DiceK's RESULTS, not stats, the last two years:

2008 - 15-12, 4.40

2009 - 18-3, 2.80

After the first year, 2007, longtime readers of D-O-V asked us if we'd lowered our BUY recommendations on DiceK.  They weren't panicking.  Readers had respect for DiceK because of the K's and their understanding of how he works, and all that stuff.  But they wanted to know, after 2008, if DiceK were a bit less of a pitcher

Read more >

Fangraphs had an interesting article http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/dice-bb which illustrates, very well, the difference between the varied points of view in baseball cyber-space.  In this paradigm, we simply adjust Matsuzaka's "luck stats" (strand rate, BABIP, HR/F*, etc) so that they are equal to the league average, and boom.  We realize that you can't walk 5 men a game and be a good pitcher, ergo, Matsuzaka isn't a good pit

Read more >

Here's the video of the June '08 fight between Shields, Crisp, and friends.  :- )

Give Shields credit for *enthusiasm* on that opening right hand, but I doubt that Angelo Dundee is going to give much credit for the overhand, bottom-of-the-knuckles "paw" strike.  LOL.   Doesn't anybody ever think to drop the brow, put the left arm up and throw one really hard at the midsection?  Wouldn't break your pitching hand if you happened to connect, either...  and ESPN would probably put the ensuing nausea-fest on its top 10 plays...

Read more >

James was asked one time -- now we forget where --

Q: In light of the Red Sox World Series victory this year, I thought it was interesting that you wrote in the 1981 Abstract "the lion's share of championships have been won by teams which play in pitcher's parks." Do you think that still holds true today?

The Founding Father of Sabermetrics quoth:

I think it is true. I think there are special challenges to winning a championship playing in a hitter's park.

If you look at the last few years, I'm not sure.

Read more >

Bill James called former Red Sox Darrell Evans "absolutely" the most underrated player in all of baseball history, pointing out that he hit almost all of the criteria on the below list.Here's that James list of criteria that cause players to be under- and over-rated, with a few more recent player examples...

.....................

1. Specialists (Omar Vizquel) are overrated; players who do many things well (Randy Winn, Mark McLemore) are underrated.

2. AVG (Sean Casey) is overrated; BB, 2B, etc (Brian Giles) are underrated.

3.

Read more >

Did you ever count it up?  How many GREAT catchers were associated with GREAT clubs? 

Just off the top of our heads here, just kinda thinking out loud … we remember who the Two Best are in baseball history:

1. Bench … ok, Big Red Machine
2. Berra … what was it, 13 rings?

So the two best C’s are associated

Read more >

=== Qwibbles and Bits Dept. ===

Needless to say, the above list is not a controlled study, just a baseball chat. 

If you did start trying to control a study, you’d run into major issues in defining the terms, and in isolating the variables …. how do you define which catcher is a leader?  How do you isolate his influence vs. that of his teammates? 

Obviously many of the above catchers played with some loaded rosters.  …but how many "loaded rosters" — fell flat

.

=== Catcher In The Wry, Dept.

Read more >

Once you see Wilkerson for who he is, there's nothing debatable about him.  He's an easy file folder, as it were.   Healthy and in a role, he can help.  As a starting player, yowch.  It would be May, at the latest, before everybody was screaming for whoever the alternative was...

In 2008, Wilkerson's back and hammy robbed him of power.  His K/BB, K rate, and everything else was as usual, but he left his fly balls on the warning track.  The Red Sox are no doubt stashing him in the minors, in hopes that some R & R will have his power stroke and torque back.  No harm in waiting to see.

.

<

Read more >

Little anecdote on Red Sox VP Bill James ...

In 1992, Dave Fleming had a "splash" rookie year for the M’s, going 17-10, 3.39.  The reason that Fleming has always stuck in my mind was because of the memorable instinctiveness of a Bill James "ruling" on Fleming.

The Seattle cyber-sphere did a retro on Fleming recently, and looked about the landscape for a root cause of The Fleming Flameout,.  Mostly, it blamed Bill Plummer (and other coaches) for

Read more >

Team Japan hasn't yet announced its roster, that I know of.  Expected to play for Team Japan are Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima, who have expressed their strong interest in competing.

Some baseball fans love the WBC, but more hate it.  Too much impact on MLB(TM).  We read one argument on the 'net that says the WBC is a 'bad, bad idea' and a 'sham' cooked up by Bud Se

Read more >