What to Make of Felix Doubront

Felix Doubront has flashed big potential and scuffled at times during his first two major league seasons. Will 2014 be the year Doubront takes that next step forward?

An Ode to Kinsmanship

Let's all remember one thing: we all love this game.

Here We Go Again

I know sports writers are terrified of WAR, but can we give it a rest?

That is $39.5 million in wasted talent

After John Lackey's $18.7 million contract, the next three highest paid Sox are J.D. Drew ($14 million), David Ortiz ($13 million) and Mike Lowell ($12.5 million). So far those three hitters have a combined (through Friday) for 22 hits in 121 at-bats with 16 walks and two home runs. That comes out to a baseline average of .181 and a .262 on-base percentage.

On the advanced side of the Hall of Metrics they are averaging a weighted Runs Created plus (wRC+) of 65.666 which is actually a little misleading because Lowell actually has a very decent wRC+ number of 121, albeit in only 20 official at bats this year. The average wRC+ between Ortiz and Drew is 38 (44 for Ortiz, 32 for Drew). Conversely, runs are hard to create when you are not getting on base and the mean between the three players weighted on-base average is .281 again with Lowell skewing the numbers with a .361 wOBA while Ortiz and Drew are at .251 and .233, respectively.

Baseball Analysis 101

On the heels of today's discussion, I ended up finding this link via Tom Tango's blog. If this interests you, let us know how it worked for you. Online Sabermetric Course for Beginners

UZR Making Me Crazy

This tactic is starting to get really old. Dear Members of the Baseball Media, before you attempt to reference a statistic you're intentionally bashing, it would be prudent to actually learn what it is. Our newest culprit is Chris Gasper of the Boston Globe who decided to try and tackle the subject with a completely unbiased and objective analysis. For our viewers at home, my apologies if my last sentence overloaded your sarcasm meters. I'll replace them if they weren't very expensive. While using combative and derisive language, Gasper drew comparisons of newer baseball statistics to the masses being slaves to technological advances; these very same advances that fuel his blog. Right. I thought I'd go through Gasper's post piece by piece and see what we could find. Come enjoy the ride!

Sabermetric Tools

We talk about a handful of complicated metrics and pull data from a myriad of different places. One of the first things about diving into the world of Sabermetrics is knowing where to look for information for your own analysis. I included a list of my most favorite places for your perusal. Fan Graphs Slowly turning into the defacto SABR campsite, Fan Graphs gives you all the benefits of any normal statistical aggregator site, while also adding the more useful new metrics to every player page. Need to quickly find a player's xFIP, WAR, and specific batted ball data? Fan Graphs is the quickest way to get it.