What interested me online this week…

A lot of great stuff this week online from a baseball stat and sabermetric perspective. I don’t want to take too much time building it up, so I will just get right into the details.

The Great Clutch Project

I mentioned this a few weeks ago, concerning Tom Tango asking fans to join him in a battle in the clutch debate where he will pit his “good” hitters against the fans’ choice for “clutch hitters” to see if there really is a way people can see and perceive clutch. The stats he is using are his Leverage Index scores and wOBA (weighted on base average), so if you are not familiar with those, read up on them. You can find the summary of the project here, and Fangraphs will be running the season tally here for 2008.

Never thought I would see a Ginger/Mary-Anne and clutch/non-clutch analogy used, but I guess nothing should surprise me anymore.

Hardball Times OF Arms

John Walsh of THT reveals his new defensive metric to measure OF arms, something that has always been missing and that is sorely needed in the defense discussion that has escalated in the past few years. You can search by year on their stats page here, and there is a lengthy description of the methodology at this link. The stats for the OF arms goes back to 2004.

Richard Justice’s war with the stat guys

Local sports writer for the Houston Chronicle has the stats world up in arms from his reaction to a post by Mitchel Lichtman on Justice’s blog piece this week about bunting and how it is always a bad idea. Apparently, Justice has long been a target of some bloggers for his inability to look past emotion and personal feelings and look at the numbers. And the blogosphere just can’t get enough of all of this. And all of this from a couple of sentences about how bunting is always bad in the situation with which the Astros were faced.

For the record, I fall somewhere in the middle of what Lichtman and what Keith Law propose (you need to read all the threads to understand where that is). A manager has to make a yes/no decision in that moment, but his job should be to be as prepared as he possibly can with all the available data that will help him make an educated decision. The ones that are too close to call? Well, that’s why a managers are paid the way they are.

Lineup Analysis

This is not a new tool by any means, but something I have been messing around with this week that I recommend. Baseball Musings hosts a page that has a Lineup Analyzer put together by Morong, Arneson, and Armburst that allows you to put in any nine players with their OBP and SLG and it will construct the ideal lineup based on those numbers, and their calculated comparison and analysis of the two.

Here is the page, use it on your favorite team for this year or any year.

To be the aboslute worst and the aboslute best

One of the local FM radio stations here in Houston is celebrating “Baseball Week” all this week, with baseball-themed interviews (including Jose Canseco and the guy who is auctioning off Barry Bonds’ 762nd home run ball and who sounds like he is perpetually stoned), Astros updates, and other various items. And, God bless ‘em, they are really trying. In fact, on Monday they posted a poll on their website that had the question, how many games will the Astros win this year?

So I figure this will look like most of these things I have seen before and have some options like less than 70, 71-75, 76-80, 81-85, etc. But that is assuredly not what I found. You had four options that looked like this:

1. 0-40
2. 41-80
3. 81-120
4. 121-162

Huh? I mean winning 40 or less or 121 or more – is that even possible? And of course a few real smart folks voted for those top and bottom two, but otherwise it was like 45% for number 2 and 45% for number 3. One of the more scientific polls ever created, if you ask me.

But that got me thinking. What would it really take for the 2008 Astros, or any team, to win 40 or less or 121 or more. So I decided to first look back in history. First, the worst teams in major league baseball history, by number of wins:

1. 1899 Cleveland Spiders – 20 Wins, 134 Losses
2. 1916 Philadelphia Athletics – 36 Wins, 117 Losses
3.  1962 New York Mets – 40 Wins, 120 Losses
4. 2003 Detroit Tigers – 43 Wins, 119 Losses

And now the best teams, by wins, in MLB history:

1. 1906 Chicago Cubs – 116 Wins, 36 Losses
2. 2001 Seattle Mariners – 116 Wins, 46 Losses
3.  1998 New York Yankees – 114 Wins, 48 Losses

Essentially, we have had three teams win 40 or less over a full season (though 2 of those teams played 154 game seasons), and no team has ever reached 120 wins. But I did not want to stop there; I wanted to look at how futile or magnificent a team would have to be to reach these win milestones. First, the 40 win or under plateau.

