During the recent Hall of Fame Classic in Cooperstown, I talked to former major league outfielder Johnny Grubb, a .278 hitter during a 16-year career with the San Diego Padres, Cleveland Indians, Texas Rangers, and Detroit Tigers. Thought he fit the description of a journeyman, Grubb forged a lengthy career as an effective platoon outfielder […]

The Reds lost 22-1 to the Phillies earlier tonight. That’s the worst loss in franchise history. The only other times they lost by 19 or more runs: July 26, 1892: Phillies 26, Reds 6 (I guess the Phillies like pounding the Reds!) April 27, 1912: Pitsburgh 23, Reds 4 (maybe it’s a Pennsylvania thing) June […]

I’ve been playing with the Hit F/X data from Sportsvision for a little while now, and I think I finally have something worth sharing with the class. If you check out the first THT Annual, you’ll find an article from Robert Dudek about the importance of hang time in how easy it is to field […]

If you’re a SABR member, I suspect you always enjoy receiving your Baseball Research Journal in the mail, as I did when I received mine last Friday. This issue was no disappointment, providing a full slate of original, intriguing articles. But one article in particular caught my eye, and warmed my heart. The concluding piece […]

Ultimate Zone Rating is now everyone’s favorite defensive stat on the Internet. But how reliable is it? Let’s define reliable as year to year persistance. It’s not the only definition, but it’ll do. We’ll measure it using weighted correlation coefficient. And for good measure, we’ll take a look at how to use it to regress […]

The most popular way of measuring the run impact of a batting outcome is called linear weights, first introduced by Pete Palmer in the 1980’s and discussed at length in the Sabermetric Wiki. Using linear weights, you can compare the impact of a single to a double, or a walk to a home run. The […]

Daily Baseball Data has a nice little feature: a table of each team’s most recent bullpen usage. You can use this page to view how often relievers have pitched in the last four to seven days, and how effective they were. It’s useful info and well-presented.

ESPN Fantasy has a detailed review of Citi Field’s impact on David Wright’s hitting, including the impact on his home runs. Supplied with data by the formidable Greg Rybarczyk, they make a good case that Mets’ hitters have lost a lot of home runs to the new Citi Field dimensions. But something doesn’t add up […]

There’s a new Batted Ball Report available for those who have pre-purchased the 2010 THT Annual. This week’s report finds a surprising strength of Mark Reynolds’ and also asks which teams are at the most critical stage of the season—and which aren’t? You can download it from the usual place.

Jim Tracy is off to an incredible start as manager of the Rockies. As of this writing the Rockies are 19-7 since Tracy took the helm, including a streak of winning 18 games out of 19. Quite a contrast from Clint Hurdle’s 18-28 start to the season. Now, being a lifelong Rockies fan (despite growing […]