Monthly Archives: August 2013

COG 1946 Round 1 Results: Voters Adopt Fisk-al Policy

This round provided a close battle between two born-in-1947 guys who were out-voted in the previous round by Johnny Bench.  In the end, it was another catcher, Carlton (Pudge) Fisk, who prevailed by just four votes over Nolan Ryan to become the 27th inductee into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats.  This election also saw more voting participation (66 ballots cast) than in any round we’ve had since the opening week of the MLB season.  More on Pudge and the voting after the hop skip jump.  Continue reading

Quiz – Pitching Potpourri (solved)

Here is an oddball assortment of pitchers, including a HOFer and an All-Star caliber pitcher, but mainly journeymen and the truly obscure. Yet, all of them share a common career accomplishment. What is the peculiar career feat that only these live-ball era (since 1920) pitchers can boast of?

 Player
Eddie Rommel
Dave Koslo
Bill Swift
Elam Vangilder
Paul Hartzell
Vito Tamulis
Dizzy Dean
Ralph Birkofer
Rosy Ryan
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/21/2013.
Congratulations to koma! He/she identified these players as the only pitchers since 1920 to record 3 consecutive seasons with 12 or more starts and also 12 or more games finished. Paul Hartzell was the last to do this, for the Angels in 1976-78. Since then, Tom Gordon came closest to matching this feat, with the Royals in 1991-93. with 3 consecutive seasons of 11+ starts and 11+ games finished. Gordon also has the only season since 1937 with 25 starts and 15 games finished, with Boston in 1997.

A New Twist On The Hall of Fame

Earlier today Dan posed a question on here asking people’s opinions on PED’s and the Hall of Fame. In his post he proposed the example of Rafael Palmeiro as a player with a Hall of Fame caliber career, but with a failed steroid test. In my response I said that it is irrelevant to me if a player used performance, but I would not vote for Palmeiro simply because I do not believe he was a good enough player. This led many people to question me and my thought process. I explained to them that in my opinion longevity is a very small portion of a players case for Cooperstown. I thought that although Palmeiro had an undoubtedly great career, he was not an elite player for any duration of his time as a Major Leaguer.  This led me to start analyzing internally what is a HOFer in my opinion. To me it is a player that proved he was truly great for many seasons.

I have conducted a new type of Hall. This in no way is a complete list of who I would have as Hall of Fame inductees. My basis for this Hall of Fame is to find players that were well enough above league average for a long enough time to be considered great. The methodology is simple. The general consensus is that a player with a WAR of 6 in a year is at the very worst a legitimate All-Star worthy player that season. I have found every player since 1901 whom has had a season of at least 6 WAR. From there I have taken all of their seasons at this benchmark. After that I have counted the total number in said seasons above 6. For example, Mike Trout last year had a 10.9 WAR according to Baseball Reference, and in this scenario he would receive 4.9 points last year, for having a WAR 4.9 above 6. This year he has a WAR of 7.7 giving him 1.7 points. Adding those together he has a total “WAR above 6” number of 6.6. I determined that a total “WAR above 6” number of 12 is worthy of spot in the All Peak Hall of Fame. Amazingly, Trout is over half way there, and he is not even through his 2nd full season. Also of note, Palmeiro’s number is 1.2, nowhere near the cutoff for this list.

The list after the break.

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Hot Times at the Hot Corner

To tell you something you already know, the youngster in Baltimore, that kid named Machado, is a pretty fine ballplayer. Had a very creditable run at the all-time doubles mark before slowing down in the dog days. And, a very steady job at 3rd base – silky smooth hands and footwork, an effortless gun for an arm, and a particular highlight reel play that I, for one, will not soon forget. Mind-boggling to think that he just turned 21.

But, there’s another young 3rd baseman who has received very little ink indeed. Name of Nolan Arenado, a 22 year-old rookie in Colorado. Hasn’t yet shown much of a bat, but take a look at his defensive totals, currently showing 3.4 dWAR in just 109 games (Nolan didn’t get called up until the end of April).

Here’s the kicker: barring injury, Machado and Arenado will post the two best defensive third base seasons ever, as measured by WAR Fielding Runs.

More after the jump.

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Our review of Out of the Park Baseball @ootpbaseball

UPDATE: The developer emailed me with some comments related to issues about the game we raised in the software. Please see just below for a transcript of those comments.

You can hear some of the HHS folks review the great baseball simulation software, OOTP Baseball, on the latest episode of our podcast–Episode 10. (Get to that by clicking on the podcast tab near the top of the screen.)

If you’re interested in buying the software, please use the links in the right sidebar.

DEVELOPER COMMENTS:

In the iOS game that runs on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, teams don’t move between cities and expansion doesn’t happen in historical replays, but in the PC/Mac game, those things happen.
RE the easiness: You can make trading and other things more difficult in the PC/Mac game too, vs. the iOS version. There are options for that in the PC/Mac game, but you can’t in the iOS version.
(The 2013 version of iOOTP is the current one, BTW – 2012 is last year’s version.  In the PC/Mac game, version 14 is the new one and 13 is last year’s. I know, our naming convention is screwy and we should change it at some point, but it’s something that was established before I started working for them.)
In general, the iOS version is geared more toward casual players whereas the PC/Mac game has many more customization options, as well as the ability to set up online leagues.  Also, you can have the computer take over a lot of things you don’t want to do, such as handling your minor league system.  (In Manager Options.)
I noticed that you talked about those things later in the review, but I just wanted to point those things out for the future.  I hope you don’t mind.  We’re really happy you guys covered the game.