but most of your decisions are made quickly and quietly, without other people being made aware. Usually it’s not really their business.

Baseball umpires are also making decisions all of the time. They make ordinary decisions like how to stand up and when to rub their eyes, but they also make decisions pertaining to the gameplay. These decisions affect other people, and they’re made consciously and deliberately, with future decisions resting upon current decisions. A baseball game requires constant umpire decisions in order to proceed, and they’re not always obvious, not always black and white. Many can be questioned, reasonably, which adds certain stresses to the work. Sunday was an interesting day in baseball umpiring. Let’s quickly examine four questionable decisions, and remark on their egregiousness. We’ll go in ascending order.

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Even after their big offseason moves, the Blue Jays were not the consensus pick to win the 2013 American League East, as three or even four teams seemed to have a good shot. Very few, however, probably thought the Jays would be the one team left out of the race almost from the start. Yet here we are in the middle of August, and Toronto is the only team in the division under .500, a distant seven and a half games behind the fourth-place Yankees. The litany of problems is well-known: the starting pitching has been terrible, Jose Reyes got hurt, and more. Not every player has been disappointing, however. Colby Rasmus, who came to the Jays in a 2011 trade with the Cardinals, is having his best season since 2010. Indeed, his performance this year resembles that 2010 season in multiple ways.

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