AL West Divisional All-Stars

Finally, some teams to which we can relate! In the Year of the Pitcher, check out how many A's are present on the offensive end...

Two! Two A's! Ah ah ah!

(That was Count von Count from Sesame Street, by the way...)

Yes, just two, and pretty near the bottom of the lineup, but they are the only two representatives from teams not the Angels or Rangers. Two more A's appear on the team, one starter and one reliever, the latter surrounded by THE ENTIRE TEXAS RANGERS BULLPEN! I mean, seriously, right? I know they went to the World Series, but were their relievers really THAT badass?

As far as holdovers from last year, only a pair of Angels in the Outfield (haha, remember that one?): Bobby Abreu and Torii Hunter. Abreu didn't even have to compete with Ichiro this year and took the right field spot outright. Last year's top two pitchers - Hernandez and Weaver - returned for another go-round, as did three relievers: the '010 Rangers' two Darren O's (although Oliver pitched for the Angels in '09 and O'Day's time was split with the Mets) and Craig Breslow.

Notice how last year's bullpen was dominated by the A's in not quite as dramatic a way that this year's is dominated by the Rangers. Also notice how both teams featured the AL Rookie of the Year in the Closer's spot. Strange how these things match up...

All this talk about the bullpen draws focus away from the sad sad state of the offense in this division. Looking for some oWAR above 4? Josh Hamilton's your man, and no one else. Even Vlad Guerrero, with his impressive swp-measured stats, couldn't crack a measly 3 wins above replacement. The starters make up for it, as you won't find a starter with a WAR below 4.

Only one more team to go after this one. As I near the end of this project, I find it hard to keep track of the scope of it and what it all means. With the AL Wild Card I'll also do some big picture wrapping up in general. I don't know how much all you readers out there in readerland are absorbing of any of this, but it sure was a fun way for me to spend the offseason. Much more productive than agonizing about who's going to sign the next big free agent...

AL Central Divisional All-Stars

With the completion of this list, I will be 3/4 of the way through the Divisional All-Stars project. Starting to get a little burned out on the lists? Me too, kind of. When dealing with so many fantastic players, there becomes less and less to say about each one of them in terms of commentary. For the AL Central, I'd like to focus on repeat honorees, folks who were good enough to make the list two years in a row. But first, the raw numbers:

Right away we can see some of the best hitters to appear in this project followed directly by some of the very worst. Not that guys like Jhonny Peralta are bad athletes - he was just rewarded with a new contract from the Tigers - but put him up next to some of his competition (Evan Longoria, Adrian Beltre, Alex Rodriguez, Michael Young), and it's easy to see that we're dealing with one of the weaker divisions in the sport right now.

As far as holdovers, there's only six: three batters, one starter, and two relievers. At the plate, we have Mauer, Cabrera, and Choo, with the supporting cast around them just as lackluster as this year's bunch, minus the DH spot, of course (last year occupied by Michael Cuddyer, spending most of his playing time in right field). On the mound, Verlander is the starter to appear on last year's team, although Danks did headline last year's AL Wild Card starting staff. The two reliever Matt's (Thornton & Guerrier) showed up on both teams.

A weak offense, the loss of both Zack Greinke and Cliff Lee from the rotation; this AL Central is but a shadow of its former self. Consider the WAR of their starting staff: four 4's and a 3, compared to the AL East's four 5's and a 3. The story of Francisco Liriano's comeback is an inspiring one, but great teams are made by great players, not great stories.

I must admit, I'm a little baffled by what makes a high WAR score. If it were strikeouts, Verlander would be way ahead. Pavano has a big lead in complete games. Danks didn't seem to do anything that special. I don't know what crazy algorithm they've got going, but it escapes me. However they're calculated, they sure make the Royals look smart for locking up Joakim Soria for a multiyear deal - as I hinted at last time, he scored the most WAR of any reliever in the game.

While comparing these teams to one another, I found myself wishing that I had access to some fancy simulation software, where I could plug in all these players and their stats, and "watch" what would happen if they faced off in a fictional Playoff situation. Then I realized that such software does in fact exist - in the form of video games on our most powerful consoles!

I haven't played a baseball game regularly since MVP '05 for the PS2... and by regularly, I mean obsessively. Heck, I'd still be playing it, if the lag created by plugging my older system into my schmancy new HDTV didn't make the game unplayable. Maybe if I gift myself a PS3 for Christmas, I'll consider buying one of the new games, adjusting the rosters, and setting in motion a simulated series. I'd feel like Aristotle's Unmoved Mover as I watched the pixelated teams that I created run and jump and swing and slide all over a computer-generated field.

Wouldn't that be exciting? Now I just have to decide which game throw my support behind: the MLB "The Show" series or the 2K_ series. Any suggestions from baseball gamers out there?

AL East Divisional All-Stars

Alright, time to forget about recent developments like the close of the Winter Meetings, the Golden Globe nominations, and the announcement of Time's Person of the Year, and jump right in to the American League Divisional All-Stars!

Not to always harp on this newfangled swp/WAR ratio I've started calculating, but let's start with our duo of overrated Yankees in the starting lineup. Mark Teixeira struggled to the lowest slash stats since his age 23 rookie season, but somehow put up good enough numbers (mostly through runs and walks - he had the lowest extra base hit percentage of his career) to rack up an impressive amount of points. Derek Jeter didn't necessarily earn his new $51 million contract, putting up an offensive win percentage below .500 for the first time ever since taking over as regular shortstop in 1996. Despite being a totally offensive-minded metric, swp seems to more accurately predict Gold Glove winners than valuable batters - both of the above players were recipients of the defensive award last season.

Now let's take a minute to marvel at Jose Bautista's season. 54 home runs OUT OF NOWHERE. 124 RBI to go with them. .86 BB/K ratio, compared to his career mark of .58. And all this with a .233 batting average on balls in play, which suggests that he was immensely UNlucky in terms of hits/outs this season. A season for the ages, just as next season will undoubtedly be in the running for one of the biggest season-to-season dropoffs of all time...

I lost many nights of sleep trying to determine who should occupy the DH spot: whether it should be the best runner-up out of all the position players or the best player who played the majority of his games as the DH. If there weren't two very good candidates, it would have been much tougher, but David Ortiz (2,017 / 13.9) gave Adrian Beltre a run for his money, especially considering just swp and also that as the DH his defensive prowess means less.

