3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and days of auld lang syne?

-- Robert Burns

Happy New Year, my friends!

Comparing the 2011 Freshman Class by League

Here's a quick numerical look at the 2011 freshman class.

2011 Part-time All-Stars

Josh Harrison, part-time 2011 NL All-Star third baseman
Icon SMI

Here are the players who played part-time in 2011 (maximum of 100 games) and had the highest WAR per plate appearance by position:

Random game: Sept. 3, 1950

Pittsburgh 12, St. Louis 11 (10 innings)

 

I've never met a box score I didn't like. I happened upon this one by searching for games in which both teams hit at least 3 triples; this was the last time that happened. Let's see what other nuggets lie within....

Why did Andrew Bailey's ERA double in 2011?

Andrew Bailey / Icon SMI

The Red Sox's new closer, Andrew Bailey, has some interesting numbers in the last couple of years. He pitched 49 innings in 2010 and 41.2 last year. His BB/9 IP was similar both years (2.4 vs 2.6). His hit rate got a little worse (6.2 to 7.3) and his strikeout rate got a little better (7.7 to 8.9). So, why did his ERA climb from 1.47 to 3.24?

Giving up more triples than homers

Jamey Carroll tripling against the Phillies,
while wearing a retro uni, no less
Icon SMI

These days, triples are pretty rare while homers are fairly common. For example, in 2011, teams averaged 0.18 triples and 0.94 homers per game, or about 5 homers for every triple hit.

It follows, then that most pitchers give up more homers than triples, and that has been the case for many, many years.

However, it used to be the case that about once per year, a pitcher would give up at least 10 triples, but fewer homers than triples. It hasn't been done in a long time now, but click through for the list of guys to do it since 1950.

John Paciorek & the career stats for the Houston Colt 45s from 9/29/1963

By doing a two-tiered search, we can put up the career stats for the starting 9 players for the Houston Colt 45s in their September 29, 1963 game against the Mets.

Looking for a fantasy baseball expert

We're looking for a fantasy baseball expert to partner with us on something. The ideal person has a lot of experience playing in fantasy baseball leagues and hopefully a lot of success too. Email us:

Trivia time #10: 10 triples

Question: Who is the only player in the last 60 years to have one season with at least 10 triples but no other seasons with at least 4 triples?

The answer is after the jump.

Single-season WAR leaders for players appearing for 2 teams

Keith Hernandez
Icon SMI

In 2011, Hunter Pence put up a memorable third of a season with the Phillies after coming over in a trade. After a good 2.7 WAR with the Astros in the first two-third of the season, he posted an amazing 2.5 with Philadelphia.

Nobody did better in a season involvement movement than Rickey Henderson in 1989, who accumulated 3.3 in 65 games with the Yankees and then 5.3 more in 85 games with the Athletics before leading Oakland to a World Series title.

Here are the season-by-season leaders in WAR among players (batters only) to appear for at least two different teams in the same season.

Most career PITCHING WAR by number of franchises played for

Earlier today, Andy took a look at the batting/fielding leaders in WAR categorized by number of franchises played for.  Here are the Pitching WAR leaders by franchises played for. All leaders are since 1901.

Most triples allowed in a season since 1950

At list he didn't make this this while
with the Dodgers, right? / Icon SMI

 

   
Player
   
3B
   
Year
   
Tm
   
IP
 
 

    
Larry Christenson
    
17
    
1976
    
PHI
    
168.2
 
    
Jim Perry
    
17
    
1971
    
MIN
    
270.0
 
    
Tony Cloninger
    
17
    
1964
    
MLN
    
242.2
 
    
Robin Roberts
    
17
    
1956
    
PHI
    
297.1
 
    
Bret Saberhagen
    
16
    
1988
    
KCR
    
260.2
 
    
Paul Thormodsgard
    
16
    
1977
    
MIN
    
218.0
 
    
Chris Short
    
16
    
1963
    
PHI
    
198.0
 
    
Art Ditmar
    
16
    
1956
    
KCA
    
254.1
 
    
Jason Schmidt
    
15
    
1999
    
PIT
    
212.2
 
    
Bob Friend
    
15
    
1960
    
PIT
    
275.2
 
    
Robin Roberts
    
15
    
1955
    
PHI
    
305.0
 
    
Sid Hudson
    
15
    
1950
    
WSH
    
237.2
 
 
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: 
Generated 12/25/2011.

Most career WAR by number of franchises played for

All totals are 1901-present and for batters only

Here is the most career WAR for players who played for the given number of franchises:

The best and worst value among batters in 1998 using $WAR

Matt Stairs, one of the most productive
batters of 1998 / Icon SMI

Here are the players who produced the most and least value relative to their salaries in 1998. I have followed the same methodology used in my 2011 post, so please read that one for some detail.

