March 25, 2010

No Pepper

Against the Fence (Double Edition)

by Tommy Bennett

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Imagine a black line tracing every Mariano Rivera pitch over the foot long distance before home plate. 
Imagine you are looking from the bird's-eye view and up is toward the mound. That's what mastery looks like, my friends.

Do you remember Hee-Seop Choi? He was traded for Derrek Lee once.
R.J. the Wunderkind provides this retrospective of Choi's career. At least the guy is killing the ball in Korea.

Our fearless editor informs us that Lastings Milledge always wanted to be a Pirate as a child.
Seriously, if you ever put forward the argument that Milledge doesn't enjoy baseball, you had better have an explanation for why a Florida kid who was seven years old the last time they had a winning record would want to play for the Pirates unless he had a lot of passion for the game.

"Any ball is a strike that passes within eight feet of the plate," proclaims Twain.
Turns out Mark Twain was an avid baseball fan, who often took detailed notes while sitting in the stands.

Speaking of lenient strike zones, Jeff Zimmerman uses pitchF/X data to rank pitcher- and hitter-friendly umpires.
Fantasy baseball enthusiasts, take note. Of course, another invaluable resource is our very own umpires report, which lists nearly every statistic for each umpire.

Señor Tango is soliciting the help of fans for his community playing time forecasts.
It's an interesting question how best to forecast playing time. One way is to use expert opinion (the method our depth charts employ). Another is to do fan projections (like Tango does). A third way is to do straight regression (which is what most projection systems do). I typically rely on as many different sources of information as I can get my hands on.

The best "Y" nicknames in baseball include Chooey, Crawfy, and Werthy.
What, no love for Yunieskyy? Bonus points if you can identify why a picture of two people dancing is positioned next to the Blue Jays' DH.

The rebirth of Dodgertown.
It is to be used as a multipurpose training facility. Better than no use at all, I say.