It is possible for a pitcher to literally win a game single-handedly.At least that is what Eric Seidman from FanGraphs says when using WPA - an interesting theory that says that everything positive during the course of a game is cancelled out by something negative (think about when Jerry throws a dollar bill out the window in an episode of “Seinfeld”).By using this theory, Seidman makes the case that the Diamondbacks defeated Barry Zito and the Giants Wednesday mostly because of the lack of negatives produced by Brandon Webb.
The Cleveland Indians promptly placed Joe Borowski on the DL after he surrendered a 9th inning, game-winning homer to Boston's Manny Ramirez on Monday night. The Indians, however, have a number of viable candidates to fill the hole Borowski left in the back of the bullpen, and each pitchers' stats makes the choice even harder.
In an article featured on MVN.com, statisicians take an in-depth look into the 2007 All-Star game to see what the regular-season turnout would be. Due to the popularity of power pitchers and strikeout-prone sluggers, it appears that pitching would limit the BA of opposing hitters. However, the hits they connected on would likely count for more than just a single.
The foul ball is an interesting part of the game of baseball. It doesn’t do much to move the game along, and can even slow it down. But what can they tell us about the players that hit them? An intensive study into this occurrence attempted to reveal correlations between numbers of foul balls hit and statistics such as plate appearances, fouls which count as strikes as well as those that don’t, and even more common plate production stats. The results share some interesting facts about a batters plate mentality.
David Gassko, a writer for The Hardball times recently developed a statistical estimating system . His tool projects a player’s career statistics, but also calculates probability predictions, allowing him to estimate the probabilities of players to reach 3,000 hits. The top ten most likely to do so include some surprising names, such as Delmon Young who has only one season under his belt, and Ryan Zimmerman, with two. Nonetheless, through numerous tests, Gassko was able to demonstrate the system’s relative reliability.
