Entries Tagged as 'Statistics'

Number crunching Jamie Moyer’s homers

RBI Magazine brings us Ten Things About Jamie Moyer’s 505 Home Runs

…and one more reason to not like George W. Bush:

221
For his career, Jamie Moyer has given up a home run during five different presidential administrations…the most being 221 during the 2001-2008 run of George W. Bush. The other presidents that occupied the White House while Moyer toed the rubber…Ronald Reagan (58 home runs), George Bush (21), Bill Clinton (164) and, of course, Barack Obama (41 and counting).

  • Share/Bookmark
Tags: , ,

Related posts

Effective use of closers

Lee Panas of Tiger Tales makes a good case for better use of MLB’s premier relievers.  He uses his Tigers’ Jose Valverde as a case study but it goes for all closers of high talent. 

This is the basic crux of his argument:

Instead of having Valverde enter a dozen or more games in very low impact situation just to get work, wouldn’t it be better if Leyland picked his spots using him only when the game was on the line?  I’d rather see him enter a tie game in the eighth inning or with the bases loaded in the seventh than see him get a three out save with nobody on base and three run lead.

I’ve pleaded similar arguments to my baseball friends to no avail.  There’s something simple about the “save” rule and there’s no getting around managers desire to saving their best guy for the ninth inning regardless of the actual impact the closer will have. 

I know Lee isn’t the only one exploring this issue.  Is the Save a dying stat?  Perhaps not.  But once we stop relying on it as the sole value of a closer, maybe they will be used in a more effective manner.

  • Share/Bookmark
Tags: , ,

Related posts

2009 last time we saw a pitcher with 100 career CG (ever?)

It’s nothing new even to the casual fan that complete games have taken a drastic dip in the last 15-20 years.  But it just occurred to me that statistically, 2009 was a landmark year.  With the retirement of Randy Johnson at the end of the year, we no longer will have an active pitcher who has at least 100 career complete games. 

Johnson retired at the end of 2009 with 100 complete games on the nose.  With his departure, Roy Halladay became the heir of the CG active leader throne.  Even at that, Halladay has a ways to go.  At this point in the season, Roy has 54 complete games in 13 seasons.  If you look to the second man on that list, it’s Livan Hernandez with 48. 

Certainly, by the end of 2010, we will end up with a active career leader in complete games under 100 games for the first time in major league history. 

If you want a good visual on the decline of complete games through baseball history, Baseball Reference’s Progressive Leaders page might be of help. 

  • Share/Bookmark
Tags: , , , ,

Related posts

B-R.com tool: Totaling up a range of seasons

Maybe this is common knowledge but I just came across another useful tool at BaseballReference.com.  It now allows you to total up range of years’ stats of any particular player on fly.  Very handy!

It’s done just by clicking on the first year in the range then the last year in the range.  By doing that, a stat window pops of with the range totals you wanted. 

Here’s an example using Hank Aaron.

You do need to enable this feature and it’s done at this page.

Another reason why Baseball Reference is as good as it is.  Sean and team there continue to make it better.  And another reason I don’t hesitate to throw a couple bucks their way every year.  As much as I use it, it’s worth it.

  • Share/Bookmark
Tags: ,

Related posts

How many played SS and catcher in the same season?

My buddy John and I got talking the other day about players who double at two positions that require radically different skillsets.  Craig Biggio, for example, was a rarity in that he played catcher AND secondbase, two positions you rarely see paired together.  And played them well.  Not to mention that he played centerfield as well. 

What I wanted to see was how many players in modern day baseball had played at catcher AND shortstop within the same year.  My chosen limit was at least 10 games at both positions.  Between the the years 1901 and 2009, only seven players fit that description.