Using our trusty Pythagenpat formula again, we can work backwards to find out how many runs a team would have to score and allow to only win 40 games.

Winning 40 out of 162 gives you a winning percentage of roughly .250 or 25%. So let’s say for arguments sake you have an average park, pitching staff and defense, and your team allows exactly the average number of runs in a season to their opponents. From 2001-2007, the average runs allowed by a major league team was 768, so we will start with that number.

With the formula being to first solve for the exponent, using: X=((rs+ra)/g)^.285. With X being the exponent, you then calculate rs^X/rs^X+ra^X = Winning Percentage. Working backward, and sparing you the math, a team that allowed 768 runs (thus being an average team in that department) would need to score about 415-420 runs to fall right into that .250 winning percentage.

For some context, no one this decade has had fewer than the 574 runs the Dodgers scored in 2003. So we are talking about more than 150 runs less than that team, assuming an average runs allowed total. 420 runs scored only means 2.59 runs per game. Now I don’t want to steer you in the wrong direction here. In the dead ball era, this number was routinely matched and even bested. Your NL record for fewest runs is 371 by the St. Louis Cardinals, led by the great Red Murray and his .282 batting average and 62 RBI. For the AL, the record for fewest runs is 380 by the 1909 Washington Senators, captained by Bob Unglaub and his .265 average with 41 RBI.

Now for the other side. To win at least 121 games would mean a winning percentage of 75%. We will use our same 768 runs to define our average defense/pitching staff/park. Working backwards, using the same formula as before, we can find that a team that allowed 768 runs over a 162-game season would have to score right at 1300 runs (give or take 10 or so on each side) to equal a .750 winning percentage.

This number certainly is more than any team has ever scored in one season in major league baseball, and would equal more than eight runs per game for 162 games. Although, it doesn’t outpace the historical leaders in runs scored by one team by that much. In the AL, the 1931 New York Yankees (did you think it would be anyone else?) scored 1,067 runs, led of course by Ruth and Gehrig. More surprisingly, in the NL, the 1894 Boston Beaneaters scored 1220 runs, led by an amazing nine players who batted .320 or better – and five of them had better than 100 RBI. Of course that was a different time and game, so just in the context of this decade, no one has scored more than 978, the 2000 Chicago White Sox, still more than 300 runs behind our 121-win team.

So certainly both of these situation are unlikely to happen this season, or in any season in the near future. Seeing what a team would have to achieve to accomplish these makes it seem as though we may not see either happen the way the game is played today.

Southeast Invitational: Preseason best and worst value pick predictions

In another one of my posts that will interest exactly nine other people, I plan to look at the recent 10-team fantasy baseball draft in which I participated on Monday, March 24 and make my predictions as to who will be the picks that give each team the most value over the 2008 season as well as the picks that will have the worst value relative to where they were drafted.

First of all, the league format: We play in a 10-team Yahoo! custom points league. Categories for offense are HR, RBI, SB, R, BB, 1B, 2B, and 3B. For pitchers, the categories are W, L, ER, IP, K, Hld, and SV. We have a MLB universe roster of 20 players (5 of which are bench) plus two DL spots per team. There are unlimited trades (with an August deadline) and unlimited other moves as well. The league is a daily league that has been running for five years (with a bit of turnover), but it is not a keeper league.

And by value I am, again, talking about relative to the spot where they were picked. A-Rod will have tremendous value going with the first pick, but that is expected value – what we are looking for is unexpected value or expected value not achieved.

So without any more rambling, here are (in my opinion) the best and worst value draft picks by team, in order of how we drafted.

