I was bored today, so I invented something: the Lineal Championship. It's easy; take a player that led his team in WAR for any year, and follow that player every year until he DOESN'T lead the team in WAR anymore (a caveat: only positional players. You could do something similar for pitchers, or include them in your calculations, but I …
Series Preview: Anaheim Angels of Disneyland (43-45) at Chicago Cubs (39-48)
On June 9th, the Cubs (25-35) and Angels (27-36) had very similar records, and things weren't looking so rosy for the Angels. Since then they've begun digging themselves out of their hole, going 16-9 over that span including two road series sweeps…and climbed into third place in their stacked division. Angels Cubs wRC+ 109 (5th) 89 (23rd) BSR -2.8 (17th) …
Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (23-32) at LA of AAA Angels (25-33)
The Cubs head to LA for a short 2 game series against the Angels, who are fresh off being swept in a four game series by the Astros. I’m not kidding. Seven of the Astros’ twenty-one wins this year have come against the Angels, which tells you pretty much all you need to know about how their season has gone. …
NDLS Series Preview: St. Louis Cardinals (88-74) vs Washington Nationals (98-64)
The Nats lost 102 and 103 games in 2008 and 2009, respectively, and improved to 69-93 in 2010. Last year they finished the year with a 80-81 record, which was a marked improvement. Still, it's tough to read too much into a team whose leader in rWAR was a relief pitcher (Tyler Clippard). There was no doubt about it this …
Soriano, his Bat, and Momentum
Hitting a baseball is all about momentum. Momentum is a vector describing a "quantity of motion" or in mathematical terms p (momentum) = mass * velocity. In a closed system, momentum is conserved. Conservation of momentum means that the harder you throw the ball, the harder the ball will bounce back. Think in the case of throwing a ball against …
Ryan Dempster’s Trade Value
Ryan Dempster is owed $14 million in the final year of his contract. He’s a 10 and 5 player so he could decline a trade. Many think he would because of his daughter, but Brett on Bleacher Nation says he may be willing to waive it for the right deal. Before I even get into any numbers, I want to …
Talent is a combination of skills
It’s easy for us to look at a player and highlight a major weakness. We do this all the time. That weakness then overshadows what the player does well. If that player hits a game winning home run we’re certainly excited, but within moments we’re back to talking about his rag arm, atrocious baserunning, inability to field or get on …
How much is Prince Fielder worth?
We’ve talked a lot about Albert Pujols and taken a look at his value, but I don’t believe we’ve done so with Fielder. Apparently many executives think he’ll sign with the Cubs. I’m not optimistic about it, but it’s worth looking at anyway. CAIRO projects 4.4 WAR while Oliver projects 4.0. Let’s split the difference and go with 4.2 in …
How does losing Pujols and Fielder affect the Cardinals and Brewers?
The short answer to this question is that it doesn’t affect them that much. If the Cardinals were willing to spend $22.5 million on Pujols (10 year, $225 million offer) they still have that $22.5 million available to spend on free agent talent. If a win costs $5 million in 2012, that buys 4.5 wins. Pujols was projected to be …
Pujols is Coming, Tra La Tra La…. Wait, No He Isn’t…
The Winter Meetings are always fun. Especially now that Twitter is a part of the rumor mongering, the GMs and agents can’t do anything without it being tweeted to a breathless horde of followers watching their tweet stream far more intently than they have watched their own children do anything. “The Cubs are in on Pujols.” “The White Zone is …