Power Factor: A Better Way To Measure Power

Power Factor: A Better Way To Measure PowerWhat do you guys think about this? I find it pretty intriguing. [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2011/3/21/2064774/power-factor-a-better-way-to-m
easure-power

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Interview with Jim Bouton on Ball Four [Audio]

Last summer I posted a 1963 Topps Jim Bouton card as one of my Featured Cards of the Week. After reading about him, I was curious enough to read his book ?Ball Four.? Today, I got the chance to ask him about it in a phone interview. It was a[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.lennysyankees.com/2011/03/interview-with-jim-bouton-on-ball-four.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Heyman: Yankees may have some interest in Oliver
Perez

If Bartolo Colon and Mark Prior are worth a token minor league deal, then I think one would be hard-pressed to argue against offering a minor league deal to Perez. He's been nothing short of awful over the last two seasons and only has two good seasons under his belt ... but he also seems to be the sort of player for which the term "change of scenery" was coined. That Cashman isn't "enthused" doesn't mean too much to me, as he's not in a position to be terribly picky (particularly as Garcia has an opt-out clause through Opening Day) and has been scraping the bottom of the barrel for months now. At the very least, he could be given a shot as a lefty mop-up guy waiting in the wings.

I take that back. At the very least, it would be hilarious to see him provide even some semblance of replacement-level value while cashing $12 MM in paychecks from the Mets.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SlidingIntoHome/~3/n-_F4uvSBRg/heyman-yankees-may-
have-some-interest.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Alex Gordon Hitting Profile

Alex Gorgon has been on all sides of the fan love and baseball production perspective. Now is it time to get into the meat and bones of Alex Gordon's hitting. I will start with some basic stats and then get into the some heat maps and batted ball data.

 

To start with, here are some stats for him over over the years (all stats from fangraphs.com).

 

SeasonGPAHHRHR/PABB%K%BABIPAVGOBPSLGwOBAWAR2007151601134152.5%6.8 %25.2 %0.3030.2470.3140.4110.3172.12008134571128162.8%11.6 %24.3 %0.3090.2600.3510.4320.3442.32009491893863.2%11.1 %26.2 %0.2760.2320.3240.3780.3210.32010742815282.8%12.1 %25.6 %0.2540.2150.3150.3550.294-0.2

 

First, his home run rate over the years is very consistent, with a possible trend upward. The other noticeable trend is the steady drop in batting average (0.260 to 0.232 to 0.215) over the past 3 years. This drop can easily explained by the steady drop in BABIP (0.309 to 0.276 to 0.254) over the same time frame. To see if the BABIP rate was talent driven or luck, his batted ball data needs to be looked at:

 

SeasonLD%GB%FB%HR/FB200719.5 %36.9 %43.6 %8.5 %200821.0 %31.4 %47.6 %8.9 %200914.3 %43.7 %42.0 %12.0 %201023.2 %37.6 %39.2 %11.3 %

 

Using the formula:

LD% (in decimal format) + .12 = BABIP

Alex's BABIP are generally in line in every year, except for 2010. He should have had a higner BABIP of his near 0.350 considering he had a 23.2% line drive rate instead of his 0.254 (almost 100 points less). Alex's drop in batting average in 2010 looks to be cause by mainly bad luck on his batted balls.

Next, here are the run values, per 100 pitches, for varying pitch types.

 

SeasonwFB/CwSL/CwCT/CwCB/CwCH/CwSF/CwKN/C2007.000.15-1.42-0.84-1.92-0.16-2.9423.552008.000.81-0.92-5.951.221.131.02-0.462009.000.130.91-4.62-2.93-3.653.355.482010.00-1.15-0.336.980.30-1.34-1.87-12.11Average0.14-0.83-2.00-0.55-0.39-1.414.29

 

Alex as a rule struggles with any pitch that has movement on it, besides knuckle balls. This confirms probably what everyone has seen of him when he he is at bat; Alex can't recognize or hit a breaking pitch.

 

Finally, here is how he has done at swing at pitches in and out of the strike zone.

 

O-Swing%Z-Swing%Swing%O-Contact%Z-Contact%Contact%Zone%SwStr%200725.80%71.70%48.40%50.30%84.80%75.50%49.30%11.70%200824.10%68.30%45.90%52.60%85.00%76.30%49.30%10.60%200924.70%70.60%45.40%58.20%84.00%76.30%45.20%10.70%201022.60%67.00%42.20%61.60%85.10%78.10%44.10%8.90%Total24.50%69.60%46.10%54.00%84.80%76.30%47.90%10.70%League Average26.2%65.6%45.7%62.7%88.0%80.7%49.3%8.6%

 

He is within a couple of points of the league average for most categories, except when making contact with balls outside of the strike zone where he misses pitches over 8% more than the league average.  He has gotten better over the last couple of years though.  A trend I also noticed is that pitchers are throwing more and more pitches out of the zone (Zone%) to Alex over the years probably hoping he will chase them.

 

To further show Alex's strike zone, here is his personal strike zone against left and right handed pitchers. The view is from the catcher's perspective and the scale is percentage in decimal form. The percentage is the number of pitches swing at in that part of the plate divided by the total pitches thrown in that area. All the data is from the past 4 years on 0-0 count.

 

vs LHP

 

vs RHP

 

As it can be seen, he really likes pitches in the heart of the zone, but chases pitches high in the zone at least over 50% of the time. Against left handed pitchers, he moves the zone inside a bit.

 

Now, here is a look at how he expands the zone with 2 strikes.

 

vs LHP

 

vs RHP

 

Most players will expand the zone with 2 striks, but Alex even more so has problems laying off the high stuff.