1. Eric Ramirez

Best pick – Josh Hamilton – 13th round

In half a season last year, the rookie with the troubled past totaled 19 HR and 47 RBI in only 337 plate appearances. This year, he has a guaranteed starting spot on the Rangers and is going to a park that might be the best in the majors for left handed power hitters. Some of the OF taken in the two rounds before Hamilton include Jermaine Dye, Matt Kemp, Jose Guillen and Delmon Young. My guess is that Hamilton out-homers all those guys. In a quick glance at eight popular projection systems, his average home run prediction from all of those is 21. If he stays healthy, he will fly past that number in Arlington

Worst pick – Derrek Lee – 6th round

Not so much that it was a bad pick in the 6th round, but because power is the most sought-after commodity in our league, it was a questionable strategy to wait until the 6th for a 1B – the premium power position. At that point, it may have been wise to wait and grab Carlos Pena, Paul Konerko or Ryan Garko – all of whom went in much later rounds. At age 32, Lee is not the 46/107 guy from three years ago, but he is also not the 22/82 guy from last year. His mean lies somewhere in the middle – but he is just too inconsistent for me as a sixth pick.

2. Kirk Kornegay

Best pick – Joakim Soria – 20th round

I almost had this pegged as Scott Kazmir in the 9th round, but his current injury gives me just a little bit of concern, so Soria is the choice. The Royals play a lot of close games due to an offense that is in the bottom half of the AL. And that is good for a closer, especially one with Soria’s numbers. Soria posted a VORP of 26.4 in 2007 – higher than any of his other Royal teammates. His ERA, WHIP, K/9, K/BB, and BAA were all outstanding in 2007. His BABIP was .264, showing he was a bit lucky, and therefore likely causing a slight bump up in his other peripherals in 2008. However, a closer with 25+ save potential in the last round is a steal.

Worst pick – John Lackey – 7th round

We all know how incredible Lackey has been as a pitcher recently. He was the third best pitcher in the AL last season, and thanks to a significant decrease in his BB/9 and a sharp increase in his LOB%, Lackey made the jump from 13-14 wins per season to 19, and an ERA in the mid-3’s to exactly 3.01. But a strained triceps injury on his throwing arm currently leaves Lackey on the shelf for all of April. Five months from Lackey could still make up for the lost time, especially with an improved offense, but pitchers such as Harang, Oswalt, Beckett and Matsuzaka were still on the board for this pick.

3. Jeremy Gibson

Best pick – H. Bell and R. Betancourt – Rounds 16 and 17

The combined numbers for these two pitchers in 2007 looks like this:

11 wins, 172 IP, 34 ER, 182 Ks, 65 holds, and an ERA around 1.80

Those are fabulous numbers for the amount of innings they account for (out of our 1200 total). Betancourt has some numbers from 2007 that make you feel like the numbers will dip a little, such as an astonishingly low BABIP of .246 and astonishingly high LOB% of 86.4%. Bell also makes you think a little bit because his ERAs in 2005 and 2006 were in the 5’s and his 102 Ks more than doubles anything he has ever done, but even if these pitchers see their numbers decrease by 20% across the board, the 16th and 17th rounds are great for their stats.

Worst pick – Chipper Jones – 6th round

Jones is a great player, and after last year, he clearly has plenty of offense left in that bat. Despite missing almost 30 games, Jones was 6th in the Majors in batting average and VORP and also top 12 in Runs Created (keep in mind, a cumulative stat). So while normally this would be a great pick, there is just too much injury concern for me. Jones has not played in more than 137 games since 2003 and in 2005-2006 he missed at least 50 games each season. Jeremy has an admirable back-up plan with Mike Lowell also on the roster, and I just have this feeling that he will definitely be forced into active duty on Jeremy’s team before too long. But of course this could easily end up being his best pick if it pans out and Jones stays healthy.

4. Ryan Kirksey

Best pick – Dustin McGowan – 19th round

The one pitcher I was targeting most in the late rounds this year, and I kept waiting and waiting, forcing myself to be patient in hopes on one else would take him. McGowan, now 26, saw so many things trend upward from 2006 to 2007: namely his K/9, BB/9, ERA, and WHIP. Plus, he is an extreme groundball pitcher (a great thing seeing as he will be facing some of the toughest lineups in the league on a regular basis) to the tune of 53% in 2007. An improved Blue Jays lineup certainly won’t hurt his case for wins, but a questionable bullpen might. Still, if his Ks and IP continue to go up and his BB and earned runs continue to go down, I should be happy.

