There are rate stats for just about every kind of opportunity a hitter faces in a game. Batting average tells you how often a player reaches base via a hit. On-base percentage tells you how often a player avoids making an out per plate appearance. But what about swings as opportunities?

Last year, I played around with the idea of production per swing. The idea was to examine what hitters gave the most value when they took a swing. The methodology was pretty simple: calculate the Weighted On-base Average (wOBA) each hitter generated using their swings — instead of plate appearances — as the denominator*.

Of course, there is a healthy correlation between actual wOBA and wOBA per swing (.83 in 2012), but less so Isolated Power (ISO). (wOBA/swing and ISO share only a .53 correlation.) Some of the results may not be all that surprising, but many certainly are.

Let’s first look at the top-25 so far this year:

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There was a handful of crucially important series over this past weekend, and among them was Dodgers vs. Giants in San Francisco. The Dodgers came in four and a half games behind the Giants for first place in the NL West, and they were looking to make up ground in a hurry. They emerged five and a half games behind the Giants for first place, and according to Cool Standings, the Dodgers’ playoff odds dropped from about 23 percent to about 22 percent. That isn’t a very powerful sentence, let’s try again. According to Cool Standings, the Dodgers’ odds of winning the division dropped from about 12 percent to about four percent. Yes, that’s much better.

Plenty of things happened in the three-game series between rivals, as tends to be the case when you’re talking about three games. Some of them were a lot more significant than others. At one point, on Sunday, Buster Posey hit a home run off of Joe Blanton. The home run meant little at the time, and it meant next to nothing in hindsight. Posey batted with the Giants up 3-0 in the sixth, and he put the Giants up 4-0. The Giants won 4-0, and Posey’s dinger had a win probability added of about three percent. In many of the game recaps, Posey’s homer was given just a passing mention.

Yet what I want to talk about here is Posey’s homer. It wasn’t the homer itself that was the most impressive homer, although it did fly out to straightaway center field. It was more about the process that led up to the homer. I’ll let Joe Blanton explain before I start to explain.

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As I was flipping channels last night I managed to stumble on the Padres – Dodgers game. Andrew Werner, a 25 year-old rookie making only his third career start, was on the hill for the Padres. It only took me a few pitches to determine I should stick with the game for a little while.

Although the Dodgers would eventually win the game in extra-innings, Werner pitched a great game as his final line can attest to (6 IP, 8Ks, 1BB). And although he posted an equally dominant performance in his previous game against the Atlanta Braves (6 IP, 7Ks, 0BBs), the way he went about shutting down the Dodgers was quite different.

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Shane Victorino was recently asked if he would return to the Dodgers in a part-time role next season. One of the many pieces the Dodgers added near the trade deadline, the former all-star centerfielder was adamant that he’ll seek regular playing time in his next deal. Given Victorino’s sentiments and the crowded Dodgers outfield, his return likely isn’t in the cards. However, the Dodgers may need someone like him over the next year or two as an insurance policy on Carl Crawford or a stopgap until Yasiel Puig is ready.

When the Dodgers acquired Crawford, along with Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez …and Nick Punto in last week’s megadeal, they put the finishing touches on a very expensive outfield for the foreseeable future.

The move didn’t come without consequences. In addition to the hefty contracts now on the books, the Dodgers created a positional logjam that may prove difficult to solve without eating salary or making subsequent trades.

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We’re only three days from the expansion of major league rosters. On Sept. 1, all players on a team’s 40-man roster will be eligible to play in the big leagues without an accompanying move. Often times, baseball fans are treated to a sneak preview of teams’ top minor league talent as a result of September call-ups; or they’re surprised by a relatively unknown player who manages to contribute over the season’s final month.

In preparation for this year’s roster expansion, I thought it would be interesting to look back at the greatest-ever September call-ups, defined here as players that made their major league debut during the month of September.

There are, of course, two ways to look at this: The first is to look at players — position players and pitchers — who generated the most value for their clubs during their call-up. The second is to look at players whose careers began as a September call-up and then went on to have great careers.

I’m looking at both. Read the rest of this entry »

My favorite part of this weekend’s Red Sox-Dodgers blockbuster isn’t the absolutely insane nature of the trade, it’s the “… and Nick Punto” that will forever be attached to it until the end of time. Los Angeles surrendered two high-end pitching prospects and absorbed more than a quarter-billion dollars in salary obligation to acquire a star-caliber first baseman, a potential star-caliber outfielder, and a serviceable (with a chance for lots more) starting pitcher. Oh yeah, and a utility infielder.

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Episode 232
FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron, as per usual, makes his weekly appearance on FanGraphs Audio and analyzes all baseball.

Discussed:
• The recent Mega Deal™ between Boston and Los Angeles.
• More about that same Mega Deal™.
• Max Scherzer, his performance from Max Scherzer Schunday.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 26 min. play time.)

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Having seen the Greenville Drive on multiple occasions in each of the past four seasons, I’ve grown familiar with much of the Red Sox organization at the minor league level. A current weakness is pitching, and this was addressed over the weekend when the Red Sox added two promising young hurlers I’ve scouted on multiple occasions in Rubby de la Rosa and Allen Webster. And while I haven’t seen Matt Barnes or Henry Owens in person yet, I’ve registered 98 MPH readings on my radar gun for both of the two new guys, which undoubtedly makes them among the hardest throwers in the system.

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On Friday night, the Dodgers made their latest calculated gamble, taking on $260 million in future salaries from the Red Sox in order to acquire Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Nick Punto. In the write-up I did on Friday, I noted that the best way to explain this trade from the Dodgers perspective is that they are attempting to capitalize on their current contender status under the hope that they can achieve a significant revenue bounce from a playoff run that could offset a large part of the costs of these acquisitions.

There’s another theory floating around, however, that has to do with the upcoming free agent class. If we accept that the Dodgers were going to spend this much money at some point in the near future, the argument is that the relatively unimpressive group of free agents set to hit the market this winter made this a better choice than spending the same money on free agents in three months and getting inferior players without the added bonus of their production down the stretch in 2012.

So, let’s go through the options, and see what else the Dodgers could have potentially done with their giant wad of cash.

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While nothing has been made official yet, it appears that the Red Sox and Dodgers are going to soon finalize one of the largest (and most interesting) deals in baseball history. The deal is believed to inclue Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Nick Punto heading to Los Angeles, with a group of five players (including James Loney, Rubby de la Rosa, Jerry Sands, Ivan DeJesus and “a prospect”) headed back to Boston.

We knew a shake-up was coming in Boston. We’re a year into the team badly underperforming their talent level, and the general circus atmosphere around the organization couldn’t be sustained much longer. A shake-up was inevitable. Beginning the demolition in one fell swoop was less predictable, however.

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