 

It is not necessarily bad going after high pitches, if he is able to hit the ball effectively. Here is a look at a heat map of the average run values (positive is good) for the pitches seen throughout the zone (also divided into left and right handed pitchers):

 

All Pitches

 

vs LHP

 

vs RHP

Alex has some noticeable holes in his swing. Looking at left handed pitchers, he only has positive values for pitches low and inside (pitches he swings at) and high and away (pitches he doesn't swing at). With lefties he has problems with the high and inside pitches and anything in the lower half of the plate that is down the middle and away. He handles right handed pitchers better with only problems with pitches high out of the zone, high and inside and low down the middle.

 

Once Alex has actually does make contact, where does the ball actually go? First, here is his batted ball locations over the past 4 years:

 

Let's first look at the grouping of infield outs and short outfield hits to the right side compared to the left side.  Alex seems to love to pull ground balls.  To prove this a little further, here are all the angles (-45 is the left field line and +45 is the right field line) for all the grounders that Alex has hit with a Loess curve added to see trends.

 

 

As it can be seen, most of Alex's ground balls are hit to the right side of the infield

 

Now let's with look at the same data for line drives and fly balls (outs or home runs) to the outfield:

 

 

Alex generally sprays the ball around to all parts of the park and has maintained a rather consistent distance over the years.

 

Hopefully you have gotten your fill of Alex Gordon for the day and be sure to ask me any questions.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.royalsreview.com/2011/3/21/2064064/alex-gordon-hitting-profile

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Colon throws 6 solid innings for Yankees (AP)

Bartolo Colon made another strong bid for a spot in the Yankees’ rotation, allowing one run over six innings in New York’s 3-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday night. Colon is competing with Ivan Nova, Freddy Garcia and Sergio Mitre for two openings behind CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Phil Hughes.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.mlbnewsblog.com/2011/03/22/colon-throws-6-solid-innings-for-yankees-ap
/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

This Game Is A Go

Read The Full Article:
http://www.ladodgertalk.com/2011/03/this-game-is-a-go/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Random Photo From Yesterday

Erick Aybar tags out Ryan Spilborghs to end the third. Today's game was rained out in uncharacteristic Arizona weather.

Read The Full Article:
http://6-4-2.blogspot.com/2011/03/random-photo-from-yesterday.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Late But Still Important: Camelback Attendance
Down 43%

The shine is off the baseball park, or maybe $4+/gallon gas is keeping people away, but either way, attendance is down 43% for Dodgers games at Camelback Ranch. (That's considerably more than the overall 17% for MLB.) I assume some of this is due to the McCourts, too, but on the other hand, Angels attendance is down even further — 49.9%. Losing hurts.

Read The Full Article:
http://6-4-2.blogspot.com/2011/03/late-but-still-important-camelback.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Guys On New Teams That I Didn't Know About

Feeling a little baseball fever today, I spent some time looking through random team rosters. My goal was to just rejig my memory and get a lay of the land. As we orbit further away from the Royals, my knowledge, or memory, of other rosters gets weaker and weaker. And that's doubly true given that the National League is just so... National League. Blah teams running in place for the win. Yay random free agent movement!

Here are some fellows that surprised me with their current place of residence:

Bill Hall- Astros: So Bill Hall is an Astro now. Which makes sense. I think. He'll always be a Brewer to me, but he actually is now on his fourth team. Honestly, did you remember he was a Mariner in 2009? He's 31, will be worth 1 WAR if everything goes well, and is now an Astro. Perfect.

Dusty Hughes- Twins: The hated Twins claimed him off of waivers in January. Guess this didn't register with me. Expect him to post a 2.20 ERA in 40 innings with Minnesota this year, leading to a special on-field ceremony at a September KC-MIN tilt at the K in which Ryan Lefebvre dramatically walks across the diamond to join the Minnesota organization as a backup broadcast guy or something. As Bill Simmons would say, "tell me you wouldn't watch this!"

Brad Hawpe- Padres: Huh? This just seems like an odd fit, but perhaps that would be unfair to Bradley Bonte Hawpe. The notoriously poor-gloved Hawpe might do less damage at 1B for the Padres, I suppose. Also amazing, he played 15 games for the Devil Yars (Google it) last year. Why wasn't I told?

Rick/Dick Ankiel- Nationals: I wish I was blessed with Ankiel's tremendously strong and shapely jaws. Sure, we expected Dayton Moore to make a mistake by signing him. And sure, obviously, the precious Braves were next up to prostrate themselves before his tools. Does he ever need to actually play? For an Atlanta team that needed every last win, Ankiel "hit" .210/.324/.328. Do results ever matter? No, Ankiel didn't sign a minor league contract with a NRI this year. He's earning $1.5 million from Washington this year. In any case, his signing didn't set Washington ablaze. I live here and I hate Ankiel (kinda, more just symbolically in that I hate people who everyone loves and gives zillions of chances to) and I missed his arrival.

Lance Berkman - Cardinals: OK, I was perfectly aware this had happened. I still don't get it. Best fans in baseball though.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.royalsreview.com/2011/3/21/2064573/guys-on-new-teams-that-i-didnt-know
-about

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Chillin With LoMo Of The Florida Marlins!!!

Chillin’ With “LoMo” Of The Florida Marlins!!! It’s not very often that I get the chance to grab a few free autographs.  And it is even more rare when I can do that just 5 minutes from my home.. But … Continue reading →

Read The Full Article:
http://bapple2286.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/chillin-with-lomo-of-the-florida-marli
ns/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!