In 2011, there were five shortstops in the majors who topped 4 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), using Baseball-Reference’s formula:

Troy Tulowitzki 5.6 WAR
Asdrubal Cabrera 4.8
Jose Reyes 4.7
Yunel Escobar 4.4
J.J. Hardy 4.2

In the context of recent major league baseball, that was a perfectly normal number of shortstops to be in the 4.0 WAR and over range.  Indeed, over the past fifteen full seasons, there have been 82 player-seasons by shortstops of 4 or more WAR, an average of about 5.5 such player-seasons a year.  There have  been at least four shortstops to reach at least 4 WAR in each of the past 15 seasons, and in 2006 there were actually nine guys at short who  reached 4 WAR.  So how are major league shortstops doing in 2012 in this respect?  The answer after the jump. Continue reading →

As was widely reported last night, Derek Jeter has tied Lou Gehrig with the most 200-hit seasons by a Yankee. Each fellow now has 8 such seasons.

I got in a little Twitter debate last night about which guy has been more impressive in those 8 years.

(Jeter lovers, please read the very last sentence at the bottom before you leave a nasty comment.)

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Is it just me, or has this blog been on fire? Both the new and established writers are cranking it up and hitting triple digits on the radar gun.

Just a friendly reminder that you can help us out by hitting the “like” button on the Facebook ap down on the sidebar and by following me and the other writers on Twitter (you can find everybody’s Twitter handle on the ‘About’ page linked at the top.)

We have another surprise in the works–I won’t say too much other than that it takes advantage of one of the special talents of someone on our writing staff.

The Yankees are known for their unmatched post-season success, including the most World Series titles and appearances. In fact, the Yankees have lost more World Series than any other franchise has won.

This game is Jeopardy but, in this incarnation, could also be called box score sleuthing. There are many pieces to the game, each of which can be solved independently. So I expect this will work best as a group exercise with different individuals working on different pieces.

Following are a list of dates. These dates are the answers to Jeopardy questions. Your job is to determine the questions. Each question is in the form of “When was the last time a Yankee/the Yankees had a World Series game with …. ?”.

Note that the question format includes “a Yankee” rather than a specific name. Thus, none of the answers (er, questions) reference a specific player – so, nothing like “When was the last time in the World Series that Babe Ruth struck out with the bases loaded?”, or that sort of thing.

Thanks to everyone for playing. You found lots of interesting factoids that I never noticed. A box score is truly a treasure trove if you look closely. The questions and answers are posted after the jump. The ones you found are in black, and the remaining ones in blue.

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All it took was a bit of photo editing to make his message correct.

As I’m sure you know, there are scores of internet writers who write exclusively about baseball, and dozens more who write about baseball in addition to other topics.  To the best of my knowledge, none has written a word about Mike Trout this season.

In case you haven’t heard, Mike Trout is a rookie outfielder for the California Angels of Orange County, and he’s got a pretty good chance of winning the Rookie of the Year this year.  In fact, if super slugger Miguel Cabrera hadn’t already locked up the AL MVP, we might be talking about Trout for that award as well.  Click below to see why.

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Orioles 10, @Mariners 4: It’s the first time any team has scored 10+ runs at Safeco Field since 2011-08-30. The total of 14 runs is the 2nd-highest in Seattle this year, and is more than twice the season average of 6.32 R/G. That would be the lowest combined home scoring average for any MLB team that employed the designated hitter. In the live-ball era, just 23 teams have had lower averages at home, 6 of those in 1968.

• Pop quiz: Since 1901, what team had the lowest average Runs Allowed at home in a season? (Hint and answer at bottom of post.)
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Urban Shocker (image via Wikipedia)

So far, I’ve asked you to talk about Thurman Munson and David Cone. Today, I want to chat about a player who I see as something of a combination between the two—Urban Shocker.

Like Cone, Shocker was an elite starting pitcher who failed to win 200 games. Like Cone, this probably cost Shocker induction to the Hall of Fame. But like Cone, Shocker was so good during his peak that he just might deserve induction anyway.

Like Munson, Shocker died prematurely while still an active player. Like Munson, Shocker was still producing at a high level. While he had already turned 37, Shocker clearly had something left (in his final season, he went 18–6 with a 2.84 ERA, 137 ERA+, and 2.4 WAR). Shocker died in 1928 (less than a year after his 1927 Yankees won the World Series) of a weakened heart caused by pneumonia. He had suffered from a congenital heart problem for a while and reportedly hadn’t slept lying down in two years.

Shocker’s first season as a pitcher was also his first professional season (he was a catcher before then). Shocker pitched four minor league seasons north of the border in Ontario before being drafted by the Yankees in September of 1915. He was already about to turn 25 years old. His late start and his early death did not give him much time to leave his mark on the game.

But he certainly left a his mark. Continue reading →

The stolen base. Arguably one of the most exciting parts of a game: The runner weighs his perceived speed against the combination of the pitcher’s concern with holding the runner and the strength of the catcher’s arm. Many MLB greats have used the stolen base as an auxiliary part of a highly successful career (Joe Morgan, Roberto Alomar, etc.), whereas other players lived by, died by and built a whole career around it (Vince Coleman).

Evaluating the effectiveness of a stolen base has been a growing process, from Pete Palmer’s claim about 30 years ago that a SB gave a team 0.3 runs, whereas a CS was worth -0.6 runs, to Tom Tango’s more precise 0.18/-0.43 values. The latter is what we’re using here today. These values state that, on average, a CS is 2.39 times more detrimental than a SB is helpful, meaning that a runner needs to successfully steal 70.5% of the time to merely break even.

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One of my favorite things to do is to sit and talk about players from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s with my father. He’s the reason I became such a big baseball fan in the first place and the amount of information he knows about these players is extraordinary.

For instance, I could name a random player whose name I just happened to have seen tweeted – more than likely by Andy – and my dad will know what position he played, which side he batted from or pitched from, depending on the player and will rattle off all the teams he played for. He’ll even mention if they were traded and who they were traded for. Sometimes I sit there with my mouth agape because of his ability to know that much about guys who haven’t played – in some cases – in fifty years.

This was the case a few days ago when we were watching one of those MLB Network Countdown shows together. The one we caught was a countdown of the Top 30 Most Intimidating Players. Players that all baseball fans know like David Ortiz, Nolan Ryan, Darryl Strawberry and Mariano Rivera were on the list. In fact, I knew all 30 players except for one.

When they got to number eight, the name wasn’t ringing a bell at all. Most of the people on the list are Hall of Famers, will be Hall of Famers or just missed being Hall of Famers. Of course, when my dad saw J.R. Richard appear on the screen, he said, “I remember J.R. Richard! He threw a 98 m.p.h. slider!” I gasped at the thought of a 98 m.p.h. slider, wondered if my dad was actually remembering correctly and then laughed at him for being a diehard Yankee fan who remembered a guy who played for the Houston Astros from 1971-1980.

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