Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Memorable Tuesday Night Baseball

Matt Harvey was unstoppable tonight. The White Sox never had a chance against him. As just about anyone reading this knows, Harvey went 9 innings, facing 28 batters, retiring 27.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

MLB Attendance Trends

One month into the season, let's check out the early returns from box offices around the league. Similar to other statistical analysis, we are dealing with a small sample that could potentially skew results, for example, by weather.

Presenting, Baseball-Reference's year-to-year attendance trend chart through April 30, 2013 games.

Rk Tm 2012_AttendpGm 2013_AttendpGm DiffPerGame ▾
1 TOR 24,210 31,820 7,610
2 LAD 39,401 46,238 6,837
3 WSN 25,791 31,813 6,022
4 LAA 33,784 38,736 4,952
5 BAL 23,193 26,398 3,206
6 SDP 24,840 27,287 2,447
7 ATL 28,958 30,331 1,374
8 DET 33,410 34,502 1,092
9 ARI 26,382 27,264 882
10 TBR 20,822 21,322 500
11 CHW 19,912 20,105 194
12 SFG 41,598 41,762 164
13 CLE 14,734 14,711 -23
14 OAK 19,248 19,153 -94
15 STL 41,268 40,956 -312
16 NYM 26,797 26,344 -453
17 SEA 20,186 19,115 -1,070
18 CIN 26,849 25,690 -1,158
19 KCR 21,435 19,450 -1,985
20 PIT 23,058 20,616 -2,442
21 COL 31,196 28,648 -2,548
22 HOU 22,808 20,131 -2,677
23 TEX 41,719 38,802 -2,917
24 NYY 40,864 37,278 -3,586
25 MIL 35,086 30,677 -4,409
26 BOS 37,562 32,439 -5,123
27 MIN 33,068 27,731 -5,337
28 CHC 37,100 31,361 -5,739
29 PHI 45,013 36,653 -8,359
30 MIA 30,180 19,043 -11,137
total 29,639 28,822 -817
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/1/2013.

Most attendance trends are about what we'd expect. The Dodgers and Blue Jays made the splashiest changes since last May, and their fans bought into it before Opening Day. A few surprises include the returns in Boston and Texas.

The Red Sox and Rangers have the best and second best records in baseball, respectively. Yet, they are drawing about 5,000 and 3,000 fewer fans per game than they did at this point last year.

Cleveland's April attendance is not trending too badly year-to-year, but it is the worst in the league. What has the weather been like in Cleveland? How are the 2013 Cleveland Indians underdrawing the Miami Marlins? They're drawing at about the same rate as last season. I haven't been watching much Weather Channel lately; does Cleveland turn into Siberia in April?

The Marlins are outdrawing Cleveland by over 4,300 fans per game. Cleveland's dismal attendance is a terrible business return for investing in Michael Bourn, Nick Swisher and others this winter.

Here is Cleveland's attendance in April 2013 home games:

Date Opp Attendance
Monday, Apr 8 NYY 41,567
Tuesday, Apr 9 NYY 12,663
Friday, Apr 12 CHW 11,864
Saturday, Apr 13 CHW 11,422
Sunday, Apr 14 CHW 11,682
Tuesday, Apr 16 BOS 9,143
Wednesday, Apr 17 BOS 10,282
Thursday, Apr 18 BOS 12,936
Tuesday, Apr 30 PHI 10,841
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/1/2013.

The A's, Royals, and Mariners have essentially the same per game attendance as the shamed Marlins, at about 19,000 per game.

Oakland's attendance continues to underperform their on-field accomplishments. The ballpark remains an issue, but should that be enough to cost Oakland fans the chance to have a Major League team on their side of the Bay?

The Royals look dangerously close to taking over the hearts of Kansas City once again, as their .583 winning percentage is the 8th best in Baseball. They are just a half game behind the first-place Tigers. Sabermetrically inclined Royals fans would be pleased to know their 14-10 record matches up perfectly with their Pythagorian Win-Loss. PECOTA playoff odds on Baseball Prospectus currently gives them a 23% chance to make the postseason, which is better than Baltimore's and three times as high as Toronto's.

