During the same week that it was revealed Ryan Braun failed a drug test and John Rocker admitted using performance enhancing drugs during his career, the player I thought most about was Pedro Martinez. Martinez officially announced his retirement earlier in the month. To be fair, most thought of him as retired after he didn’t pitch in 2010. So now [...]

When the movie Moneyball was released in September, the main gripe by the public was how Michael Lewis never addressed how that team was built on the foundation of great starting pitching. A couple of weeks ago I debated with Chris Plummer at the Perpetual Post who was the best member of the A’s during that [...]

Earlier in the week I called Pedro Martinez the “Sandy Koufax of our generation.” This was done just by the eye test. I remember how feared and dominant Martinez was as a member of the Red Sox. Even as he declined during his days as a Met, Martinez still put together one of the better pitching performances in [...]

It’s been a long believed that Hack Wilson holds the record for RBI in a season with 191 in 1930 while playing for the Chicago Cubs. This weekend, a presentation at SABR41 recreated the play-by-play account of that year and it was discovered that Wilson’s real RBI total was 184. That means that Lou Gehrig [...]

Back in September of last year, I noticed of how successful Curtis Granderson was batting second in the order. He finished 2010 hitting .279 with 6 homers, 18 RBI, and OPS of 1.022; however only a small sample of 105 plate appearances. This year, hitting the two hole, Granderson’s line is as follows: Split GS [...]

An interesting stat was cited by John Dewan of Acta Sports earlier this week. With all the hysteria over good starts (like Colorado), and bad starts (see the Mets and Red Sox), what exactly does the first 10 games translate into?  Performance in First Ten Games (2002-10) Wins in First 10 Teams Finished 90+ [...]

Many believe the Mets biggest strength in 2011 will be their offense. Not many teams can feature four players that are in the top 30 in baseball, plus three promising homegrown prospects in their lineup. What can we expect from this team? I used the lineup analyzer over at Baseball Musings, which combines SLG and [...]

One of Sandy Alderson’s “under the radar” signings this winter was outfielder Scott Hairston. So far this spring Hairston, brother of former Yankee Jerry, is hitting .353 with two homers and eight RBI. With the health of Carlos Beltran in question it’s possible that Hairston will be the starting right fielder on Opening Day. Last [...]

I was recently talking baseball with a respected member of the community and the topic of Cliff Lee came up. We talked about how Lee struggled during last year’s World Series (0-2, 6.94 ERA), and he expressed some concern how Lee might be a candidate for regression this season. I was surprised by this statement [...]

Last season, the Mets pitching staff ranked sixth in the NL in ERA at 3.73. Going into this year many pundits believe the starting staff just isn’t good enough. No doubt, there are concerns about the health of Chris Young and Chris Capuano, but take a look at the production of the starters using last [...]

Kerel Cooper of On the Black provided a video of Rick Peterson breaking down the mechanics of Milwaukee closer John Axford using the Bloomberg Sports Professional Product that I talked about yesterday. By the way, Kerel will join me this coming Sunday to talk Mets baseball. He is the “godfather” of video blogging and I [...]

In God we trust; all others must bring data.” W. Edwards Deming That was the quote by long time pitching coach Rick Peterson at Bloomberg headquarters yesterday. The Bloomberg Sports team invited various types of media to showcase their updated consumer and professional statistical software. I was fortunate enough to be part of this event. Last [...]

Over the weekend I mused about whether there needs to be a better way to evaluate the effectiveness of closers. Marty Noble suggested a point system, while Tom Tango of “Inside the Book” pointed me to a piece of his that used Leverage Index to weigh performance. Yesterday, NYBD reader Birtelcom recommended Baseball Reference’s WPA [...]

There is no doubt that Mariano Rivera is the best closer in baseball history. Last night the MLB Network was doing a short montage about closers, and Dennis Eckersley‘s transition from the starting rotation to the bullpen was highlighted. It’s been so long that you forget how good Eckersley was during a five year period [...]

Getting away from the Jeter Contract-a-Palooza nonsense, let’s talk actual sports related stuff. Topic: Who had the greatest single pitching season in Yankee history (And by history, we mean from at least the 1920s). We didn’t consider strike- or injury-shortened seasons. Here are some of the contestants. Lefty Gomez—1937: 21-11, 2.33 ERA, 25 CG, 6 [...]