peter

Fantasy baseball advice for those who ask.

Web based PITCHf/x tool

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The Hardball Times

Josh Kalk has taken the first big step toward taming the PITCHf/x data that MLB collects and allows researchers access to. MLB’s freeness with the data promises to be a boon for sabermetrics and Kalk’s database front end, which allows you to compare how pitchers throw to different hitters and vice versa, with results displayed graphically is an inspiring beginning.

Kalk is talking about having splits ready by Christmas, and non-graphical data sometime soon, too.

I don’t have time right now to sift through all of this, but it’s potential importance makes me give thanks.

Thanks, Josh. Keep up the good work.

Dawson’s Freak

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Joe Posnanski

I’m always awed by Joe Posnanski’s enthusiasm, which drives his stories. Is Andre Dawson in 1987 the worst MVP pick of all time? Could be, but the Hawk was winning me Rotisserie League money back in those days, and he was a gas to watch play the game. That arm, those arms! Dawson was no fraud. Enjoy and discuss.

The Bill James Handbook

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Baseball Info Solutions

Every year I get a package from my friend Steve Moyer. Sometimes it comes when we’re together in the beginning of November at Ron Shandler and Rick Wilton’s First Pitch Arizona conference (which is a blast, a chance to see many of the next year’s rookies up close, and did I mention it was fun?) and sometimes it comes in the mail at home. What I know is that if it’s the first week of November it’s the Bill James Handbook.

What I remember, back in the day, was the Red Book from Stats, which also had Bill James’ name attached and which, for a while, Steve worked on, too. But Stats was sold to Fox and niceties like really useful baseball reference books became too small scale for them.

Steve has made a business off of the opportunities Fox threw away when it bought Stats, which isn’t to say that Fox was wrong, just that as a baseball fan I really much prefer what comes from Steve’s company, Baseball Info Solutions.

The Bill James Handbook, under the BIS aegis, has become a comprehensive statistical review of the previous baseball season, and it comes out less than 30 days after the season is over. It now has fielding rankings, managerial tendencies, home-road splits, batter and pitcher splits, projections for hitters and pitchers, and an assortment of other really interesting baseball data.

You can support this site by buying the Bill James Handbook from Amazon through the link below, or you can buy it somewhere else. My point is that there isn’t another baseball book that is more useful all season long.

Brewers’ Braun are top rookies – MLB

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ESPN

Ryan Braun deserves the Rookie of the Year award, though you can make a case for Troy Tulowitsky, too. The problem looking forward is Braun’s defense. He says: “Everybody has things they need to work on.”

This is true, but kind of irrelevant. It seems unlikely that Braun is going to be able to fix his defensive problems at third base, and in the outfield he will be playing in a totally different context. He may end up being a prodigious performer there. Or he may end up hanging at third for a while despite his deficiencies. Miguel Cabrera has held the fort at third base, though he’s really not suited for it.

But that’s the issue. These guys can hit. Can they find a position (and will their team commit to it) that does their skills justice? And as fantasy players how long will we be able to exploit this inefficiency (since we don’t count defense)?

Players changing positions are always a risk, and I would think doubly so when coming off such an unconscious season as Braun’s. That’s a little reason to doubt, and to not push him up the extra dollar when someone else is.

Unfiltered Nate Silver

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Baseball Prospectus

Nate appears to have uncovered something really interesting. Platoon differentials are based on the pitcher, not the hitter (mostly).

This is a reason to pay attention to platoon splits again, if they’re based on lefty hitters (righties don’t show no bias).

Nate finds some specific uses for this data in his article, but I’m not sure it’s going to matter as much in the real world as it might in roto. Any time it’s better not to play than to play, fantasy owners take notice.

If You Purchased MLB Game Downloads Before 2006, Your Discs/Files Are Now Useless; MLB Has Stolen Your $$$ And Claims “No Refunds”

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The Joy of Sox

This is a woeful story of mlbam’s apparent disregard for the customers who bought mlb.tv games and the digital rights management that is keeping them from watching those games.

If this is a true story it is an abysmal breach of faith by MLBAM, the sort of thing that undermines the basic compact between seller and buyer. But the funny thing reading this blog entry and the comments after (and at the Baseball Think Factory) is that there seems to be no corroboration.

If you’ve bought baseball games from mlb.com are you having this problem? It may be that Joy of Sox is one of just a few who felt the need to plunk down cash for games, but it’s also possible he’s having a problem that isn’t affecting everyone who bought games. Before ripping the Lords of Baseball a new one I’d like to make sure they’ve done it yet again.

Yankees, A-Rod, and Game Theory

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Sabernomics

JC Bradbury explains quite credibly why the Yankees won’t be signing A-Rod (it has something to do with beer at kids birthday parties), but doesn’t get into why A-Rod (led, no doubt, by Scott Boras) opted out so quickly. I think I have a good idea.

Given the 10 day window for opting out (and negotiating) with the Yankees, Boras/A-Rod were looking at intense scrutiny and no leverage. Sure, the Yankees bid would be subsidized by the Rangers, but Boras would be unable to counter it with other offers he was receiving. He won’t know how high the Yankees would have gone, but given the overall numbers he’s seeking, $21M is a rounding error (nearly). And if they didn’t go high enough he’d be looking at an offer that would surely have been made public and would be seen (probably) as something of an upper limit in his negotiations with other teams.

So, Boras/A-Rod rejected the Yanks before they had a chance to define the negotiations (and possibly reject A-Rod), and thus opened up a competition among all the other teams for A-Rod’s services. I think this surely means that Rodriguez wasn’t serious when he said how much he wanted to play in NY, and I will be surprised when some team signs him for more than it appears the Yankees were offering (a bump up in the final three years of his current agreement to $31M or so, and an extension for five more after that, or $248M, is what I heard). [link thanks to baseballmusings.com]

Joe Torre Haiku

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City Room – Metro – New York Times Blog

I have a hard time resisting the invitation to write bad poetry. Reading through the submissions for a Joe Torre haiku you can’t help (I don’t think) be struck by the nuance and twists the language makes available for a wide swath of ideas. I

I have to admit that my haiku in the comments is based more on my love of the pun than an expression of my feelings about Torre’s departure. For that, I’ll post exclusively here:

Morning’s easy stillness
A clubhouse full of calm
The runner is out at home.