Overall, this team is remarkably economical with their swp. Aside from the two Yankees mentioned before and Carl Crawford - who had a remarkably impressive season, but played in an uncharacteristically deep position - not a single ratio above 500 on the lineup or the starting staff. Speaking of the starting staff, check out the league leaders included in that bunch: Sabathia in wins (21), Lester in K/9 innings (9.7), and Buchholz in adjusted ERA+ (187). The pitcher with the lowest WAR (Shaun Marcum) actually had the highest K/BB ratio of the bunch (3.65) - plus he just came back from a full season of not pitching, so we should cut him some slack.

Look at how much WAR likes setup man Daniel Bard: his 3.3 wins above replacement is the highest among all non-closer relievers. (It's also good for second overall among ALL relievers, tied with Brian Wilson and behind... well, you'll find out next time!) On the other end of the spectrum, look at how little WAR appreciates the unique talent of the swingman: David Hernandez, who started roughly 20% of his games, sits pretty with less than 1 win above replacement. Although we might find that's not the norm next week...

Also, as a point of trivia, check out Koji Uehara's swp/g: 20.1! As (technically) a reliever! He's an example of a fringe reliever: my criteria for distinguishing CL's from RP's is that a Closer must have appeared in at least 25% of his team's save opportunities (SVOpp's). Guess Uehara's percentage: that's right, 24.2%. At least WAR puts him in his place as far as effectiveness goes.

Next Week: AL Central.

NL Wild Card Divisional All-Stars

The Wild Card team features "the best of the rest" - players taken from all three NL divisions who didn't score quite enough points to be included in their division's all-star team. Doesn't mean they're not solid players, one and all. Here's the list:

The first thing I did when analyzing this list was to tally up which players came from which divisions, to see which division had the edge. And guess which one did? Not a single one! 21 players on the roster, 7 from  each of the three NL divisions. What are the odds!? (This is counting Ted Lilly just for the Cubs, since that's where he spent most of his time. Ditto with Dan Haren who actually spent the latter part of his season in the American League.) Pretty uncanny, eh? The East and the Central are pretty split in the batting and pitching, and the West dominates the bullpen.

According to WAR, Brian Wilson was better than the guy who beat him in the NL West, Heath Bell. But the difference in swp is small; I don't know what accounts for the difference of 0.7 WAR. Maybe the beard factors in. Like I said, I don't understand what witchcraft goes into sabermetrics.

Also look at Edward Mujica's swp/WAR ratio. Unbelievable, right? First Gregerson, then Mujica. Suddenly the Padres' stellar bullpen isn't looking so impressive after all...

Working up, check out how Jonathan Sanchez, the Giants' No. 3 starter, headlines this Wild Card All-Star Team. Speaks volumes about the new World Champs, doesn't it?

But the team leader in WAR is NL East third base runner-up Ryan Zimmerman, which puts him in the running for the highest-valued swp in the league. Here's the top 10 ranking:

As you can see, Zimmerman sits at No. 7, good for 4th among position players, and 1st among non-catcher position players. (Catcher swp are notoriously overvalued, because replacement level catchers are such notorious light hitters.) I don't know what caused his points to be valued so highly, but I'll bet it hinges on that high slugging percentage, indicating a high number of extra base hits. If there was a stat stock market, I would envy the visionary who first bought stock in OPS...

Batting behind him in my fictional order, despite his higher swp total, is right fielder Hunter Pence, who sports some of the lowest valued points in the league - second lowest to Mark Reynolds. (I won't put the whole list up here - it's too depressing.) Sure enough, if we look at Pence's stats: low walk total and a SLG well south of .500. Maybe there's a correlation to be found after all.

Once I have all 8 of these teams done, I'll likely calculate an average swp/WAR ratio, and with 8 (teams) x 21 (players) + however many honorable mentions I calculated, I should have a pretty decent sample size of the best players in the game right now to see how the two metrics compare. Hopefully it'll be enlightening. I hate to think that I might be wasting my time with all these lists...

NL West Divisional All-Stars

At the risk of bombarding you, my loyal readers, with too many indecipherable numbers, I've added two columns to the NL West graph. They are the 2010 oWAR (offensive wins above replacement) and the swp/WAR ratio, which is exactly what it sounds like. Remember, a player with a lower ratio's points were valued higher than a player with a higher ratio - lower-ratio'd players got more for their points so to speak. This is all in the effort seeing how my silly method of player evaluation compares with the hottest minds in sabermetrics.

Right away I want to point out an inconsistency in the selection of the outfielders for this team. Andres Torres played primarily center field for the Giants, but he logged significant playing time at each of the outfield positions. Ditto Carlos Gonzalez, except with left field as his main spot. Seeing as we had two star outfielders without a fixed position, I picked the three outfielders with the highest swp and put them wherever they would fit. Had I stuck strictly with positions, Torres would have been left out and Andre Ethier would have taken his place in right. Here's how their two lines compare:

Torres: 1,828 / 2.9 = 630
Ethier: 1,755 / 3.7 = 474

As you can see, Ethier was more valuable in terms of both my newly included columns. (Defensively, it was a different story: 1.6 dWAR for Torres vs. -1.7 for Ethier. Yikes!) But I've thrown my lot in with swp, and that's how the story goes. Plus Torres is a better fit to bat leadoff than flash-in-the-pan Kelly Johnson.

MVP candidate Carlos Gonzalez (or CarGo as the fans have dubbed him) had an incredible season, but he had rather low-valued swp. That might be because power hitting outfielders are relatively easy to come by. See as an example his Rockies teammate shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who logged the same number of Wins Above Replacement, yet scored measurably fewer swp (due to an injury-shortened season).

But, wait, that logic can't hold, because isn't first base one of the deepest positions in terms of production? Then how come Aubrey Huff and (especially) Adrian Gonzalez had such highly valued swp? Maybe it has something to do with all the walks they drew. Maybe it's all the extra-base hits. Maybe there's just something about this sabermetrics movement that I don't understand.

