It's been an ongoing trend in 2008 (the year after the Mitchell Report, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds) that power numbers are down for many notable hitters. The list includes Prince Fielder, Victor Martinez, Alex Rios, Delmon Young, B.J. Upton, Khalil Greene, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Beltran and Robinson Cano.
THT did an interesting statistical analysis on the effects fatigue has on velocity of the fastballs of starting pitchers who threw 80 pitches in a start. In this, they found many fascinating things and interestingly enough, the pitcher who loses the most velocity during a game is A.J. Burnett and the slowest-starter is Ben Sheets.
There is a piece on TheHuffingtonPost.com that takes the stance that Cliff Floyd disproves statistics. The author says that Floyd doesn't know anything about Bill James or sabermetrics and argues that Floyd's presence in the clubhouse and on the field is the thing that's improved teams (including the Rays) and not any type of statistics.
A week ago Beyond the Box Score examined the struggles of Nick Swisher and gave an explanation. One of the statistics used to analyze average and luck is line drive percentage, and since Swisher's was very high, BtBS said that Swisher's slump was just bad luck. Two line-drive HRs later, it appears they were right.
Even if you're a Yankee hater, you had to feel bad for Joba Chamberlain after his first start last Tuesday. All that hype up had to put a lot of pressure on the 22-year-old pitcher. Then he went and had a 2 1/3 inning start, throwing only 62 pitches, giving up 1 earned run, and walking 4. Does this spell doom for Joba's dreams of starting? Looking at the Pitch f/x data, he just had a bad night and is still in the process of switching over. No doom and gloom.