Worst pick – Francisco Liriano – 12th round

I will be the hardest on myself. This was a stupid pick here. I thought a lot of people were looking for him about this time, but it turns out most people were going to wait a couple more rounds. They had probably all seen the note that came out Monday that I missed: Liriano will likely open the season with some starts in Triple-A before moving up. Guys like Carmona, Wang and Bonderman went around at that time, and I probably would have been better off with one of those. Even for a talent like Liriano, there are too many questions surrounding a return from Tommy John that I should have waited a few more picks or waited to see how he responds in real game action.

5. Regan Boudra

Best pick – Chien Ming Wang – 12th round

Probably the hardest draft to pick a best/worst value. Every pick seemed to be pretty much in line with the perceived value of the player, so these may be a stretch in a couple of areas. Regan’s quote during the draft of “I’ll take 17 wins even if he only gets 17 strikeouts” was one of the highlights, but it also rings somewhat true. Actually, Wang’s K rate improved to 4.70 per nine last year, up from 3.14 in 2006. Your standard for acceptable K/9 rates for a starter really should be around 5.6 or so, but when 59% of your balls in play are grounders, you are getting plenty of people out that way (even with Jeter and whatever lead glove they will play at first). So 17 wins is certainly achievable, I might even go one or two more for him.

Worst pick – Carlos Guillen – 6th round

I am lukewarm on Carlos Guillen as I had him in the second half of last year (the half he was just good, and not incredible), but he is just a bit too streaky in my opinion. His HR the past 5 years have been 21, 19, 5, 20, 7. His OPS: 859, 920, 803, 921, 753. RC: 99, 112, 51, 107, 55. Still, playing first should keep him on the field more and cut down on his pesky injuries. Guillen is not a bad pick here by any means, but he was the fifth SS taken after Rollins, Ramirez, Reyes and Tulo – so there were options available.

6. Tim Miller

Best pick – Kerry Wood – 20th round

Wood was officially named the Cubs’ closer earlier that day, and the Cubs look to compete in the division, so Wood should factor in many of those decisions albeit if he remains healthy. A K/9 rate of 8.9 last year in limited work is very promising (especially since it was 5.95 in 2006), but a BB/9 rate of 4.81 is decidedly not promising. He has not had a number that high since 2000, so he can certainly get it under control, but with Marmol and Howry breathing down his neck, Pinella does have options if this arm-saving move of having Wood close does not pan out.

Worst Pick – Justin Verlander – 5th round

This may be a bit of a reach on my part, because Verlander is going to be great, but he was the fifth pitcher taken overall in our draft. Only one fantasy preview source that I found (out of about 15) had Verlander ranked fifth. The average of all of those pegged Verlander at 9.4. Still on the board when Verlander went were Beckett, Sabathia, Harang, and Haren – all of whom could make a case to go ahead of Verlander. A couple of things to watch would be the interesting fact that despite the velocity of Verlander’s fastball decreasing the past three years, his K rate has increased. Watch that and his innings count (high for a young pitcher), but the offense behind him should support plenty of wins. Still, JV is Tim’s ace, and should serve him well

7. Joel Ramirez

Best pick – Edgar Renteria – 15th round

While nothing with the glove, Renteria has again turned into a force with the bat. Hitting in that stacked Detroit lineup won’t hurt anything, either. Since our league does not have a middle infielder spot, once the top ten SS went, it was a while until number 11 (Renteria) went off the board. While Joel also drafted Hanley Ramirez, a quick check of his roster shows that Renteria would be a better fit at the Util spot that anyone else in his lineup (Giambi, Rolen, etc.). Renteria has always been a great source for hits and average (although last year he was off the charts and won’t repeat that), but his OBP has also improved four straight years, something that is vital to the Tigers and to fantasy points leagues.