What I do understand is that Mark Reynolds is way overrated, at least by traditional offensive measures. He's still better than average, but leading the league in strikeouts three years in a row? Makes you wonder if the Orioles front office (the team that just recently acquired Reynolds) has access to the latest evaluating measures.

I also understand that Ubaldo Jimenez was as impressive as Tim Lincecum was disappointing. I don't know if WAR takes into account park effects, but to give up just 10 home runs in high-altitude Coors Field is a feat of absolute mastery. Only two pitchers in the league (Roy Halladay and Adam Wainwright) had higher swp's, but no one could best him in WAR for pitchers. He was a bit wild, with a K/BB ratio dwarfed by Cy Young winner Halladay, but he's only 26 and looks to have several more great seasons ahead of him.

Tim Lincecum's season was a silly one: as you can see he's way down there in swp, whereas he was among the leaders in the last two years (where he won two Cy Youngs). He still piled on the strikeouts this year, leading the league for the third straight year, but I guess he just gave up too many hits and let too many runs score.

Just a word on a couple of over-valued relief pitchers: Heath Bell was one of the best in the game - you generally don't see a reliever with WAR above 3.0 - but seeing as swp highly overvalues the save stats (30 swp per!) it takes him a lot of points to get to one WAR. Conversely, someone like Hong-Chih Kuo, who pitched comparably, but didn't rack up as many prestige stats, has points that more accurately represent his value.

Just for a second, look at Luke Gregerson's swp/WAR ratio. Wow, right? It would take him nearly 1,300 swp to log 1 WAR! Looks like the Padres made the right decision trading him to the Marlins for a young center fielder - get the most you can for him while his traditional stats are over-valued.

NEXT: NL Wild Card

NL Central Divisional All-Stars

Going geographically, the NL Central stars are next:

(Does the center alignment of all the names look strange to you? It usually looks more professional, more "baseball," if the names are aligned left. And maybe if the stats were aligned right...)

Among these players - all of whom are among the best in the NL Central - we can recognize a few players who are among the best in the Game right now.

First of all, the 1B / DH / really just another 1B combination of MVP Joey Votto and MVP-runner-up Albert Pujols. Interestingly enough, you can see that the eventual winner was outscored in swp by the loser - and baseball-reference's version of WAR (wins above replacement, remember those?) agrees: 7.4 for Pujols, 6.9 for Votto. But here's the real kicker: when determining how swp relates to WAR, Pujols and Votto had exactly the same swp/WAR ratio.

Votto: 2,650 / 6.9 = 384
Pujols: 2,843 / 7.4 = 384

Coincidence...? YOU DECIDE!

Matt Holliday may very well turn out to be one of the game's best outfielders, but he doesn't do everything particularly well enough for him to be considered one of the greats. Rickie Weeks had a fantastic season, but he's been inconsistent because of injuries. Andrew McCutchen has the "tools" to become a star, but he's not quite there yet.

On the pitching side, Adam Wainwright has blossomed into an absolute staff ace. Four years since converting from a reliever, he's shown that he has the staying power to lead a competitive rotation. Roy Oswalt pitched like one of the best in the game during his 11 starts for Philadelphia... but he didn't pitch nearly that well for the Astros, or overall. If Chris Carpenter once was one of the best in the game, he's not pitching like it now.

Given what's out there now, Carlos Marmol certainly looks like one of the top 6-8 closers in the game right now. Evan Meek had a deserved All-Star season as a rookie, but we know how volatile the middle relief position can be... or we soon will be.

One more thing of note: a possible catching snub - of defensive whiz Yadier Molina in favor of more offensively-minded Geovany Soto. The race was reasonably close: Soto had 1,157 swp with Molina at 1,058. We all know that swp takes no account of defensive stats... so when comparing swp to WAR, I've used only offensive WAR. Molina, the fan-voted All-Star starter by a landslide, picked up 1.7 defensive WAR in '010. Soto, who struggled mightily last year, but bounced back after slimming down, is sitting pretty at 0.0 - he is exactly a replacement level defensive catcher. But in terms of offense, Soto's 3.2 oWAR blow Molina's 1.4 out of the water.

One has to admit: when factoring WAR into swp, a clear winner emerges. Soto actually had the lowest swp/WAR ratio of anyone on this NL Central team:

Soto: 1,157 / 3.2 = 362
Molina: 1,058 / 1.4 = 756

The next highest is Evan Meek: a middle reliever whose swp isn't inflated by saves:

Meek: 990 / 2.6 = 381

Then come Votto and Pujols with 384. What this means is that swp scored by players with low ratios are somewhat undervalued and points scored by players with high ratios are overvalued. What does that mean, in the big picture? I haven't the slightest idea. Ask me again next off-season.

NL East Divisional All-Stars

Now that these lists are quickly becoming a yearly tradition, I won't repeat last year's full-blown introduction. Suffice it to say, I compile a starting lineup for each division consisting of the best players at each position in that division. Players who were traded or acquired get credited with their full season's worth of statistics, but they count towards the particular division in which they spent the majority of their times (measured in games, plate appearances, or innings pitched).

Now that we've got all the particulars out of the way, let's dive right in with the NL East's Divisional All-Stars.

POS	Name	__SWP__	SWP/G	TM
SS	Hanley Ramirez	2,111	14.9	FLA
CF	Shane Victorino	1,988	13.5	PHI
3B	David Wright	2,156	13.7	NYM
RF	Jayson Werth	2,252	14.4	PHI
2B	Dan Uggla	2,221	13.9	FLA
1B	Adam Dunn	2,061	13.0	WAS
DH	Ryan Howard	1,998	14.0	PHI	1B
C	Brian McCann	1,608	11.2	ATL
LF	Raul Ibanez	1,724	11.1	PHI
SP1	Roy Halladay	2,882	87.3	PHI
SP2	Tim Hudson	2,142	63.0	ATL
SP3	Josh Johnson	2,043	73.0	FLA
SP4	Cole Hamels	1,978	59.9	PHI
SP5	Johan Santana	1,772	61.1	NYM
CL	Billy Wagner	2,217	31.2	ATL
RP1	Tyler Clippard	1,071	13.7	WAS
RP2	Clay Hensley	981	14.4	FLA
RP3	Jonny Venters	894	11.3	ATL
RP4	Ryan Madson	842	15.3	PHI
RP5	Jose Contreras	686	10.2	PHI
P	Hisanori Takahashi	1,337	25.2	NYM

As far as catchers go in the National League, there's really only one name to know: Brian McCann. He's played in the last five All-Star games and picked up four of the last five Silver Slugger awards at his position. Throw in his 2010 All-Star Game MVP award and .429 Division Series average, and he's proving he can perform on the sport's biggest stages.

