ATL 2, BOS 1: Squeamish

Tommy Hanson came into his start against the Red Sox not feeling 100 percent.

How good of a player is this Mike Lowell character?

Outside of throwing the bat to the left side of the plate after a failed AB–one that usually consisted of a questionable call by the ump, whether it be of the ball/strike sort, or maybe a check-swing—Mike Lowell seems like a great player to have hanging around the clubhouse.

But even last season, Lowell, according to WAR, was a solid 3B. Actually finishing 8th on the list. Seems a little high for a guy that only played in 113 games, but Lowell added a lot of value with the glove last season. Something that will come as no surprise to the ones that watch him on a daily basis.

2009 NL East Preview

Now, I could talk myself into a few of Washington’s pitchers doing better than we’d expect; Cabrera, Zimmerman, Olson. But Cabrera has always had trouble with his control, so expecting him to “get it together” isn’t logical. And Scotty Olsen has some makeup issues as well. Zimmerman is very young, and young pitchers are, well, see: Clay Buccholz, Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, Homer Bailey, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc…etc.

Fire Brand explains Win Values

Baseball has forever been a game of statistics and over the past few decades, sabermetrics have taken this passion way beyond batting average and on-base percentage. Growing up, my family always said all you needed to do to be successful was to “build a better mouse-trap,” meaning, if you can find a way to improve on existing information, to make something more efficient, you’ll find success follows. Statistics in baseball are the new mouse-trap; for the most part, the numbers being used haven’t changed for 100 years, they are just being manipulated in a way to provide a better benchmark to evaluate a player’s value and/or worth. The end goal never changes: a better mouse-trap still kills the mouse in the end, and a better statistic still just evaluates a player, but the means or accuracy of doing so makes it special.



The problem with the evolution of statistics in baseball has been the public acceptance of them. I’d be just as willing to bet that Woodrow Wilson and his friends talked about Babe Ruth’s batting average in 1915 as I would bet that Barack Obama won’t discuss the VORP of David Ortiz in 2009. Some statistics resonate through the general public and become part of the casual fan’s conversation, and some don’t. The “stickiness” of a stat depends on how complicated it is to understand, calculate, or relate to something the average fan can appreciate.



The numbers being thrown around by stat heads these days are often hard to grasp. Even an easy concept, such as Batting Average on Ball In Play, can be misunderstood and misused, as I demonstrated during my fourth outfielder series. Okay, so we all agree that batting average is a horrible statistic to base the value of a player on, but what metric can we all agree on that makes sense? Fortunately for us, Dave Cameron over at FanGraphs, has put together an eight part series on Win Values.

BLOGPOLL: NL Awards 6/23

Each week, I am participating in the 2008 MLB Blog Poll at RotoJunkie.com. Below are my current votes for the Most Valuable Player, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year [...]

BLOGPOLL: NL Awards 6/11

Each week, I am participating in the 2008 MLB Blog Poll at BaseballHappenings.com. Below are my current votes for the Most Valuable Player, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year [...]

BLOGPOLL: N.L. Awards 5/28

Each week, I will be participating in the 2008 MLB Blog Poll at BaseballHappenings.com. Below are my current votes for the Most Valuable Player, Cy Young and Rookie of the [...]

BLOGPOLL: NL Awards 5/12

Each week, I will be participating in the 2008 MLB Blog Poll, put together by BaseballHappenings.com. Below are my current votes for the Most Valuable Player, Cy Young and Rookie [...]

BLOGPOLL: NL Awards 4/28

Each week, I will be participating in the 2008 MLB Blog Poll, put together by BaseballHappenings.com. Below are my current votes for the Most Valuable Player, Cy Young and Rookie [...]