Worst pick – Jacque Jones and Derrick Turnbow – 17th and 18th rounds

Jones also has the benefit of being in the Tigers’ lineup, but he will be batting ninth and is generally projected with a line around .265/.325/.410 and 10-15 HR – in other words no real value in our league. Jones’ Runs Created numbers last year dropped from 85 to 58, thanks in part to a 100-point drop in SLG. His best days are behind him.

Turnbow is in line to replace Gagne if he fails in Milwaukee, but he has two years of overall numbers that are just bad. Actually, the strikeouts have been great at over 11 K/9 the past two years, but the walk rate has been over 6 BB/9 over the same two years. Value comes only if he gets the chance to save again.

8. David Gilly

Best pick – Chad Billingsley – 15th round

There is only one real number I can find where Billingsley did not improve from 2006 to 2007 (his first true chance to start), and that is his HR/9 number of .92, up from .70. Billingsley’s career FB% is around 37.6% or just better than average, so the HR rate is not too much of a concern, especially pitching in Dodger Stadium. Besides that, all of his rate stats such as ERA, WHIP, K/9, BB/9, BABIP, LOB%, and BAA all made significant increases in 2007. And he is only 24 – which means he is still maturing.

Worst pick – Jorge Posada – 8th round

Posada is a fine catcher and should put up great positional numbers in the Yankees lineup. But he was taken as the fourth catcher overall behind the 3M’s – Martinez, Martin and McCann. Fourth is not crazy for Posada, but I think it started a run on catchers too early. In fact, 6 teams drafted their catcher before the 10th round was over. And that may not sound so bad, but that means that 6 catchers were drafted in the top 100 players. And that just can’t be justified. For example, in MLB.com’s top 100 fantasy list, only three are catchers. I imagine David drafted with a few thoughts of Posada’s 2007 numbers in his head. We have discussed this before, but Posada’s 2007 base stats just do not coincide with the rest of his career, and at 37, he can’t be expected to be that lucky again – especially with his incredible .389 BABIP.

9. Justin Jones

Best pick – Curtis Granderson – 8th round

News of Granderson’s broken finger dropped the value of this CF who had a 20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20 season (or something like that) in 2007. So this is a guarded pick, but even if Granderson misses three to four weeks from the time of the injury, he should be a steal in the 8th round. Granderson led all AL leadoff men in OPS in 2007 with .926 and the projections of Bill James, CHONE, Marcel and ZiPS all feel that Granderson will repeat his 2007 numbers in 2B, HR and RBI – all very valuable in our league.

Worst pick – Nick Swisher – 4th round

Again, I sort of understand this because first basemen were flying off the board so he had to have somebody, but Atkins, Adrian Gonzalez, Lee, and Konerko were still on the board – all of whom will probably have better power numbers than Swisher. Swisher is famous for his ability to get on base, but with his power, he might be sacrificing some HR (which were down by 13 from’06) for walks and other hits. That’s great in real life, “get on base….help the team,” but doesn’t do too much for us. He can play 1B or OF, so depending on how Justin’s other 1B (Todd Helton) does, this may all be a moot point.

10. Jason Kirksey

Best pick – Adam Wainwright – 15th round

I was all ready to put his pick of Kelvim Escobar in this slot, but then word comes today that his injury might be career-threatening, so that shot that idea. Anyway, Wainwright’s move from reliever to starter was an overwhelming success. While most of his numbers saw a bit of an uptick, understandable due to his innings being almost three times that of 2006, the one number that decreased significantly was his HR/9 from 0.72 to 0.58. This is promising for someone who is going to be the veritable ace of the staff at least until the all-star break. Wainwright is another groundball pitcher (48%), but with more than a third of his batted balls being flyballs, it is good that he is developing a skill of keeping balls in the park at a better rate.

Worst pick – Dontrelle Willis – 14th round

We all like looking for great value in the last quarter of the draft, but…

And now he moves to a tougher league for pitchers, albeit with a stellar offense behind him. There is also always talk of Comerica being a pitchers’ park, but in 2006 and 2007, it was very average, and actually a better park for hitters on average over the last three years than the Marlins’ stadium in Miami. That could spell trouble.