There was a logjam at first base seeing as Adam Dunn shifted there full time in '10 and thanks to Ryan Howard's ankle sprain, which cost him about half of August. Neither are good defensive first basemen but both hit for massive power, both stand about 6 1/2 feet tall, and both make more than $10,000,000 annually.

Dan Uggla's career year at the plate earned him some minor MVP support, a Silver Slugger award... and a trade to the Braves. He still boots plenty of balls (he led the league in errors as 2B with 28), but the power numbers he puts up at a historically weak position should not be overlooked when determining value. 

David Wright is back! After inexplicably losing his power last year, his home run total is climbing back to his career norm. His OBP is his lowest since becoming a regular, but I guess all those big swings for the fences have an adverse impact on one's ability to reach base consistently. He's apparently not great in the field though - each of our divisional all-star infielders sported negative defensive WAR in 2010 (wins above replacement, possibly more on that in the future).

Hanley Ramirez was the only one of the usual big three East shortstops to show up in '10. Jose Reyes had a slow return from a hamstring tear in '09. Jimmy Rollins missed time with a calf injury. Han Ram's power has been declining a bit and his defense is certainly not improving, but he put up some solid numbers and he's signed through 2015, so he should be making pretty regular appearances on this list.

As it happens, the entire NL East Divisional All-Star Outfield comes from the Philadelphia Phillies. Ibanez, Victorino, Werth. The left field spot likely would have been a lock for the Mets new acquisition Jason Bay had he not lost most of the season to a concussion. Werth continued a trend of awesome seasons, putting him in the position of the year's most prized free agents. Victorino sacrificed some average for power, but with his Gold Glove in '10, he's the only one on this squad who shined in the field.

There's not much  more to say about Roy Halladay. Everyone predicted that he would tear it up upon leaving the sport's toughest division for the weaker league, and he did not disappoint, winning 21 games, completing 9 of them (including one perfecto), and leading the league in strikeout-walk ratio. He was rewarded with his second Cy Young award.

After two injury-abbreviated seasons, Tim Hudson is back with a vengeance at age 34. He kept his ERA down and won a bunch of games using his regular strategy of inducing ground balls and letting his defense do the work. Josh Johnson would have garnered more Cy Young support than he did were his season not ended a month early due to a back strain. He still managed to lead the league with a 2.30 ERA.

A pair of lefties rounds out our rotation: Cole Hamels and Johan Santana. Hamels dispelled doubts following a subpar 2009 season and acted as a very solid number two to Halladay. Word leaked that Santana had been pitching with a torn capsule in his left shoulder for perhaps many years, much to the chagrin of irresponsible Mets management. The fact that he was still able to put up impressive numbers cements his place as one of the greats.

At the end of the bullpen is another injury comeback story, Billy Wagner. An elite closer since 1997 for the Astros, Phillies, and Mets, he missed most of 2009 except for a brief "audition" with the Red Sox. He performed well enough to get a one-year deal with the Braves, and he showed that age 38 was little different from age 28 (well, 27 or 29: Wagner was injured for pretty much his entire age 28 season).

As far as the middle relievers go - the unsung heroes of any baseball team - I don't want to shove them down here at the end of this article. Rather, I'm planning to do some digging into what makes them great and why they represent some of the most volatile positions with one of the highest turnover rates in the sport.

Before then, however, you can expect seven more of these divisional all-star teams. PLEASE ENJOY!

Databases and Withdrawals

Boy, there sure is a wealth of information and emotion that accompanies the end of a baseball season, isn't there? The information: full season statistics for 1,000+ Major League players, just waiting to be studied and organized and analyzed. The emotion: the winners of various prestigious awards, the trades and signings of star players and journeymen alike, the revolutionary discussion to alter MLB's playoff structure after the worst-rated World Series in history. And of course, just the general feeling of letdown and instant nostalgia that seems to instantly hit as soon as the new World Champions wrap up their victory parade.

At the moment, I've been mostly concerning myself with statistics, specifically their study and organization. You might remember my detailed list projects from last year, but for the 2010-11 offseason, I've started another undertaking: a Baseball Database, that includes searchable information in all types of various categories, meaningful and trivial. It's arduous and time consuming, but for me, all sorts of fun. And I hope we can all have some fun with the results, also.

As those projects are underway, I plan for periodic updates in the form of Divisional All-Stars. Then I'll turn my attention to elected All-Stars, award winners. Upon their completion, I additionally have planned a treatise on middle relievers, and a treatise on cleanup hitters.

Then, when I'm clear-headed enough to turn to emotion, I'll do some thinking about the proposed new format for MLB playoffs, which would include an additional Wild Card team per league.

This should put us right in the middle of hot-stove season, but any extensive analysis of trades and new acquisitions will probably be left for the 2011 Season Preview. To this slate, I'd like to add something regarding Top Prospects, but the format remains to be determined.

Oh, the things we do to stave off Baseball-Withdrawal in the Offseason...

The World Series

Wow, it's been nearly a week since the World Series! It all happened so fast, I hardly even noticed. In keeping with my yearlong tradition of not posting a single article on this site during the duration of the actual World Series, I've been keeping quiet this week.

I'll admit, I was pulling for the Rangers. I think they're a cooler team and I generally like the AL over the NL. Plus, go Dodgers, thus boo Giants.

But as I go through the listing process that I do after each season, I'm starting to like the Giants' makeup more and more. I'm happy Lincecum has a ring: he deserves it. The supporting cast around him, maybe not so much... like the Aubrey Huffs, the Juan Uribes, the Nate Schierholtz's. And Buster Posey hasn't even proven his worth in the majors yet, so he's jumped the gun a little. 

Both teams were under-the-radar types, which resulted in the lowest rated world series ever. I was just thankful it wasn't the same two teams from last year. It's always good to see parity in the major leagues. It shows that big budgets can't always buy championships. (By the way, we saw a similar result in the California Gubernatorial race this year.)

