The ability to get hit by a pitch is an under-appreciated skill, perhaps to an even greater extent than the ability to draw walks. I’ve always felt that simple HBP per plate appearance leaderboards captured the best Biggios in the game, but in a needless effort to complicate things, I decided to bring a crude […]

Giants wunderkind Angel Villalona turned himself in on a murder, according to sources out of the Dominican Republic. I may be forgetting somebody, but I can’t remember anything like this happening during a player’s career (thankfully, of course). Maybe we throw Ugueth Urbina into the mix, but his situation was far more complex than someone […]

Hey, there’s a new Batted Ball Report available for the download crowd. This report focuses on the Win Shares leaders of the year, for your postseason award research. Plus, I’ve developed a little formula for determining the most “surprising” and “disappointing” players of the year. Guess who those were in 2009? It’s all part of […]

The other day I looked at the run scoring environments in Triple-A and Double-A and today I will continue with the lower levels of the minors. Advanced-A California League– .270/.341/.416 Runs-5.114 2B- 1.914 3B- .350 HR- .806 BB- 3.295 K- 7.915 SB- .850 Carolina League– .256/.329/.383 Runs- 4.458 2B- 1.772 3B- .198 HR- .664 BB- […]

Juan Pierre has 13 home runs in over 6000 plate appearances in his career so far. That’s not very good. In fact, Albert Pujols has hit more home runs this year in the month of June alone. Based off of that large discrepancy in power between the two, we can be pretty confident that pitchers […]

This morning the Baseball Think Factory newsblog published a piece by Diane Grassi in which she details her beefs with the use of PITCHf/x data to grade umpires and worries about the impact that forthcoming ball tracking technologies from Sportvision will have on the effectiveness of scouting. To extent that the adoption of new technologies […]

Yesterday, the Padres activated Mike Adams from the 15-day disabled list. 31 in July, Adams has developed into one of the premier relievers in the game and should be looked at as a future closer—as soon as 2010. The Texan broke in with the Brewers in 2004 and posted an encouraging 3.40 ERA. Despite showing […]

When evaluating prospects it is crucial to consider the offensive environment they play in. Today we’ll take a look at the offensive levels at the Triple-A and Double-A levels. Note that all statistics are per game and the triple slash notes the league averages. Triple-A International League -.262/.328/.395 Runs- 4.297 2B- 1.826 3B- .184 HR- […]

Fellow Driveline Mechanics writer Devil Fingers recently penned an excellent response to Ken Rosenthal’s assertion that all saberists are part of a “Sabermetric Group Think”, and anyone who disagrees with them is called an “ignorant dolt”. Of course most readers here know that is complete bullcrap; however you should read DF’s article anyways, at it […]

On September 11th, the NL West leading Dodgers began a series against the Wildcard seeking Giants. The NL West standings (and truly the only relevant Wildcard standings) on that day were as follows: As a Rockies fan, I was scoreboard watching. But wait… who do I really want to win? Option 1: I root Giants. […]