Category Archives: Math Wednesday

Math is fun, and sometimes difficult.

2013 Regular Season Review: THE FUN STUFF (The Hitters)

by Jordan Shusterman

On Monday, the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Texas Wranglers last night for the exciting opportunity to go to Cleveland, Ohio for a night of competitive baseball. What a treat. Last night, the Pittsburgh Pirates WON A PLAYOFF GAME against the Cincinnati Reds in the NL Wild Card game and will move on to face the St. Louis Best Organization In Baseball. Honestly, I’m still mourning the death of the ridiculous 2013 regular season and I probably will be for a while. In an effort to remember the year that was and because I spend so much time on FanGraphs anyway, I’m gonna just gonna go through a multitude of interesting statistical finishes throughout baseball and maybe possibly probably not say a few things about them. We will probably do some sort of CFB Awards post after or later in the postseason, but this is what I’ve got for now. And again, thank you based FanGraphs for being too good to be true.

Important:

  • Qualified hitters = minimum 500 PA’s
  • Qualified starters = minimum 162 innings pitched
  • Qualified relievers = minimum 49 innings pitched
  • Qualified defenders = minimum 900 innings at a position

I’m gonna do this in four parts: hitters, starting pitchers, relievers and crazy stupid defensive numbers.

We start with the guys that hit the balls with the bats.

HITTERS:

Let’s Talk About WAR:

  • Mike Trout completed his second consecutive 10 win season, finishing with 10.4 WAR. A healthy lead over second place Andrew McCutchen who finished at 8.2 WAR. A brief list of guys who Mike Trout has already surpassed in CAREER WAR: Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Nick Markakis, Justin Upton, Buster Posey, Ryan Howard (lolololololol), Marco Scutaro, Josh Willingham and Justin Morneau. Put it this way: there are only 55 players that have produced more WAR since beginning of the 2006 season than Mike Trout has since he came up. Mike Trout the best.

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Advanced Pitching Metrics: John McDonald For Cy Young

by jakemintz

I don’t have a vote for the Cy Young award, but if I did I would vote for one of these three pitchers.

David Carpenter: 

John McDonald:

Ryan Raburn:

In today’s baseball world, strikeouts are key. They are the lifeblood to any good pitcher. 

Ground balls are awesome too by the way.

Also important in today’s modern baseball world are rate stats. Counting stats are frowned upon by many, especially those who cannot count.

Therefore the only way to get good stats are to combine these concepts. When we mix rate stats and strikeouts, we get a fantastic stat called K/9. K/9 measures how many strikeouts a pitcher averages every nine innings. Combining ground balls and rate stats creates GB%. These advanced metrics are the basis for my plea to the Cy Young voters: Vote McDonald, vote Raburn, and vote Carpenter. Scratch those names and I’ll scratch you. Nope, that was a bad sentence. Let’s just get on with it.

Angels RHP David Carpenter: 

  • Carpenter might have a particularly high ERA for a Cy Young candidate as his ERA currently sits at 108.00. At first glance that appears a bit too high to be considered the best pitcher in the league but hold your horses bucko. We all know that ERA is a flawed stat so this number cannot be trusted. His xFIP is almost A HUNDRED points lower. That’s nuts. He just got unlucky this year.
  • Carpenter has also been extremely unlucky this year as evidenced by his insane 100% HR/FB rate.

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This Is An Octavio Dotel Appreciation Post

by jakemintz

For those of you that don’t know, Octavio Dotel is awesome. I felt like it was time to let the world know that Mr. Dotel is a savior, a superhero, and a saint. So buckle up, latch in, and get ready because this is about to be a doozy.

Octavio Dotel Has Played For 13 Teams

This segment of Dotel’s legacy has been well documented. The sheer fact that a major league baseball player played for thirteen years is absurd, let alone thirteen teams. I bet the random guy on the street can’t even name thirteen teams. “What is a Rockies?” he would say.

To put the number thirteen in perspective; so you know how it feels like Casper Wells is on a new team every week? Well Casper Wells has played for only five teams, and if you are good at math you know that’s seven less than Dotel’s thirteen.

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All Star Break Record Breakers: Pitchers

by jakemintz

The baseball season is 6 months long. The baseball season is mostly during the summer. We call the All Star Game “The Mid-Summer’s Classic.” According to all of these points the All Star Game must be the halfway point of the baseball season.

There have been some great performances over the first half of the year, but what could happen in the second half is even more extraordinary. Check that, what will happen in the second half. You see, when a player has a certain amount of stats in the first half (and they usually do), you can always double that amount to find out what that player will have over the course of the year. Its a really good sabermetric strategy and it always always works. Here are a few pitchers who could will shatter records:

Mark Melancon

First Half Stat: 25 Holds

Will Finish The Year With: 50 Holds

Math Involved: 25 + 25 = 50

Significance: I bet you didn’t know the most holds in a season was Luke Gregerson with 40 all the way back in 2010. A record nobody thought would be broken and definitely a record that everyone should keep an eye on.

Kenley Jansen

First Half Stat: 94.9% Fastballs

Will Finish The Year With: 189.8% Fastballs

Math Involved: 94.9% + 94.9%

Significance: If you thought 100% was the limit, Kenley Jansen says you are wrong. He could shatter the previous record of 100% held by hundreds of players. This has the potential to be an unbelievable story later in the year.

David Carpenter

First Half Stat: 108.00 ERA

Will Finish The Year With: 216.00 ERA

Math Involved: (4/.1) + (4/.1)

Significance: Yeah yeah he might not qualify for the ERA title, but so what? If you ignore the innings qualification, the record for highest ERA in a season belongs to Joe Cleary of the 1945 Washington Senators with an astounding ERA of 189.00. Carpenter has a real chance to destroy that if once he pitches just as bad in the second half.