Which brings me to another cool part about the off-season: Rewards Season. Soon we'll (probably) see Jason Heyward upset Posey for the Rookie of the Year and other voting results that will prompt all sorts of analysis and pounding-on-tables behavior from our preeminent sports journalists.

Did I say "cool" part of the off-season? I meant "ultimately useless."

Although, I do think All-Star selections and MVP-type awards voting are useful tools for beginners to get involved with the sport. Once you have a good handle on the best players, it's easier to get into the supporting casts around them. In addition to my 2010 baseball list, I'm going to try and use an All-Star approach to learn more about basketball this off-season. It's not technically the subject matter for this blog, but maybe I'll even talk a little about some of my findings.

That's pretty much it. It's been such an emotional letdown after the season ended that I haven't really been able to concentrate on much, at least not analytically. List-season will change all that though. You just get ready for some numbers and some crunching of said numbers...

the giants win the pennant!

The giants win the pennant! The giants win the pennant!

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Postseason Experience

Most everyone agrees that playing in the Postseason constitutes a qualitatively different baseball experience than playing in the regular season. Although the format of the game itself remains the same, it's easy to point out some vastly different circumstances:

- You're playing for one of eight teams in contention rather than one of 30.

- The games are elimination tournament style.

- Every moment of every game is crucial and receives intense media scrutiny.

Given these discrepancies, it's natural to think that success in the postseason requires a different set of attributes than success in the regular season (see the ongoing debate over the existence of Clutch Hitting). And thus it's natural to think that having experience playing in the postseason can help one develop these attributes.


If you accept the above two propositions as true, then it follows logically that a team employing a greater number of players with significant postseason experience should have an advantage over a team that employs a lesser number of such players.


If all the above is true, than the charts provided below - which show the postseason experience (not counting the 2010 DS's) of the players on each remaining playoff team - could potentially tell us something about who might win the two upcoming league championship serieses. If the above is meaningless - well, at least the charts are pretty to look at.

YANKEES
POS	Name	Games	AB/IP	__swp__	swp/g
SS	Derek Jeter	138	559	1,923	13.9
C	Jorge Posada	111	372	958	8.6
3B	Alex Rodriguez	54	199	876	16.2
DH	Lance Berkman	29	106	493	17.0
2B	Robinson Cano	28	106	227	8.1
RF	Nick Swisher	24	71	115	4.8
1B	Mark Teixeira	19	76	202	10.6
LF	Brett Gardner	14	13	7	0.5
CF	Curtis Granderson	13	53	187	14.4
DH	Marcus Thames	8	21	36	4.5
C	Francisco Cervelli	2	1	-2	-1.0
SP	Andy Pettitte	40	249	1,877	46.9
SP	CC Sabathia	10	61.1	398	39.8
SP	A.J. Burnett	5	27.1	122	24.4
SP	Phil Hughes	11	12	74	6.7
CL	Mariano Rivera	88	133.2	3,081	35.0
RP	Kerry Wood	8	36.2	309	38.6
RP	Joba Chamberlain	12	10	88	7.3
RP	David Robertson	5	5.1	114	22.8
RP	Dustin Moseley	1	1	13	13.0

The Yankees obviously dominate the competition here. Jeter and Posada, both members of the Yankees legendary "Core Four" - have what basically amount to a single season's worth of at-bats. Pettitte and Rivera - the other two members of the above-mentioned group - have logged enough innings to make up for about a season-and-a-quarter's worth. All four have performed admirably.


Other standouts include A-Rod (having appeared in playoff series with both Seattle and New York), Lance Berkman (who slugged pretty well during the Astros' World Series appearance in '05), and Cano (who seems to have struggled a bit under the pressure).

As for pitchers, Sabathia carried the Brewers into the playoffs in '08 and was an absolute horse as part of a three-man rotation for the Yankees in '09. If Phil Hughes and Kerry Wood look like they have disproportionate numbers based on their roles, you're right - Hughes appeared last year as a reliever and Wood started for the Cubs during their '03 Steve Bartman-shortened playoff run.

RANGERS
POS	Name	Games	AB/IP	__swp__	swp/g
DH	Vladimir Guerrero	29	112	305	10.5
C	Bengie Molina	29	91	231	8.0
RF	Jeff Francoeur	4	17	40	10.0
SP	Cliff Lee	5	40.1	589	117.8
RP	Darren Oliver	14	26	190	13.6
RP	Dustin Nippert	2	2.1	36	18.0

Oof, not much to say about these guys. We all remember Lee's dominance against the Yankees in last year's World Series, and are interested in seeing if he can repeat the feat in the AL. A fun bit of trivia: Molina and Guerrero played the exact same number of postseason games, both with the Angels, but in different seasons. (However they did overlap in '04 and '05.)

PHILLIES
POS	Name	Games	AB/IP	__swp__	swp/g
SS	Jimmy Rollins	32	134	362	11.3
RF	Jayson Werth	35	123	600	17.1
CF	Shane Victorino	32	119	509	15.9
1B	Ryan Howard	32	118	490	15.3
2B	Chase Utley	32	115	538	16.8
C	Carlos Ruiz	32	99	393	12.3
3B	Placido Polanco	25	81	177	7.1
LF	Raul Ibanez	24	71	204	8.5
3B	Greg Dobbs	16	21	39	2.4
OF	Ben Francisco	11	11	-11	-1.0
SP	Cole Hamels	10	60.2	566	56.6
SP	Roy Oswalt	8	46.2	371	46.4
SP	Joe Blanton	8	34.2	295	36.9
CL	Brad Lidge	32	39.1	908	28.4
RP	Jose Contreras	14	45	362	25.9
RP	Ryan Madson	24	23	283	11.8
RP	J.C. Romero	23	19	170	7.4
RP	Chad Durbin	13	8.2	73	5.6
RP	Antonio Bastardo	2	0.1	3	1.5

 
Talk about solidarity: five of the starting eight have played the exact same number of games, and they all played them together and all in the last two years. A sixth (Werth) played every game with those other five, but he got an additional taste of the tournament in '04 with the Dodgers.