Using Baseball Reference’s Play Index, here is the list of players I came up with:

Player G Year Tm AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG Pos
Marty Martinez 113 1968 ATL 356 34 82 5 3 0 12 29 28 6 .230 .291 .261 6542
Bobby Bragan 109 1942 PHI 335 17 73 12 2 2 15 20 21 0 .218 .264 .284 *62/45
Bobby Bragan 94 1944 BRO 266 26 71 8 4 0 17 13 14 2 .267 .304 .327 *62/54
Sport McAllister 78 1903 DET 265 31 69 8 2 0 22 10 0 5 .260 .297 .306 *62/953
Dave Roberts 101 1980 TEX 235 27 56 4 0 10 30 13 38 0 .238 .280 .383 562/943
Mike Sandlock 80 1945 BRO 195 21 55 14 2 2 17 18 19 2 .282 .346 .405 *26/45
Ron Slocum 60 1970 SDP 71 8 10 2 2 1 11 8 24 0 .141 .238 .268 265/4
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/4/2010.
 

(The games played were Martinez SS-54 C-14, ‘42 Bragan SS-78 C-22, ‘44 Bragan SS-51 C-35, McAllister SS-46 C-18, Roberts SS-33 C-22, Sandlock SS-22 C-47, Slocum SS-17 C-19).

All seven (well six, as Bobby Bragan is listed twice) seem to be the uber-utility types playing at least four different positions in their particular season.  It’s no surprise that none were fantastic hitters (though Roberts did hit 10 HR) but I’m sure their managers found their versatility useful.

I guess the most unusual was Bragan himself who not only did it twice but managed to put in over 20 games at catcher each year in addition to his normal shortstop. 

  • Share/Bookmark
Tags: ,

Related posts

I just love Baseball Reference’s new SHARE feature

Kudos to Baseball Reference again, this time for their “Share” feature that they just implemented in their stat pages. 

The Share feature does what it implies… it allows people to share any stats on almost any Baseball Reference stat page in a variety of formats. 

The formats available are html table, bbcode, a javascript widget, an html iframe, pre-formatted text, comma delimited file or just simply a hyperlink.  Those baseball bloggers, forum posters and stat hounds who frequently cite baseball statistics will find this very useful. 

Just browse to the stat page you want to quote and click the “Share” link. Since Clyde Vollmer was born today, I’ll use his batting stats as an example.  The “Sharing Toolbox” will then come up. 

sharing toolbox

This is where the best feature comes up.  Don’t want to display the CS stats?  Not interested in the age of the player?  Not to worry, BR has allowed for us to customize the display of the table by deleting columns or rows that you want.

Just click on the red X of any unwanted column or row and it won’t appear in the final result.  There’s also a red X within an arrow on each row and column that will delete trailing ones. 

redx

In Vollmer’s case, I’m going to make his table a simple one with just homeruns and rbis.  I’ll click on the red arrow on the rbi column deleting everything to the right of it.  I then deleted every other column except Tm, Lg, HR, and RBI.  Not being interested in per team stats I deleted every row below his career stats, too.

Don’t forget, stat tables in Baseball Reference allow you to click on stat column headers to sort by stat categories.  In my example with Vollmer though, I’ll keep it in chronological order.

Once you get the stat table the way you want it, click on the format type you want.  A window will then pop up giving you the code or link you need. 

In the Vollmer case, I clicked html table and was given html code for a table. 

Here is the result for Clyde Vollmer’s homerun and rbi totals for his career:

 

Year Tm Lg HR RBI
1942 CIN NL 1 4
1946 CIN NL 0 1
1947 CIN NL 1 13
1948 TOT MLB 0 0
1948 CIN NL 0 0
1948 WSH AL 0 0
1949 WSH AL 14 59
1950 TOT AL 7 38
1950 WSH AL 0 1
1950 BOS AL 7 37
1951 BOS AL 22 85
1952 BOS AL 11 50
1953 TOT AL 11 74
1953 BOS AL 0 0
1953 WSH AL 11 74
1954 WSH AL 2 15
10 Seasons 69 339
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/24/2009.
 

There you go.  A reasonably good looking table that was easy to generate (probably easier than I made it sound).  It’s easy enough to go into the code and remove the link to B-R but why be a tool?  It’s the least I could do.

It should be emphasized that this feature works from almost any stat page in Baseball Reference.  Splits, Game logs, team stats, you name it. 

