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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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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.

NEW CHRIS DAVIS SHIRTLESS PICS

by jakemintz

So I was at my grandfather’s house the other day cleaning up some of his old stuff in the basement. As I sifted through piles of aged rubbish, I couldn’t help but think that there might be something valuable for me to find. Lo and behold, under a pile of 30 year old pharmacy receipts, I found something wonderful. Something incoherently perfect. Something bold, beautiful, and bicep-laden. I found new Chris Davis photos. Total coincidence that he hit two bombs today. Drool at your own safety.

This pic shows Davis in peak physical shape; his 8-pac bulging out of his Thor-like chest.

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2013 First Annual MLB Draft Draft

by Jordan Shusterman

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So the draft happened about a week and a half ago, and it got us thinking. What other fun stuff could we draft ? The possibilities are/were endless, but we decided on drafting the obvious: other drafts. The goal was to build the best possible 25 man major league roster using only players selected in the first round of each draft between the years 2000 – 2011. We decided to exclude this year’s draft and last year’s draft on account of it’s way too early to even judge what those players are. We decided to include 2011 since it’s actually produced a few major leaguers already. Also, our rosters must include one designated hitter, two catchers, five bench players, three relievers, six starters, and a closer. But we got creative. To the picks!

  • 1st PICK (JAKE): 2005 draft

This was an easy pick, as it remains the most loaded first round we’ve seen in a long time. Jake immediately receives four of the best players in baseball in Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, Andrew McCutchen and Justin Upton. Not to mention Jay Bruce, Jacoby Ellsbury, Alex Gordon and Ryan Zimmerman. It was a crazy year on the position side, but this round definitely lacked pitching. The best pitchers taken were probably Matt Garza and Ricky Romero, neither of which made Jake’s final squad.

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