So there you have it, too much information that too few people don’t care about. I will do a brief recap mid-season of how things are going and then do a seasonal review looking back at these picks and deciding what the REAL best and worst value picks were for 2008.

I would love to hear your complaints or praise on your thoughts on the picks in general.

Ultimate 2007 Batting Order

Using a relatively new tool on BaseballReference.com known as the Batting Order Outcomes, I thought it might be fun to go back and look at last season and construct the ultimate lineup, spots 1-8, using each team’s production in each of those spots as our data.

The way this page works is you can put in any team and any spot in the lineup (1-9) and BR will pull up a page with stats on how that team performed in that season at that spot in the lineup, with all PA included throughout the season.

So, I can quickly go back and see that in 1972, The Boston Red Sox had an OPS of .625 in the 7th spot, with the famous Doug Griffin getting the majority of the plate appearances that year.

Using OPS as our gauge, I will lay out the ultimate 2007 batting order from across the Majors. While the batting order page has incredible splits and breakouts of stats per month, player, inning, relative score, and more, the stats used are pretty basic, so OPS is probably our best bet for this exercise.

Starting with the leadoff position, here is the best from each spot in 2007, with a couple of my random comments associated with each:

1. Florida Marlins – .897 OPS

This one makes sense especially when you consider that Hanley Ramirez was given 706 of the 780 plate appearances for the Marlins in the leadoff spot in ‘07. May and June were actually not kind to Ramirez and the Marlins’ leadoff spot; the OPS totals for those two months in that spot were .738 and .694, respectively. But the next three months had totals of 1.094, .875 and .944 – so he certainly finished strong. In comparison, Ramirez’s two counterparts, Rollins in Philly and Reyes in NY, both contributed to .869 and .772 totals for their teams. Ramirez is expected to move to third in the order in 2008, so don’t look for the Fish to repeat in this spot.

2. St Louis Cardinals – .870 OPS

This one mildly surprised me. No Derek Jeter, Kevin Youkilis, Placido Polanco, or even Hunter Pence took this spot. Rather, the combination of Chris Duncan and Rick Ankiel give the Cardinals the top spot. Certainly helping the cause, Ankiel slugged .603 batting second. Also contributing to the solid .870 number were the OPS numbers by Scott Speizio and Skip Schmaker, who both had an OPS over 1.000 in 131 total plate appearances.

3. Boston Red Sox – 1.034 OPS

No surprises here. David Ortiz ate up 89% of the 751 total plate appearances in the third spot. I have heard some people say that Ortiz had a down year last year because his homeruns and RBI were down from the previous two seasons, but that argument is truly ridiculous. His batting average, OBP, OPS+, Runs Created, and Runs Above Replacement were all the best of his career. His 52 doubles made up for “only” 35 HRs – a number which will likely trend upward in 2008. And in September, during the playoff push, Ortiz’s OPS was a mere 1.355.

4. New York Yankees – 1.069 OPS

Again, no surprises at this spot. Of 744 2007 plate appearances in the #4 spot, A-Rod had 700 of them, with OPS of 1.081. In the few times someone else actually hit in this spot, Jorge Posada, Miguel Cairo and Hideki Matsui all had an OPS of at least 1.000 as well. And quite possibly even more impressive, the Yankees who had the number four spot come up with RISP 243 times, totaled an OPS of 1.127.

5. Toronto Blue Jays – .939 OPS

I probably could have given you a dozen guesses to this one, and you wouldn’t have said the Blue Jays. But there they are – with big Frank Thomas leading the way with his .935 OPS. Actually, while Thomas had the most PAs in that spot, he only accounted for about a third of the total plate appearances. Some of the other notable names hitting in that spot: Aaron Hill, Troy Glaus and Matt Stairs totaled OPS scores of .946, 1.145 and 1.003, respectively. All of these numbers represent significant increases over their seasonal totals.

