Driveline Mechanics: FanShots

Tom Tango - Consultant for the Seattle Mariners

2009-01-05T08:17:08Z

Tom Tango - Consultant for the Seattle Mariners

As an A's fan, I have only one thing to say about this:

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

This is the 12-year old Marshall-trained pitcher that is making the rounds about the Internet. You...

2009-01-04T10:21:52Z

This is the 12-year old Marshall-trained pitcher that is making the rounds about the Internet. You can see all of the pitches he throws in this video in high-speed (appears to be 210 FPS). Go to the video directly to see it in HD quality.

I'll let the viewers draw their own conclusions. The only thing I will say is that the release of the Maxline Pronation Curveball is nearly perfect.

FanGraphs Adds Wins Above Replacement (WAR)

2008-12-27T10:24:20Z

FanGraphs Adds Wins Above Replacement (WAR)

There’s a new section in the batting player pages which does the job of calculating a player’s runs over replacement and wins over replacement.

Now that's awesome.

Rails Developer at SportsBlogs Nation

2008-12-27T09:25:01Z

Rails Developer at SportsBlogs Nation

The parent company of this blog - SB Nation - is looking for programmers to join the team. If you have the skills, take a look!

SB Nation, the leading network of owned and operated sports-focused web communities, is seeking an outstanding developer.

You’ll join our small product team and participate in every phase of the development cycle, from feature design, prototyping, and technical architecture to development, deployment, and maintenance. Primarily, you’ll be coding a Ruby on Rails application backed by a MySQL database and running on Linux servers.

AN's Take on the Teixiera Signing

2008-12-24T00:32:19Z

AN's Take on the Teixiera Signing

This is a great breakdown of the Mark Teixiera signing by notsellingjeans over at Athletics Nation. Here's an excerpt:

They've had an incredible off-season, and done some tremendous long-term planning. They've invested heavily in starting pitching partially because next year's starting pitching market is very poor - it's headlined by John Lackey (if he doesn't sign an extension), Rich Harden, Brett Myers, and Duchscherer, probably none of whom the Yankees would want to invest in long-term. And they won't have to, because their 2010 rotation is set as long as Hughes can step in for Pettitte long-term.

Dollars per marginal win 2008

2008-12-18T20:18:48Z

Dollars per marginal win 2008

Important first-in-a-series (I think) from Sky Kalkman at Beyond the Box Score. Very helpful resource.

2009 CHONE Projections are here

2008-12-18T04:05:54Z

2009 CHONE Projections are here

Well, almost. He just has the basic hitter pages up for each team and the free agents now. When finished, he will have "expanded" pages for each player with percentiles, multi-year projections and the like. Hopefully more pitcher stuff will be done by the time I get back from vacation so I can use it for my work here.

Tell him devil_fingers sent you and, um, well, it probably won't make any difference.

Thanks, Rally/Chone!

The Waiver Wire Blog

2008-12-17T19:47:50Z

The Waiver Wire Blog

The Waiver Wire is a blog that an acquaintance of mine runs; the focus of his site is to provide analysis for fantasy sports where daily transactions are the norm. Pretty cool stuff if you're into fantasy sports!

Three Things I Learned in Vegas

2008-12-17T19:43:09Z

Three Things I Learned in Vegas

Adam Guttridge is an ex-MLB intern for the Colorado Rockies who went to the 2008 MLB Winter Meetings to try and secure a job working in an MLB front office. He details his experiences in this post on The Hardball Times and talks about exactly who you're going up against.

Below is an excerpt:

1. Never take a single opportunity for granted.

It’s an immensely humbling experience to watch hundreds of grown young men with college degrees (and many prestigious ones, at that) hurdling over one another to get a resume submitted for a concession stand internship in a small town in Idaho that pays $450 a month. That’s no exaggeration; such a job posting was entirely typical and drew plenty of interest.

Fangraphs Player Search Plugin - IE and Firefox

2008-12-17T19:34:04Z

Fangraphs Player Search Plugin - IE and Firefox

Excellent plugin for IE (booooo) or Firefox (yaaay) that works for Fangraphs.com. Useful when you absolutely, positively, must know a hitter's BABIP so you can tell your friend that Ichiro is due to regress at some point in his life.