Hamels pitched all his games with the Phillies, Oswalt pitched all his with the Astros, and Blanton made an additional playoff appearance with the A's in addition to the last two years. Contreras started about half his October appearances, including the '05 World Series against Berkman's Astros, which is why his numbers look a little inflated for a setup man.

GIANTS
POS	Name	Games	AB/IP	__swp__	swp/g
SS	Edgar Renteria	55	207	523	9.5
CF	Aaron Rowand	15	57	139	9.3
LF	Pat Burrell	17	55	159	9.4
SS	Juan Uribe	16	54	159	9.9
2B	Mike Fontenot	5	8	3	0.6
(SP)	(Barry Zito)	7	44.1	409	58.4
RP	Guillermo Mota	7	8.1	66	9.4
RP	Jeremy Affeldt	7	5.1	62	8.9
RP	Javier Lopez	8	5	-46	-5.8
RP	Ramon Ramirez	1	0	-35	-35.0

Slim pickings here: Renteria's been around the block (who remembers his hit for the '97 Champion Florida Marlins?), Rowand and Uribe are two more members of those '05 White Sox, and Burrell played all his postseason games with his opponents. One notable exception from their roster is the only starting pitcher who has appeared in the playoffs: Barry Zito. I guess Manager Bruce Bochy is smart enough to realize that he's a different pitcher now than he was then: not only much much richer, but he's also much less effective.

Why Earned Runs Are Silly

ERA - pretty much the most popular stat to measure the effectiveness of a pitcher. It keeps track of the amount of earned runs given up over nine innings. As you can (hopefully) tell by the name, this stat does not take into account unearned runs, which is either a) when a run scores directly as a result of an error, or b) when a runner who reached base as a result of an error comes around to score. The rulebook definition is a little more complicated, but that's the general idea.

One such run was scored on David Price in the fourth inning of tonight's Game 5 of the ALDS. Nelson Cruz, on second as a result of a double, attempts to steal third base. Rays catcher Kelly Shoppach's throw is an erroneous one (I don't know exactly what happened, cuz I'm stuck on my computer with just mlb.com gamecast dots), and Cruz ends up scoring. As a result of an error, so that's an unearned run, right?

It was, but only until the end of the current at-bat, when Ian Kinsler knocks a single. As soon as that happened, the run in the box score changed from unearned to earned. Why is that, you ask? It's because of some screwy rule and a judgment call that allows the official scorer to change the status of a run in retrospect.

If, in the official scorer's estimation, a play following an unearned run would have resulted in that run scoring, then that unearned run becomes an earned run. So in this situation, we basically pretend that Cruz scored on Kinsler's clean hit rather than Shoppach's messy error. Funny thing is that Shoppach still gets charged with that error, in addition to Price getting charged with an earned run.

But here's the thing: Kinsler singled on a hanging curveball on the outside part of the plate, a pitch that was selected and thrown after Cruz had scored on that error. Who's to say that Price would have thrown that pitch if he still had a runner sitting on second (or on third, if Cruz had successfully stolen the base)? Any decision in baseball (as in life) is affected both by the circumstances in which that decision is made and by what events immediately precede that decision. When we get into pretending that things had turned out differently and basing our statistics on retroactive what-ifs, you confuse player evaluation, even if it's just to a trivial extent.

Eric Hinske's Career

One of the announcers last night noticed an interesting triviality - journeyman corner IF/OF Eric Hinske has played in the last three World Serieses for three different teams.

I never thought about it before, but now I can recall: the Yankees acquired him from the Pirates last year, he played significant time in the outfield for the 08 Rays, and he picked up a few at bats for the 07 Red Sox.

When he hit that home run last night to put his Braves in the lead, it looked like he might instill just enough magic to get to the Fall Classic for his fourth year in a row.

Then the Braves' Billy Wagner-less bullpen fell apart, and their Martin Prado-less infield made a key error and the Braves lost the game. It's sad, but this was a really good team that suffered some tough personnel losses that made them just a pretty good team. Certainly not good enough to heat the Phillies and possibly not even good enough to beat the Giants.

We could find out right now as Derek Lowe faces off against Madison Bumgarner. Or rather I'll find out later tonight after I get off the plane back to.LA I'm just now boarding. Ah the marvels of modern technology!

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The Biggest Game of his Career...

Buck Martinez with another observation during today's game:

This would be the biggest save of Soriano's career, to force a fifth game to this series.

Hmm, the biggest of his career? How can we be certain of that? How exactly do you qualify "big"-ness? Well, we have Soriano's entire career on file at baseball-reference.com, so let's take a look.

With a cursory glance it becomes obvious how Martinez could make such a judgment - the 2010 ALDS is his first time appearing in the post-season. Soriano's had a fairly decent 9-year career in the majors that I'm sure included some big moments - including nearly breaking out with the Mariners in 2003, only to have his career potentially derailed by injuries, only to rejuvenate himself in Atlanta, which led to his shot at becoming a closer with Tampa Bay. And he's now established himself as one of the most dominant closers in the game. And how he has a chance to strut his stuff on the third-biggest stage in the theater that is Major League Baseball.

Soriano did not disappoint - he shut down the Rangers, following the example from fellow Rays relievers Randy Choate, Grant Balfour, and Joaquin Benoit. This is why it's so important to follow even the middle relievers of a club. If you have solid ones - like the Rays or the Padres - those late innings between your starter and your closer become much less stressful. If you have a shaky or unproven one, bad things start to happen. Like what happened to the Rangers last night.

But sometimes completely different things happen: like what happened to the Giants two nights ago, when the Braves came back against one of the best closers in the league. Sometimes even if your middle relievers do the job, your big dog can falter.

Maybe that faltering had somewhat to do with bad defense. Maybe All-Star Brian Wilson had some jitters, it being his first ever postseason game, and thus likely the "biggest" of his career.

We'll see what happens in game 3 when Tim Hudson (a guy with plenty of playoff experience, most of it while wearing the uniform pictured right) squares off against Jonathan Sanchez and the Giants.

Win the game...

During the first inning of Sunday's ALDS game, Buck Martinez gives his thoughts on Rangers starter Tommy Hunter:

He's all about winning. And I don't care what the radar gun says, I don't care how many strikeouts you get; the bottom line if you're a starter, is win the game.

