Throughout the course of baseball history, there have been nearly 20,000 men who have taken the field at the professional level. Many wash out after a cup of coffee, while a select few go on to be enshrined in Cooperstown. Needless to say, quite a few players are simply going to be lost to history. No players deserve to be forgotten, but when’s the last time you heard a rousing discussion about Hipolito Pichardo?

However, one would think that a player that won a Cy Young award and finished 2nd twice in a span of 3 seasons in the last decade would be brought up every now and then, right? Sadly, that’s not the case for one Brandon Tyler Webb. Mentions of the former D’Backs ace (in the media or elsewhere) are few and very far between these days, and it’s a damn shame.

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Attention early readers — there’s a bit of new stuff at the bottom.

Indians 4, @White Sox 3 / @Tigers 2, Royals 0: All you zombies, show your faces! The race that will not die staggers hungrily into the final week, seeking brains or anything else that can make sense of it all.

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We don’t always agree on everything here, but there’s at least one thing we can all agree on, right? It was a travesty when Ted Williams failed to win the MVP in his 1942 and 1947 Triple Crown seasons. And, when Lou Gehrig failed to win it 1934, and Chuck Klein in 1933, and Rogers Hornsby in 1922–despite all three  both guys leading their respective leagues in HR, RBI and batting average–that was pretty ridiculous too.

But, I don’t really care about them anymore. The thing I think we all can agree on is, if Miguel Cabrera wins the Triple Crown this year, he clearly deserves to be the American League MVP.

Here’s why:

• He’ll have played something like 13 more games than Josh Hamilton.
• Austin Jackson has a .382 OBP hitting in front of him, versus .330 for Ian Kinsler in the same role for Hamilton’s Rangers.
• He’s gotten a hit in 0.3-0.5% more of his official at bats than Joe Mauer and Mike Trout.

Seriously, folks. Is there anything else that needs to be said? Why is this even a controversy?

In another thread, longtime reader Topper wondered aloud: “Who is the all-time SABR whipping boy?”

In our first installment of Cannon Fodder: The Casualties of WAR, we look not at overrated players per se, but at those who managed the longest careers (since 1901) with a very poor WAR rate.

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On Sunday, in their most recent appearances, Craig Kimbrel and Fernando Rodney again avoided surrendering any extra-base hits. Rodney and Kimbrel have each allowed only four extra-base hits all season. For Rodney, that means he’s allowed an extra base hit on average about one every 17.6 innings he’s pitched this year. For Kimbrel it’s about one in every 14.6 IP. Where those numbers fit historically is described after the jump. Continue reading →

Pick any 2012 MLB team. There’s just about a 50-50 chance that that team has a pitcher with a complete-game loss this year. Behold the percentage of all starts that have ended in a CG-loss:

Back in 1918, nearly a quarter of all starts ended in CG losses. That’s because most starts were completed, and a lot of those were on the losing side. It was fairly unusual for a pitcher to get lifted at all.

In 2012, though, the percentage has fallen all the way down to 0.4%, meaning that only about 1 out of every 250 starts ended in a complete game loss. This is the lowest rate in major-league history, even after a bump up in the rate in 2010 and 2011.

One reason why CG losses are so rare is, of course, because complete games themselves are so rare. Only about 3% of all 2012 starts have ended as complete games, just about the lowest rate in history. In 1918, 63% of all starts turned into CGs.

These days, managers follow a pretty strict strategy will bullpens. It’s obvious when they’re ahead–a middle-relief guy in the 7th if needed, then then 8th inning setup guy and the closer for the 9th. But when they are behind, they are just as likely to bring in a middle reliever either mid-inning to try to stem the tide of a rally, or to start the 6th or 7th to prevent a new rally from starting.

Anyway, whenever you see a complete game loss, try to appreciate it. Soon, like the dodo, it may be extinct.

Indians 15, @Royals 4: Deja Vin all over again. The game was still close when Vin Mazzaro entered. Four batters and no outs later, the rout was on. It wasn’t quite a reprise of his last Tribal meeting, but you can’t expect to make history every time out.

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In a recent post looking at pitchers recording higher ratios of unearned to total runs, some commenters wondered about the effect that official scorer bias may have on such results. More specifically, would official scorers be more inclined to score errors on debatable plays when the home team is fielding (thereby protecting the home team’s pitchers’ ERAs), and score hits on similar plays when the home team is batting (thereby enhancing the home team’s batters’ batting stats)?

After the jump, I’ll take a look at this question, and see what the numbers tell us.
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In Saturday’s White Sox-Angels game, a balk was called on Jose Quintana. Here’s the clip; here’s the situation:

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Too much going on for a full report, but I’ll just hang it up there and see how y’all whack it.

@Angels 6, White Sox 2: Chicago’s 3rd straight loss cut their division lead to 1 game in the loss column. In their last 4 games, they have 4 HRs and 8 runs. Angels gained a game on Oakland in the WC chase, but they’re 4 back in the loss column with no games left against the teams to need to catch.

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