Oh managers pages too.  I just used it in a recent post about Bobby Cox.

In this day and age when MLB is trying their best to lay claim to baseball statistics as a commodity, it nice to see Baseball Reference making it easy to share them.  Keep up the good work, B-R!

  • Share/Bookmark
Tags: , ,

Related posts

Tater-less

Baseball Reference’s Stat of the Day blog does the numbers work and determines who among active players has the most plate appearances with 0 homers.

Most are pitchers, of course, though #1 on the list is Angel OF Reggie Willits with 785 plate appearances. 

What struck me is the number of Cubs and former Cubs on the list.  Most notably, Ryan Dempster who ranks #6 with 491. 

That’s ok, that’s not his job.

  • Share/Bookmark
Tags: , , ,

Related posts

Baseball shortened seasons

When comparing baseball stats between seasons, I sometimes catch myself when I come across a stat from maybe 1994 or perhaps 1981.  Then one second before I realize “Oh yeah, the strike-shortened year” or whatever. 

So for my own edification then anything, here are the list of baseball seasons that were shortened by labor strikes, lockouts, or whatever reason and the number of actual games played that season.

Disclaimer:  The amount of games played indicated are approximate figures.  Obviously in the cases of mid-season interruptions, some teams played more, some less.

 

1918

129 games played

The season was shortened due to World War I.

 

1919

140 games played

Team owners decided to shorten the season to 140 games in 1919 in anticipation of low attendance (because of WWI in the previous years).  Attendance actually surprised them and was high and they turned a profit.

 

1972

156 games played

Due to the 1972 Major League Baseball Strike.

 

1981

111 games played

Due to the 1981 Major League Baseball Strike.

 

1994

117 games played

Due to the 1994 Major League Baseball Strike.

 

1995

144 games played

 

The 1995 season was abbreviated to 144 games because of the strike the previous year.

 

 

Also note that in the years 1901-1903 in both leagues, the seasons only consisted of 140 games. 

  • Share/Bookmark
Tags: , ,

Related posts

Many saves, high ERA

In honor of Kevin Gregg, I played around with Baseball Reference’s Play Index and came up with a list of closers with the highest ERA.  More specifically, these are the pitchers with the most saves in a season among those with an adjusted ERA of 70 or less. 

    Player            SV ERA+   ERA  Year Age
+----+-----------------+--+----+------+----+---+
    1 Shawn Chacon      35   69   7.11 2004  26
    2 Mike Williams     28   69   6.14 2003  33
    3 Derrick Turnbow   24   66   6.87 2006  28
    4 Jose Mesa         24   61   6.52 2003  37
    5 Brad Lidge        23   60   7.21 2009  32
    6 Matt Capps        21   64   6.41 2009  25
    7 Rob Dibble        19   62   6.48 1993  29
    8 Dave Smith        17   65   6.00 1991  36
    9 Willie Hernandez  15   67   5.74 1989  34
   10 Darold Knowles    15   66   5.81 1975  33

 

Full list here.

Only 2004 Shawn Chacon of (you guessed it) the Colorado Rockies, breaks the 30 save mark.  He had a 1-9 record to go with his 7.11 ERA. 

Five more over 20 and it pretty much dissolves after that. 

In 1998, Mark Wohlers of the Braves managed to get 8 saves in 27 games with an ERA in the double digits (10.18)

  • Share/Bookmark
Tags: , ,

Related posts

Pops 1970s Alltime Home Run Leader with 296

stargell25Wilver Stargell was a menacing figure when he stepped into the batter’s box in the 70s, windmilling his bat around, as he waited for the pitcher to summon up the courage to send the sphere plateward.  Stargell played 21 seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he hit 7 of the 16 balls hit completely out of Forbes Field and several into the upper tier at Three Rivers Stadium.  Willie finished his career with 475 homers and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1988.

He hit 296 home runs in the 70s, more than anyone else.  As the decade comes to an end, who will be the all-time home run hitter for this decade?

  • Share/Bookmark
Tags: , ,

Related posts