Buck is referring to Tommy Hunter's 13-4 record in 2010 (good for a .765 winning percentage, best in the league), including a 7-0 record at home, where this game takes place. It certainly seems that Hunter, even at the tender age of 24, has what it takes to "know how to win."

But I would argue a bit with Martinez's description of a starting pitcher's duties. Everybody likes to win games, and I'm sure all pitchers like seeing high numbers in that "W" column. But in the big picture, pitchers don't "win the game" as Buck suggests - teams win games. Winning games requires scoring a few runs, a requirement to which AL starting pitchers contribute almost nothing.

Sure a pitcher can compile a lot of wins on their stat sheets, but that shouldn't necessarily be a pitcher's job: a starting pitcher's job is to do whatever he can to help his team win the game.

And I would argue that the evidence has shown that lighting up the radar gun and recording a high number of strikeouts is more valuable to a team's chances of winning games than that arbitrary W.

2010 Fantasy Recap

It's that short period of time between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs, and anticipation levels are rising to the breaking point. With no baseball actually being played at the moment, what better time to recap my performance in 2010 Fantasy Baseball!?

I came in third place this year - a really good finish considering there were stretches of weeks at a time when checking my team completely slipped my mind. I also didn't follow my players as closely as I could have. For instance, if I were aware that last year's AL Cy Young Award winner had been carrying an ERA north of 4.00, I probably would have been shopping around a lot sooner.

Here's a list depicting how my roster looked at the end of the season, organized by the first position they have listed:

POS	Name	Team(s)	swp	swp/g
C	Kurt Suzuki	OAK	1,238	9.5
C/DH	Jorge Posada	NYY	1,227	10.2
1B	Albert Pujols	STL	2,843	17.9
1B/RF	Garrett Jones	PIT	1,594	10.1
2B/3B	Ian Stewart	COL	1,208	10.0
3B/2B	Chone Figgins	SEA	1,364	8.5
3B/2B	Neil Walker	PIT	1,320	12.0
SS	Troy Tulowitzki	COL	2,089	17.1
LF/1B/DH	Luke Scott	BAL	1,680	12.8
LF/2B/RF	Ryan Raburn	DET	1,202	10.6
CF	Shane Victorino	PHI	1,988	13.5
CF/LF/RF	Andres Torres	SF	1,828	13.2
CF/LF/RF	Rajai Davis	OAK	1,634	11.4
RF/LF	Shin-Soo Choo	CLE	2,129	14.8
RF	Andre Ethier	LAD	1,755	12.6
RF/LF/DH	Jack Cust	OAK	1,112	9.9
SP	Roy Oswalt	HOU/PHI	2,189	66.3
SP	Clayton Kershaw	LAD	2,041	63.8
SP/RP	Brett Myers	HOU	2,010	60.9
SP	Hiroki Kuroda	LAD	1,652	53.3
SP	Zack Greinke	KC	1,508	45.7
SP	Mike Pelfrey	NYM	1,479	43.5
RP	Heath Bell	SD	2,308	34.4
RP	Jonathan Broxton	LAD	1,124	17.6
RP	Matt Guerrier	MIN	611	8.3
RP	Scott Downs	TOR	634	9.5

(This list also represents my first dabbling into swp of the 2010 season. GET EXCITED!)

Of the 25 players I drafted, 17 remained on my end-of-year roster. One of the notable exceptions (Josh Johnson / 2,043 / 73.0) had a fine season, but I dropped him in early September when he landed on the DL for the rest of the season. Another one (Ryan Ludwick / 1,323 / 9.7) I only noticed his futility way too late. Had I been paying attention to the performances of the guys I eventually found to replace them (Brett Myers and Andres Torres, respectively), I likely would have made the switches months ago. But fantasy neglect is rather common over a 162 game season.

A couple of my regulars were injured for extended periods of time, so I had to find replacements on the fly. For Posada I eventually picked up Kurt Suzuki, after whom I had lusted since round 11 of our draft in March. He wasn't much better, but you at least need a warm body behind the plate, otherwise a lot of pitched balls would sail to the backstop or hit the ump in the groin.

When Tulo went down, I picked up Cubs phenom Starlin Castro (1,155 / 9.2), who also wasn't anything special. I dropped him later in the season to get some reinforcement for my absolutely lousy 2B/3B combination. I settled on Ryan Raburn and rookie Neil Walker, despite overwhelming evidence of mediocrity.

I just couldn't find anyone decent to play 2B or 3B for the LIFE of me. The one good thing about Chon-eh is that he stole a lot of bases. His 42, along with Victorino's 36 and Rajai Davis's 50 (!), gave me a potent force on the basepaths - my 116 Net Steals (SB - CS) was good for second-most in the league!

Other good categories for me: second-most home runs (242), second-most walks (695), second-fewest walks allowed (353, tie), and second-fewest home runs allowed (79). Also: third-best OPS (.808), third-best ERA (3.29), third-fewest hits allowed (1,005), and third-fewest losses (61).

Bad categories: second-fewest runs scored (868, which appears important, but is really just a measure of circumstance, really), and absolute-fewest doubles (329).

I'm pretty happy with my showing. Later I'll expound on my absolute ideal setup for Fantasy Baseball, both in terms of team organization and scoring. But that will likely not come until after the playoff fervor has died down.

Liveblogging the possibility of MORE BASEBALL!

It's the last day of the season. The San Diego Padres, who had surprisingly spent most of the season in first place in the NL West, now have fallen behind the San Francisco Giants. Three games behind them, to be precise, coming into the final three games of the season - which just happened to be against... the San Francisco Giants!

For those of you who didn't major in math, that means the Padres would have to win all three games to force a tie in the NL West and keep their playoff hopes alive. Well, as it's the final day of the season, they've already played two of those games, and the Padres have won both of them! If they can pull out a win today, we'll have to break into the crazy tie-breaker scenarios that smarter folks than me have been calculating for the past weeks.

I will be sitting here, on my couch, simultaneously keeping score of the game and liveblogging my thoughts. Stay tuned for repeated UPDATES TO THIS VERY POST as the game continues!

