Lou Brock / Icon SMI

Lou Brock played 18 seasons in the majors. He took over the career lead for stolen bases from Billy Hamilton in 1978 and led until 1991 when Rickey Henderson passed him.

Brock was a 6-time All-Star, received MVP votes in a staggering 10 different seasons, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1985, his first year of eligibility.

I don’t actually have any problem with Brock being in the Hall of Fame–regardless of what the numbers say, he was held in extremely high regard during his era as the preeminent base stealer of the day as well as one of the best leadoff batters.

However, a pretty good devil’s advocate case can be made that he doesn’t deserve to be enshrined. Continue reading →

The biggest impact the designated hitter has on the game is detaching the link between a pitcher’s performance and what his own team is doing on offense. In the NL, without the DH, it’s not uncommon for a manager to have to decide whether to pinch-hit for a pitcher who comes to bat in a key situation. Continue reading →

Brian Giles batting about 2 weeks before the end of his playing career / Icon SMI

Yesterday we saw that Brian Giles had one of the very worst seasons as a defender of all time. That 2009 season of his, though, is not quite the worst overall for a batter who also played defense. Continue reading →

Following our post on the young position stars, here are the pitchers’ top bWAR values over the past 2 years by those who will be 26 or under in 2012.

Continue reading →

Brad Hawpe drops a fly ball / Icon SMI

Recently (you know, on the only other real post I’ve written on the new blog so far) a couple of readers mentioned Brad Hawpe’s awful 2008, which was worth -41 Fielding Runs. That is, in fact, the worst defensive season of all time as measured by Baseball-Reference.com’s data set. Click through for a full list, including a number of other fascinating seasons. Continue reading →

In case you’ve forgotten, here are the top bWAR seasons over the past 2 years by players who will be 26 or under in 2012.

All seasons of at least 3.9 WAR are listed. No SS or 2B reached that level, so in order to round out a lineup (see the top 8 in the table), I’ve included the top figure at each position. (Dustin Ackley’s 2.5 WAR in 90 games does project to 4.5 per 162G.) Lastly, I included Brett Lawrie’s 2011 on the grounds of  his tremendous rate of 10.5 WAR per 162 games. Continue reading →

Logan Morrison attempts to catch a ball while looking less-than-confident / Icon SMI

Most fans only think about a player’s offensive production when judging his value. In 2011, though, there were 3 players to produce at least 10 Batting Runs (a component of WAR: see the Stats Glossary link above) while have an overall WAR of at most 1.0–these players had negative contributions from most of the other aspects of their performance. Continue reading →

Meet the new High Heat Stats… Continue reading →