In Seattle, the retractable roof eliminates most weather issues that could affect attendance, and we know it has to do with disappointing results over the past few years. Mariners fans are calling for an allegorical guillotine for Jack Z and the scapegoats.

The Mariners are 12-17, with an offense taking them nowhere. Remember when we thought the Mariners offense was bad last season, as they averaged an AL-worst 3.8 runs scored per game? This year, they're scoring 3.3 runs per game.

Dustin Ackley's 56% GB% is driving fans mad.
(Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

Surprising Season Stats (Small Sample Size)

Red Sox pitchers have the highest K% and BB% in the American League. Neither statistic is particularly surprising, but the duality of the records is rare. Since 1990, it has happened twice, both by the Cubs:

In their doomed 2003 season, the Cubs lead the NL with a 22.6% strikeout rate and 9.9% walk rate. They also lead both leagues with a 19.6% K% and 10.8% BB% in 2006.

The year, the Red Sox have 26.7% strikeout and 10.1% walk rates.

Andrew Miller gets lots of K's and BB's

***

Switching to team hitting stats, Cubs batters have the best Extra Base Hit percentage in the National League (8.8%, NL Avg. 7.3%).

One of the reasons the 2013 Cubs struggle to score runs is their 5.9% walk rate, the lowest in both leagues. Only one Cub has double digit walks this year, Anthony Rizzo has 11. Even Justin Smoak has more than a dozen walks this year.

Anthony Rizzo is a perennial silver lining.

***

Salvador Perez has an uncharacteristically extreme KK/B ratio. Last season in 305 plate appearances, Salvy Perez struck out 27 times. This year, he already has 18 K's. Perez's 20.2% K-rate equals the league average but is almost twice as high as his career average.

2011: 2.86 K/BB (2.23 AL Avg.)
2012: 2.25 K/BB (2.41 AL Avg.)
2013: 18.00 K/BB (2.43 AL Avg.)

On the positive side, as Chad Young points out, Salvador Perez has seen the fifth biggest gain in average fly ball distance in baseball.

Player | 2013 Distance | 2012 Distance | delta
Dexter Fowler 342.1 - 278.8 = 63.2 feet
Todd Frazier 330.7 - 280 = 50.7 feet
Todd Helton 333.6 - 283.5 = 50.1 feet
Colby Rasmus 319 - 273.5 = 45.5 feet
Salvador Perez 330.6 - 284.5 = 44.1 feet

Read Chad's piece on Fangraphs here.

Salvy Perez has enough youth and tools to improve.


Wednesday, April 24, 2013

MLB Ballplayers on Vine

A couple of weeks before getting traded from Oakland to Houston, Travis Blackley set off his first Vine.

Penguins Visit the Tampa Bay Rays

Penguins visited the Tampa Bay Rays' clubhouse today, reinforcing the fact that Joe Maddon is a progressive thinker. FWIW, I wouldn't leave Kyle Farnsworth alone with one of those things. Go Rays!



MLB Team-by-Team At-a-Glance

More than half of today's games are matinees, including a couple of 12:35 ET starts in Baltimore and Cincinnati. So, we don't have all afternoon to craft a comprehensive This Moment in Baseball post. Instead, let's run down both leagues with one note on each team.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

2013 Leadoff Hitter Power Rankings

The importance of batting order construction is a polarizing debate. I tend to lean towards evidence that batting order construction ultimately means very little. The one spot in the lineup that tends to be the most critical to scoring runs is the lead off hitter. Without commercial interruption, please enjoy our 2013 Leadoff Hitter Power Rankings:

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Quick Notes around Baseball

Starling Marte, of the Pirates, has 2 hits in 4 straight games.

Colby Rasmus has 4 this year, 3 of which are home runs. He'll probably hit 20+ HR's and hit .220 for the Blue Jays.