6. Colorado Rockies – .908 OPS

This spot makes sense as well, with Brad Hawpe demanding 73% of the PAs for the Rockies in 2007. And while Hawpe’s OPS in 2007 in that spot was an incredible .918, it is severely overshadowed by Ryan Spilborghs who had an OPS of 1.212 over 74 PAs in the six hole. In another interesting note, the Rockies only had one month all season (April) where they did not slug at least .500 from the 6th spot in the lineup. Perhaps not surprisingly, that was the month they had a losing record.

7. Philadelphia Phillies – .850 OPS

This spot in the Phillies’ lineup was distributed pretty evenly amongst Abraham Nunez, Jayson Werth, Wes Helms, Greg Dobbs, and Aaron Rowand. Except for Nunez, all other batters had an OPS of at least .847 in the seven spot, with Rowand leading the way a 1.070 over 87 plate appearances. One entertaining and interesting note here looks at when throughout the course of the game the Phillies really produced in the 7th spot. In the 1st-6th innings, the Phillies had an OPS of .885 in the seventh spot, but that number drops to .783 from the 7th-9th innings.

8. Pittsburgh Pirates – .800 OPS

I could probably give you 25 guesses and you would not have picked the Pirates in this spot. I certainly thought it would be Robinson Cano or some other powerhouse offense, not the team that was 12th in the National League in runs scored. But with Jack Wilson and his .825 OPS getting exactly half of the plate appearances, the Cesar Izturis’s, Jose Castillos and Jose Bautistas of the world could not drag down the total number below .800. The second half of 2007 is what tells the story for the Pirates earning this spot – as a team the OPS in the 8th spot after the All-Star Break was an amazing .899.

In an exercise like this, the Magglio Ordonezes, Matt Hollidays and Miguel Cabreras unfortunately get stuck on the outside. But I certainly think that a team composed of this lineup would score an astonishing amount of runs. But just how many? Well, using the basic Runs Created formula, we can come up with a good guess as to just how many.

Formula: ((H+BB)*(1B+(2*2B)+(3*3B)+(4*HR)))/(AB+BB)

Total estimated Runs Created: 1024

In context, the team with the most runs in 2007 were the Yankees with 968 and the average across MLB was 777.

So in other words, we have quite an offensive machine on our hands, even including batters from the Pirates, Cardinals and Blue Jays.

Fun Features on Fangraphs

As you know, I pimp the site Fangraphs on this blog a lot. It has a ton of information that is tremendously difficult to find elsewhere, as well as up-to-date, daily archives of Win Probability Added and Leverage Index (the metric created by Tom Tango measuring a player’s performance and how it relates to his play when situations in the game become more critical) that you can not find anywhere else in a timely manner. Not only all of that, but I just happen to write the Astros team blog for that site during the season.

Recently, there have been a number of excellent additions and modifications to the site. These are the most outstanding of those updates:

Pitch Type and Velocity – for each current pitcher, there is a new table at the bottom of their page that lists the percentage of different pitches thrown and their velocity from 2005-2007. For example you can now find out that in 2005, Daniel Cabrera threw 65% fastballs at an average speed of 96 mph and he threw 28% sliders at an average speed of 88 mph. In 2007, those numbers changed to 74% fastballs at 94 mph and 23% sliders at 83mph. Total pitch counts and undocumentable pitches are also accounted for.

Projections updates – Fangraphs works with a number of projection outlets to post each player’s projected numbers for the upcoming season on their stat pages. Recently, the ZiPS projections and the recently invented MINER projections have been added to each player’s page. These are now included in addition to the Bill James, CHONE and Marcel predictions that were already listed. Looking at a player like Jorge Posada, who last year had career numbers of .338/.426/.543, not one of the projections has Posada pegged at a batting average higher than .288 or a SLG% higher than .469.

Spring Training Stats – If you put a lot of stock into that type of thing, Fangraphs will be updating spring stats for each major leaguer. I guess we can all follow along as we see how long this Ichiro spring hitting drought continues…

And don’t forget that the Astros Fangraphs blog will resume again after the start of the season as we discuss all things good (offense) and all things bad (everything else) from the Win Probability and Leverage Index perspective.