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John Dewan's Stat of the Week
London Olympics—USA Predicted to Win Back Medals Title From China
July 25, 2012 Every couple of years I get the opportunity to work with the Wall Street Journal to help predict the medal winners in the upcoming Olympics. It's great fun, and it's especially cool because we take an actuarial approach to the process. Here is a link to the excellent article on [...]
Brett Lawrie—Best Defensive Third Baseman in Baseball?
July 16, 2012 The short answer: Brett Lawrie of the Toronto Blue Jays is the best defensive third baseman thus far in 2012. Based on our most up-to-date technique to measure defense in baseball, newly minted in the last week, we estimate that Brett Lawrie has saved the Toronto Blue Jays 16 [...]
Youkilis Goes to Chicago
June 27, 2012 The Red Sox and White Sox consummated a trade on Sunday night to send long-time Red Sox icon Kevin Youkilis to the south side of Chicago. Boston had a log jam at third base thanks to the emergence of Will Middlebrooks, and the White Sox are [...]
Who Are the Top Baserunners in Baseball?
June 15, 2012 The Atlanta Braves are in the thick of the National League playoff race and can thank good baserunning for part of that. The Braves rank first in the 2012 Baserunning Net Gain statistic featured annually in the Bill James Handbook. Baserunning [...]
The Most Efficient Teams in Baseball
June 08, 2012 The most efficient teams in baseball this year will probably come as no surprise. In the American League, the Orioles and Blue Jays have far exceeded everyone’s expectations and in the National League, the Mets are enjoying a start to their season that no one saw coming. And sure [...]
Kings of the Comebackers
May 23, 2012 Mike Murphy, my radio partner for over twenty years on our Stat of the Week segment here in Chicago, is one of the original Bleacher Bums. Needless to say, he remains a huge Cubs fan. He sent me an email last week suggesting a Stat of the Week. Who is [...]
Shifty Business
May 11, 2012 This is so cool. Have I died and gone to heaven? Since I began my career over 25 years ago, first with Project Scoresheet, then with STATS, Inc., now with Baseball Info Solutions, my main focus in the analytics world has been defense. At Project Scoresheet we came up with a [...]
Who Are the Best Defensive Teams So Far?
May 02, 2012 Last week, we examined Miguel Cabrera’s move across the diamond to third base this year. This week, we’ll expand our early-season defensive analysis to the team level. Cabrera’s Tigers are the worst defensive team in the American League through the first month of the season. Using Defensive Runs [...]
Is the Miguel Cabrera Third Base Experiment Working?
April 24, 2012 So far, OK. I guess Jim Leyland wouldn't call it an experiment because he plans to keep Miguel at third base all season. It was an experiment that failed the last time Leyland tried it when, after 14 games and five errors at the start of the season at third [...]
How Meaningful are the First Ten Games?
April 17, 2012 It’s rather remarkable that such a small sample size can show a trend, but sure enough, based on the last ten years of data, the first ten games of the season do just that. Since 2002, 44 teams have started the season with 3 or fewer wins in their [...]