Make no mistake, Matt Harvey is a dominant pitcher. The Mets blew the doors off the Roy Halladay Farewell Tour with Harvey on the hill. Harvey's next start, against the lowly Minnesota Twins on Sunday at 2pm ET is appointment television. How bad are the Twins right now? As of Wednesday morning, Fangraphs has them ranked 27th out of 30th in Wins Above Replacement, and the only team with a Blutarsky esque 0.0 WAR. Even worse, Baseball-Reference has them ranked last, with a negative (-0.7) WAR. Speaking of the Twins offense, specifically, they are also ranked last with minus-7 Runs Above Replacement.

In his last five games, Jose Reyes has reached base safely 14 times. Factoring into the unfortunate 2-5 start for the Blue Jays must be that Jose Reyes has a .516 On Base Percentage but has only scored 5 runs.

Power? Yes. Speed? Not so much.
Wilin Rosario stole two bases off Tim Lincecum and Hector Sanchez. The box score shows the first stolen base was with Michael Cuddyer on 3rd base, and the second one was on a swinging strikeout. I'm not sure how much any of that factored into the stolen base, but I wouldn't expect Rosario to break out for double digit steals this season. He's listed at 5'11 220 and looks bigger.

Mike Moustakas got his first RBI of the season last night. His teammate, Alex Gordon, on the other hand is having a fine season. Gordon has reached base safely in all eight Royals games this year, scoring 9 runs with an attractive 1.035 OPS.

Adam Lind, who started out the season in the best shape of his life, and 0-for-13, was kept out of the starting lineup the last two games, but is back in there this afternoon, batting 5th between Edwin Encarnacion and J.P. Arencibia.

In his last 3 starts, the Cardinals' Matt Carpenter has 7 hits and 7 runs scored.

The Braves have inserted Evan Gattis into the heart of their lineup, and he delivered with his second HR of the year last night. It's been almost two days since Justin Upton hit his 6th home run of the year. So, he's probably due for another one today.

Today's pick to click is Jordan Zimmermann vs the White Sox.

We're pretty jazzed for the Nationals / Braves series this weekend.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

What Happened Last Night?

In honor of MLB's first 15-game day, and as we did in June of '09, we present our brief notes from perusing the box scores, attempting to answer 'What happened last night?'

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Baseball's Season of the GIF

We have yet to determine the finest GIF from Sunday night's game, but Monday had A.J. Burnett messing around with a white powder. Tuesday night, at a Blue Jays game, a fired up fan caught a bat that flew into the stands. Slightly insane playfulness ensued:


While this guy's family seeks out counselling, the rest of us can look forward to Wednesday being our first day with a full, 15-game schedule. Make more GIF's and enjoy the games!

Monday, April 1, 2013

A.J. Burnett and Things Fall Apart

Courtesy of something called DeckersDelight on the burgeoning /baseball subreddit, we get an Opening Day gif for the ages, starring the Pittsburgh Pirates' A.J. Burnett and his resin bag.



Is it rosin bag? Or, resin bag? Ah, who cares?

Happy Opening Day!

Monday, March 25, 2013

The Tantalizing Style and Tools of Jairo Beras

The Texas Rangers' toolsie teen prospect, Jairo Beras, is suspended until July 1st but still allowed to play in unofficial, minor league Spring Training games.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Small Sample Size Much?

How 'bout this insignificant sample size?
The day before, we got a "Looks like he's locked in."
We don't mean to criticize. @Royals_Report is one of the best in the business. Besides that, part of the fun is getting caught up in the moment. Sometimes it's no fun to wait for all the data to come in. A "jump to conclusions" mat is a fun idea because we want to jump to conclusions. We love when what we see with our eyes leads us to that moment, when it feels like whom we are rooting for can't miss a pitch, a shot, an open receiver, or a putt.

The Spring 2013 Small Sample Size Extravaganza has begun. Please share blatant SSS examples, in our comment section, or on social media. We could start a Small Sample Size tumblr, which is obviously an untapped social media landscape.