King of the Little Things 2009

We’re happy to announce the addition of the newest member of our team. Matt brings his particular style to the site beginning today.

I’m the new guy. Six or seven of you may have previously read my work elsewhere under a different name. I won’t tell you what it was, but it was something like… “devil_f.” No, that’s too obvious; let’s go with “d_fingers.”

We often hear that certain hitters “just do the little things” to help their team win. Can these things be quantified? Some would say no, but in last offseason’s epic Confused Says What? thread with Tom Tango, a user suggested that if one subtracted traditional linear weights (wRAA) from game-state linear weights (WPA/LI), one would get a measure of the “Little Things” the player contributed to his team(s) during the year. And so I checked it out.

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