The essential details for 1998 are:

• 562.4 total WAR was accumulated among batters.

• They had a total payroll of $715,940,318.

• That's $1.27 million per Win Above Replacement.

• I used a cutoff of 94 plate appearances to eliminate pitchers.

• Players with no salary listed on B-R's 1998 Batting Player Value page were ignored.

The most valuable batters of 2011

The most valuable batter of 2011
Icon SMI

Following on from the top pitchers post, here are the top batters of 2011 using the same $WAR method I described in the previous post.

In 2011 there were 377 batters with at least 100 plate appearances and a salary appearing on Baseball-Reference's batting player values page. Those guys had a total of 527.5 WAR and a total salary of $1,533,803,248. That works out to $2.91 million per WAR.

The Dodgers make it a clean sweep with both the top pitcher and top batter in $WAR. Read through for the details.

Do-over: The most valuable pitchers of 2011

(Thanks very much to Sky Kalkman who provided extremely useful feedback to improve my approach to this analysis.)

Yesterday, I took a stab at rating the value of each pitcher in 2011 by looking at how their WAR compared to their salary. I have revised the approach, which I think gives much more sensible results.

The most valuable pitchers in 2011

The most valuable pitcher of 2011
Icon SMI

Here's a look at the pitchers who provided the most value relative to their salaries in 2011.

We'll use Wins Above Replacement as a measure of the value provided. Baseball-Reference.com's replacement level is a W-L% of .320. The estimated total payroll of all teams in 2011 was $2,784,091,291 (yeah, nearly 3 billion dollars...)

In 2011, teams actually won 2,429 games. If all teams had won at a .320 clip, the total number of wins in baseball would have been 1,555. That means that the nearly $2.8 billion payroll bought 874 extra wins. That works out to $3.19 million for each win above replacement registered by teams this year.

For our analysis, it's easier to look at the reciprocal of this number--namely how many Wins Above Replacement each million dollars spent earned. That number (874 wins divided by $2784M) is 0.312 wins per million dollars.

So, we can use this figure--about a third of a win per million spent--to evaluate individual player contributions in terms of their WAR vs. salary.

This is what happens when @robneyer retweets you

The worst pitcher contracts in history

With the recent record posting fee paid by the Rangers for the right to negotiate with Yu Darvish, my mind keeps turning to Daisuke Matsuzaka and Kei Igawa, two other Japanese players to have been posted to Major League Baseball who haven't performed up to expectations.

In fact, both of Darvish's predecessors have among the worst contracts in history.

Average WAR by Age, 1980s

Here's my second pass at this study, using a different and larger time span (1980s), a lower threshold of inclusion (min. 140 PAs), and excluding first-year players. Once again, this is for position players only.

2012 Career milestones

Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's milestones page, we can see which players have a shot at major career milestones in 2012.

Ivan Rodriguez and Omar Vizquel both need about 150 hits to reach 3,000. It seems unlikely that either will get it, in 2012 or beyond.

Paul Konerko needs just 4 homers for 400. Vladimir Guerrero is 1 homer from 450 and Albert Pujols is 5 from the same mark. Unless one of those guys puts up a monster season, nobody will reach 500 homers in 2012.

Manny Ramirez needs 174 total bases to be the 20th player to reach 5000. I'll go ahead and bet against this happening.

If Alex Rodriguez can get 103 RBI, he'll pass Barry Bonds for 4th all-time behind just Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Cap Anson.

Jose Reyes' next triple will give him 100. The only 3 active players with that many are Jimmy Rollins, Johnny Damon, and Carl Crawford.

Jim Thome is 110 strikeouts behind Reggie Jackson for 1st all-time. I bet that he will never pass Jackson, though.

Roy Halladay needs 12 wins for 200. Tim Wakefield is the winningest active pitcher and he has 200 exactly. We aren't going to see another 300-game winner for a long time--at least 5 years, probably at least 7 or 8.

Livan Hernandez has the most starts of any active pitcher and needs 26 more starts for 500.

Why the heck did the Nationals sign Mike Cameron?

Mike Cameron / Icon SMI

The Nationals made a bizarre move by signing Mike Cameron. Granted, it's a minor league deal so there's very little risk, but they can't have very high hopes for him.