1st INNING - Fair or Foul

Right off the bat, this game provides an opportunity to talk about some hot button issues: the use of video replay to review questionable calls. In the very first at-bat for the Giants, Andres Torres hit a scorcher down the left field line that third-base umpire Mike Everitt called foul. The Giants' third-base coach Tim Flannery just about lost his mind, and justifiably so - upon reviewing the play, it was clear that the ball kicked up some chalk.

As far as I can tell, that's why they have chalk on the foul lines - if a ball hits any part of that chalk line, it's a fair ball. If any chalk flies up into the air upon the ball landing on it, it's obviously fair. Crew Chief Tim McClelland behind home plate declined to overturn the call, which cost the Giants two bases.

Torres ended up knocking a single, so at first glance, it appeared not to have mattered. However the next batter, Freddy Sanchez, grounded into a double play. Had Torres been on second base, Aubrey Huff's single might very well have scored him. If the Padres end up winning this momentous game by one run or less, there will probably be some understandable outrage in San Francisco.

2nd INNING - Checked His Swing?

Catcher Yorvit Torrealba came up second for the Padres in the inning and worked the count to 2-0. On the next pitch, he got tangled up on a pitch out of the zone and tried to check his swing. Giants catcher Buster Posey pointed down to the first base umpire to ask for an appeal, but Tim McClelland didn't follow suit, and the count went to 3-0. Torrealba ended up walking on the next pitch.

Again, replays showed that Torrealba had pretty clearly went around. Posey expressed his frustration, and McClelland calmly explained that it's in the home plate umpire's discretion to ask for an appeal. No runs ended up scoring that inning, but you have to ask if we're witnessing some Padres bias here.

Also during the second inning we found out that the Braves had beaten the Phillies, making their record exactly the same as the Giants. I have no idea what that means for the NL West/Wild Card tie-breaker scenario. Ask me later.

3rd INNING - The AL Playoffs Come Together

In the top half of the inning, we find out that the New York Yankees have just lost to the Boston Red Sox, placing them second to the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East, and officially making the Bronx Bombers your 2010 AL Wild Card entry. This means the Yanks will play the Minnesota Twins in the first round of the playoffs. The Rays will take on the Texas Rangers.

I haven't really analyzed the lineups for the playoff teams yet - if I had more time to devote to baseball, there would certainly be more posts on this blog. But my friend Ben P. who has done a lot of this thinking already (and who also happens to be the biggest Twins fan I know) likes the Twins' chances less against the Yankees than against the Rays in a short series. Especially without Justin Morneau, whom the MLB Network crawl just confirmed will not be on the Twins' first round post-season roster.

But more about that later since the Giants just got on the board, not once, but twice. Including a triple from pitcher Jonathan Sanchez. Duane Kuiper had been referring to that area as "Triples Alley" all day, and it finally came to pass. Let's see how Sanchez does after exerting himself.

4th/5th INNINGS - Quite Well, Actually.

Sanchez allows a walk (on another non-appeal on a questionable check swing) and strikes out a batter on 16 pitches. Meanwhile the Giants strand a leadoff single, and both pitchers cruise through the fifth 1-2-3.

Since nothing much happened this inning, let me fantasize about my ideal situation for liveblogging a game. I'd be sitting in an executive desk chair with big puffy arms and a tray table on the right side where I could set my pencil-and-paper scoresheet. The TV is mounted on the wall to my right (about 2:00). My laptop's in front of me, open to blogger - maybe also my email so I can tab over and gchat with all my buddies.

Then there's a big flatscreen LCD monitor to my left (11:00) with multiple desktops. I'd have the MLB.com gamecast of the game, for easy reference to every pitch of the game. I'd have each team's baseball-reference.com site for statistical analysis. Then another window for quick Google/Wikipedia searching.

...did I mention I'm sitting in the Bat Cave for all this?

6th/7th INNINGS - Our Starters Depart

Jonathan Sanchez leaves the game after five innings and 83 pitches with two runners on base. Former Oakland A Santiago Casilla (who was actually named Jairo Garcia for the early part of his career, before they found out those documents were fake) gets a couple of key force plays. I seem to remember Garcia/Casilla being kind of inconsistent with his control and his personality while with the A's. His stuff has never been in doubt - he can reach 98 on the gun. Maybe it was the change to the less competitive national league that turned him from a basket case to a high-leverage reliever on a possibly playoff-bound team.

Latos really settled down after allowing those runs in the third. He got out of a jam in the 6th and was rewarded by being replaced with pinch hitter Will Venable in the 7th... who promptly struck out. A single and a Casilla fielding error chase him from the game, and now the battle of the bullpens has really started. Ramon Ramirez comes in, another relief pitcher who was bad for an AL team (Boston) but who has found new life for the Giants. New life is right - the strike out of Miguel Tejada ends the threat and sets up the best bullpen in the game.

And Bud Black's gonna make it a battle. While he promptly replaces his first reliever (Ryan Webb) after just two pitches, they put a graphic up there to explain the tie-breaker scenario. If the Giants hold on to win, they'll win the west and the Braves will clinch the Wild Card. If the Padres come back to win, they'll ensure that the season goes on for two more games: a rematch tomorrow to decide the NL West winners and an additional tie-breaker Tuesday against the Braves to determine who wins the Wild Card.

But we can worry about all that stuff later. We've got some drama as lefty Joe Thatcher tries like a madman to keep spidery pinch hitter Eugenio Velez close to first base. He must have thrown over there at least 62 times during the course of this at-bat. It didn't appear to help him, as he walks leadoff hitter Andres Torres and leaves the game without recording an out. When everyone talks about the Padres' bullpen superiority, they must have been talking about quantity over quality. I mean, they did hold the Giants scoreless, but it did take them three pitchers to do so. Anyway the inning is over and we're headed to the last 22% of the game.

END OF GAME - The Playoffs Locked Up

There it is. Rookie sensation Buster Posey hits a home run to give the Giants an insurance run and All-Star Brian Wilson shuts the door.

I admit, I was pulling for the Padres, since as a Dodger fan I'm obligated to hates the Giants. Plus I was looking forward to possibly adding two more games to the baseball season. This means the Giants will play the Braves in the first round, which is only fitting, since they were the two last teams to officially make the playoffs.

I probably won't be liveblogging the whole playoffs, because it just takes up so much time. But rest assured I'll be checking in with my thoughts and analysis as October rolls on!