Note: I’ve added a 4th graph at the end of the post, covering only the years 1982-2011.
A couple of graphs relating bWAR/age, and OPS+/age. I’ll leave the observations to you folks.
(1) As a general followup to the graphs in my Ryan Zimmerman post, here’s a graph showing the number of seasons of four different WAR levels, for all position players, for the years 1901-2011:
Brett Myers / Icon SMI
The Astros have announced that Brett Myers is going to be their closer in 2012. Is it a good idea? Continue reading
What do you think of these two players:
Player A: 9014 plate appearances, 414 doubles, 416 homers, 1604 RBI, .320 BA, .920 OPS
Player B: 9102 plate appearances, 332 doubles, 348 homers, 1298 RBI, .277 BA, .789 OPS
Look at that difference in OPS–huge, right? Player A drove in a lot more runs with a much higher batting average.
Among players with 9300 to 9700 career plate appearances, the player with the closest OPS to Player A is Al Simmons. The player with the closest OPS to Player B is Ted Simmons. That’s a pretty good representation of those numbers–Player A is a Hall of Famer while Player B is merely “really good”.
So who are these two players really? Continue reading
On Thursday I posted the leaders for normalized strikeouts along with their adjusted career strikeouts. At the time I wanted to make the entire list available to everyone, but due to technical issues, this was not possible. Today it is.
Thanks to a new plug-in added by Andy the entire list of pitchers is now available, sortable and searchable on this page.
You can also find it listed under “Stats” in the bar on top of the page.
1964 Topps #11
Which teams have fielded the same 4 infielders for the most games in a season? Click through to find out. Continue reading
ESPN reports that the Nationals and Ryan Zimmerman have agreed to a 6-year, $100-million contract extension, with a full no-trade clause. The deal is for the years 2014-19, when he’ll be age 29-34.
That’s right: Zimmerman was already signed through next year for a total of $26 million.
The 2011 postseason was quite a ride for Rays pitcher Matt Moore. Not only did Moore pitch 7 dominant innings in game 1 of the ALDS vs. Texas, his 3 relief innings in game 4 gave him 10 postseason IP, more than he had thrown in his regular season career. Moore is the extreme, but there are plenty of active players who have pitched a significant part of their careers in the postseason. This is particularly true for young pitchers of the Texas Rangers. Here are the pitchers who have the highest percentage of their career innings (regular + postseason) coming in the postseason. All stats were derived from information in the Lahaman Database. Continue reading
Thanks to reader John Williams for posting this idea on the suggestions page.
Gustavo Molina / Icon SMI
Paul Konerko homering / Icon SMI
Paul Konerko was a first-round draft pick by the Dodgers in 1994. Coming into the league with high expectations, he bounced around early, first getting traded to the Reds and later to the White Sox. He was a good player for Chicago from 1999 to 2002, playing second fiddle (and sometimes even third or fourth fiddle) to Frank Thomas, Magglio Ordonez, and even Carlos Lee.
Then, in 2003, as Konerko was in what should have been his prime Age 27 season, he posted a stinker instead. He had a .234 batting average, 83 OPS+, and lead MLB with 28 GiDPs.
Many people wrote him off at that point, figuring he’d never recover enough to become a star. And yet–that’s exactly what he’s done. Quietly, he’s posted some fantastic seasons lately and may have crept into consideration for the Hall of Fame. Continue reading
In 2011, there were 185,245 plate appearances and 34,488 strikeouts, meaning that 18.6% of PAs resulted in strikeouts. This number is obviously the same whether you look at it from the batters’ standpoint or the pitchers’–both groups averaged the same 18.6% strikeout rate.
Among batters, though, we know there is a large variation in strikeouts. Among those who qualified for the batting title, Drew Stubbs (205) and Mark Reynolds (196) led the way while Juan Pierre (41) and Jose Reyes (41) had the fewest. That range of a factor of 5 is larger than that of pitchers. Among starters who qualified for the ERA title, Justin Verlander (250) and Clayton Kershaw (248) had the most while Brad Penny (74) and Josh Tomlin (89) brought up the rear. (Penny and Tomlin also pitched many fewer innings, and their K/9 rates were even closer to the leaders’.)
Click through for a histogram of the 2011 season broken down.