Here are the players who, over their Age 37 and 38 seasons, had between 400 and 500 total plate appearances with an OPS+ of 77 to 87:

Only 10 players have played at least 50 games in LF, CF, and RF from 2009-2011

Raphy figured out how to get this answer, and here it is:

Rk	Player	OPS+	G	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	Tm
1	Carlos Gonzalez	132	361	1495	1346	418	75	19	73	238	62	17	.311	.366	.557	COL
2	Andres Torres	109	326	1138	1007	254	73	17	26	105	51	14	.252	.332	.436	SFG
3	Chris Denorfia	108	214	659	593	162	28	4	14	56	19	10	.273	.335	.405	OAK-SDP
4	Melky Cabrera	101	456	1755	1601	451	99	9	35	197	37	13	.282	.332	.420	NYY-ATL-KCR
5	Cody Ross	101	425	1634	1489	389	90	4	52	207	19	6	.261	.323	.432	FLA-TOT-SFG
6	Reed Johnson	99	278	667	613	171	43	5	11	65	6	4	.279	.325	.419	CHC-LAD
7	Darnell McDonald	96	243	649	581	151	30	5	17	68	12	4	.260	.322	.417	CIN-BOS
8	Gerardo Parra	94	394	1377	1264	357	60	22	16	136	21	8	.282	.331	.403	ARI
9	Willie Harris	90	395	938	787	176	35	8	19	82	21	10	.224	.340	.361	WSN-NYM
10	Roger Bernadina	85	228	803	727	178	31	5	18	74	34	5	.245	.305	.376	WSN

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/19/2011.

Average WAR by Age for 2007-11

The following chart shows the average Wins Above Replacement (B-R method) by age, for the years 2007-11 combined. Only position players with at least 200 PAs in a season were included.

I grouped the ages at the low and high ends in order to have at least 100 players in each group.

Who's got a theory on the 26-year-olds? I double-checked the data; there's no mistake.

P.S. Sorry if anyone can't see the graph. I wish I could include a data table, but I drafted this in one place and I'm finishing it somewhere else, where I don't have access to the data any more.

Trivia Time #9

("Number nine ... number nine ... number nine ...")

These are the only qualifying hitters to achieve a certain statistical combination last year.
Can you name that combination?

(I'd rate this a 4/5 on the difficulty scale, though I generally end up surprised at how quickly my trivia questions get solved.)

Player
Howie Kendrick
Jeff Francoeur
Peter Bourjos
Jon Jay
Gaby Sanchez
Edwin Encarnacion
Erick Aybar
Vladimir Guerrero
Jimmy Rollins

(There's no significance to the opening line; I was just having a little flashback fun.)

AND THE ANSWER IS....
As solved by Andrew Nadig, these are the 9 qualified hitters with OPS+ over 100 and WPA less than 0.

Stalled production line

The most hits by a team that was shut out in a 9-inning game:

Rk	Date	Tm	Opp	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	BB	SO	HBP	SH
1	1928-07-10 (2)	CLE	WSH	41	38	14	2	1	2	2	0	1
2	2008-08-25	LAD	PHI	41	38	13	2	0	3	10	0	0
3	2005-08-31	MIN	KCR	37	33	13	2	0	2	5	1	1
4	2005-08-13	COL	WSN	42	36	13	1	0	5	7	0	1
5	1993-07-18	PIT	ATL	37	37	13	1	0	0	4	0	0
6	1991-06-07	SDP	PIT	37	34	13	0	0	1	7	0	2
7	1989-08-15	TEX	SEA	41	39	13	1	0	2	7	0	0
8	1973-09-09	MON	NYM	40	39	13	1	0	1	3	0	0
9	1968-07-25	PIT	CIN	40	37	13	0	0	3	3	0	0
10	1964-07-15	WSA	MIN	39	38	13	0	0	1	6	0	0
11	1938-09-17 (1)	NYG	CHC	38	36	13	1	0	1	6	0	1

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/18/2011.

The most runners left on base by a team that was shut out in a 9-inning game:

Rk	Date	Tm	Opp	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	BB	SO	HBP	SH	LOB
1	1998-05-07	SEA	TOR	43	39	11	5	0	3	10	1	0	16
2	1994-05-24	STL	PHI	43	35	9	2	0	8	8	0	0	16
3	2011-08-22	CHC	ATL	42	35	9	2	0	7	5	0	0	15
4	2008-05-12 (1)	ATL	PIT	42	36	8	1	0	6	7	0	0	15
5	2005-08-13	COL	WSN	42	36	13	1	0	5	7	0	1	15
6	1993-04-09	BAL	SEA	42	37	9	5	0	5	10	0	0	15
7	1975-05-12	KCR	DET	42	36	9	2	0	5	3	0	1	15
8	1941-08-01	SLB	NYY	42	31	5	0	0	11	4	0	0	15
9	1931-07-29	WSH	CLE	42	37	10	1	0	5	1	0	0	15

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/18/2011.