Archive for December, 2007
Managers and the Pythagorean Theorem
Saturday, December 15th, 2007It’s been a while since I actually played around with some Retrosheet files. Time for some good old-fashioned research, this time on a question that has bugged Sabermetricians (and some mainstream folks) for a while. Do Pythagorean residuals tell us much of anything about a manager?
A little bit of set up: a little while ago, […]
Poor Matt Cain
Friday, December 14th, 2007Matt Cain was flat out awesome in 2007. He pitched 200 innings, surrendering only 173 hits. He also struck out 163 batters and posted a 3.65 ERA. In fact, of pitchers with 200 or more innings, the only one who gave up less hits than Cain was Cy Young winner Jake Peavy. And, Cain’s 3.65 […]
Tales of the cutter: an analysis of Joakim Soria
Thursday, December 13th, 2007I don’t know any other major league pitcher who relies on his cut fastball to nearly the same extent as Mariano Rivera, but there are many pitchers who use a cutter to some degree. Most of them, like Josh Beckett, merely put a little “cut” on a fastball now and then, and it’s debatable […]
Tales of the cutter: Mariano Rivera
Sunday, December 9th, 2007I have a twenty-month-old son, and one of his favorite books is Moo, Baa, La, La, La! I’ve read it with him so much that it informs my other thoughts, including those about baseball, apparently. The first page of the book says, “A cow says moo.” Next, “A sheep says baa.” […]