April 19, 2010

No Pepper

Against the Fence

by Tommy Bennett

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Dan Turkenkopf wonders just how much we really know about the strike zone.
Analyzing pitchF/X pitch location data, Dan shows that there is a persistent park effect when looking at ball/strike calls. Caution is warranted the next time you use Gameday to yell at the home plate umpire. 

Roy Halladay and the pursuit of 250 IP.
I will of course take the under, but Halladay is set to go every five days regardless of off-days. It's worth noting that he has more wins that walks at the moment, a feat accomplished season-long by only four pitchers with at least 125 IP.

Phil Birnbaum critiques a classic article of sports economics.
His target, Gerald Scully's "Pay and Performance in Major League Baseball," was one of the first efforts to tie salary to performance.

The current status of salary arbitration in Japanese baseball.
Or, alternatively, what hasn't a labor union done for you lately? Did you know that it was not until 2001 that Japanese players were allowed to be represented by agents?

Morgan Ensberg tells it like it is.
He says game length is almost entirely a function of commercial breaks. The piece is consistently interesting.

Stan Isaacs writes a love letter to the box score.
While I think there's plenty of useful information excluded from a box score (and useless information included), I have often wondered about a cipher that was based on box score pitching lines. For example, if I wanted to express approval, I could say 9-1-0-0-1-8.

Jeff Zimmerman compares Charlie Brown's baseball team and the Kansas City Royals.
I especially like the one he has titled "Bannister out thinking himself on the mound" as a good example of game theoretic logic. Jeff has also done great work on which batters pull the ball most.