25 things you didn’t know about baseball

[Slateman]

25 things you didn’t know about baseball

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-passan_25_things_you_did_not_know_about_baseball_082511

Interesting article. I'd just like to point out my favorites ...

2. Two players haven’t popped out this season.

Nearly 650 times, Los Angeles Angels second baseman Howie Kendrick(notes) has swung and made contact. Not one of those balls lingered in the air before settling into an infielder’s glove.

Texas superutilityman Michael Young(notes) is at more than 750 contacts without a popout. Only twice in the past decade has a player qualified for the batting title and not popped out: Larry Bigbie in 2004 and Joey Votto(notes) in 2010.

It’s a staggering feat of skill mixed with a healthy dose of luck. The numbers back the skill part. Over the last six seasons, Young has popped out 21 times in 3,683 at-bats. Kendrick’s 2,350-at-bat career includes 11 popouts.

Impressive

9. Anybody who doesn’t throw Alfonso Soriano(notes) a full diet of breaking balls is cheating himself.

Soriano deserves congratulations on leading the major leagues in futility against both the slider (minus-17.0 runs, with the next worst Casey McGehee(notes) at minus-10.6) and curveball (minus-7.7 runs). It is remarkably difficult to be that bad, and just plain remarkable that he’s being paid $18 million to be that bad.

His teammates in dubiousness:

Fastball: Alex Gonzalez(notes), minus-28.6 runs
Cutter: Omar Infante(notes), minus-5.5 runs
Changeup: Derek Jeter(notes), minus-7.6 runs
Split-finger: Werth, minus-2.3 runs
Knuckleball: Curtis Granderson(notes), minus-2.6 runs

Not like we didn't know any of this before, but still ... thats ... wow

16. Tyler Clippard(notes) is the flyballingest pitcher of all flyball pitchers

Clippard is like Bizarro Venters. His 18.1 percent groundball rate is the lowest of the last decade. The closest was Russ Springer’s(notes) 19.2 percent rate in 2009. And yet Clippard’s 1.54 ERA is second among pitchers with at least 60 innings. The best? Venters at 1.10.
Nobody strands baserunners like extreme flyball pitcher Tyler Clippard.

flyballingest? :coold:

17. Clippard broke one of FanGraphs’ metrics.

To calculate LOB%, the number that indicates how good a pitcher is at stranding runners, you use the following formula:

(H+BB+HBP-R)/(H+BB+HBP-1.4*HR)

Calculate that for Clippard, and it comes out to 101 percent. And it’s sort of difficult to leave more runners on base than you actually allow.

In reality, just three baserunners of Clippard’s have scored this season – and only one by his doing. Early in the season, Sean Burnett(notes) let two runners inherited from Clippard score. On May 24, Clippard walked Craig Counsell(notes), then gave up a home run to Rickie Weeks(notes).

Aside from those four runs, all other eight Clippard has yielded have come on solo home runs. The nine home runs, multiplied by 1.4, comes out to 12.6 – higher than the 12 runs he has allowed and, thus, accounting for the 101 percent LOB%.

The highest before Clippard was Lance Carter, who in 2002 put up a 98.8 LOB% over 20 1/3 innings. Pat Neshek(notes) was Clippardian in 2006, giving up nine runs on six homers and posting a 97.1 strand rate. Texas reliever Koji Uehara(notes) ranks second to Clippard this season at 94 percent.

Obviously, not accurate anymore after last night's game, but still ... damn ....

And I giggled at the idea of breaking a metric

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

17. Clippard broke one of FanGraphs’ metrics.

To calculate LOB%, the number that indicates how good a pitcher is at stranding runners, you use the following formula:

(H+BB+HBP-R)/(H+BB+HBP-1.4*HR)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe Clippard "broke the metric" because the metric is stupid.

Here is a much better formula for LOB%:

Inherited runners + base runners allowed - runs scored / Inherited runners + base runners allowed

Why make it so complicated? Right there is a simple percentage of runners LOB. It's a stupid stat anyway. It "rewards" you for putting guys on base, then leaving them there. I'll take the guy who doesn't allow runners, period.

 

[Slateman]

I don't disagree. I have no idea where they got the 1.4 from.

But it made me giggle a little to hear someone broke a metric

 

[Kuzzy Powers]

Im absolutely amazed that 2 players have not popped out all year long. That is remarkable.

 

[Goober]

17. Clippard broke one of FanGraphs’ metrics.

To calculate LOB%, the number that indicates how good a pitcher is at stranding runners, you use the following formula:

(H+BB+HBP-R)/(H+BB+HBP-1.4*HR)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe Clippard "broke the metric" because the metric is stupid.

Here is a much better formula for LOB%:

Inherited runners + base runners allowed - runs scored / Inherited runners + base runners allowed

Why make it so complicated? Right there is a simple percentage of runners LOB. It's a stupid stat anyway. It "rewards" you for putting guys on base, then leaving them there. I'll take the guy who doesn't allow runners, period.

No pitcher is going to throw a perfect game every time he goes out on the mound. If you want to see who allows the least amount of runners, you can look at a pitchers allowed OBP%. The point of OBP% is to see who is getting lucky, and who isn't. With this information you can draw conclusions as to why a pitchers FIP is higher or lower then his ERA.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

No pitcher is going to throw a perfect game every time he goes out on the mound. If you want to see who allows the least amount of runners, you can look at a pitchers allowed OBP%. The point of OBP% is to see who is getting lucky, and who isn't. With this information you can draw conclusions as to why a pitchers FIP is higher or lower then his ERA.

There are plenty of ways to see how many runners are being allowed. That's not what i'm getting at. What i'm saying, is the fangraphs LOB% stat is garbage, because the formula makes very little sense. It pretty much rewards you for giving up a solo HR, as evidence by Clippard "breaking" the stat by giving up lots of HR's.

 

[Slateman]

10 in 70+ innings is a lot?

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

10 in 70+ innings is a lot?

That's 30 HR's over 210 innings.

Id call that "a lot", no?

 

[deathdealer]

according to this article....shouldnt wakefield be the most predictable?

 

[Slateman]

according to this article....shouldnt wakefield be the most predictable?

Uh ... he is. He's going to throw a 63mph knuckle ball. If you get on, you can pretty much steal second and third walking backwards.