Introducing JustVORP

2008-12-16T09:34:35Z

Introducing JustVORP

One of the most popular sabermetric statistics ever invented is VORP, Baseball Prospectus' measure of offensive value over replacement player. Not only does it measure offense, it compares each player to his positional peers, because a catcher with an .800 OPS is much more valuable than a first baseman with an .800 OPS. We've all gotten a lot of mileage from VORP over the years, so kudos to Keith Woolner and BPro for that.

But VORP also has its flaws...

Check this piece out by Beyond the Box Score. Great stuff.

Prospectus Hit and Run: Oh Rickey, You're So Fine

2008-12-15T17:46:27Z

Prospectus Hit and Run: Oh Rickey, You're So Fine

Baseball Prospectus writes up the case for Rickey Henderson's entrance to the Hall of Fame. (subscription required)

Rickey is my favorite baseball player of all time and perhaps one of the absolute best players to ever play the game of baseball. What Bill James was true: "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers."

UZR Data Available at Fangraphs!

2008-12-08T07:59:47Z

UZR Data Available at Fangraphs!

UZR data is now available at Fangraphs. Here's what David Appleman had to say:

This would of course not be possible without MGL (Mitchel Lichtman), and I’m extremely grateful that he allowed us to use his fielding model. He’s put in a tremendous amount of work getting the stats ready for use on FanGraphs and I really can’t thank him enough.

Unlike other versions of UZR, the ones that appear on FanGraphs use Baseball Info Solutions location data instead of STATS location data. Also, this UZR data does not currently include outfield arms and double plays are treated as regular outs...

Padres GM Kevin Towers pens bestseller: "How to Bungle a Trade Negotiation"

2008-11-24T03:59:14Z

Padres GM Kevin Towers pens bestseller: "How to Bungle a Trade Negotiation"

Great stuff from our flagship blog, Athletics Nation.

I personally never liked Kevin Towers as a GM (Matt Bush WTF), and stuff like this really makes me wonder why he and Sandy Alderson enjoy such good reputations in the sabermetric community. Just because they can do math doesn't mean they are good PR people or skilled negotiators.

Department of Baseball Research?

2008-11-14T17:07:50Z

Department of Baseball Research?

[Jack Zduriencik] said that he is forming the Mariners "Department of Baseball Research," and he plans to staff it with sabermetricians.

Hm. Looks like I might have to throw my hat in the ring! Maybe they can use someone who is good with SQL, Excel, sabermetrics, and high-speed footage of pitching mechanics...

Building a Sabermetrician's Workbench

2008-11-14T17:05:25Z

Building a Sabermetrician's Workbench

A great primer on how to build and maintain a database filled with baseball statistics. Found by way of Beyond the Box Score.

Chris O' Leary: Jonathon Broxton's Pitching Mechanics

2008-10-14T11:27:11Z

Chris O' Leary: Jonathon Broxton's Pitching Mechanics

A worthy analysis of Broxton's pitching mechanics by Chris O' Leary.

Sabathia

2008-10-05T17:40:55Z

Sabathia

Kyle and others, what do you think about the workload CC has endured that last two seasons? It was my opinion that he started slowly this year because of the workload last year.

594 innings in two years plus playoffs last year. Will he be ok next season? Will he start slow again?

What type of mechanics does he have? Does he have any red flags?

Thanks for the thoughts.

Chris Carpenter's Struggles Continue

2008-09-26T15:54:58Z

Chris Carpenter's Struggles Continue

Chris O'Leary has a quick breakdown of Chris Carpenter's pitching mechanics and says:

"The way Chris Carpenter's shoulders start to rotate before his Pitching Arm Side (PAS) forearm is vertical places more load on his elbow and shoulder than they are able to handle, which is why they keep breaking.
Nothing will improve significantly until the Cardinals stop focusing on the symptoms of Chris Carpenter's problems and instead start focusing on the root cause of his problems, which is his problematic pitching mechanics.
In fact, it may be too late to make a significant positive impact on the health of Chris Carpenter's arm. The rapid rate at which he is experiencing problems suggests to me that he may be stuck in a downward spiral.
Which would totally suck."

Barry Zito pronated curve link dump

2008-09-18T12:56:28Z

Barry Zito pronated curve link dump

Watch the 2nd little clip they show in that video, that would be a pronated curveball. The full article goes into full description of how he says he applies force with his index finger. He might be toast now but he put up 1400+ innings before that...