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John Dewan's Stat of the Week
Is the percentage of runs scored via home runs down this year?
April 28, 2005 In 2004, 37.0% of runs in baseball were scored by a home run. This was higher than both 2003 (35.9%) and 2002 (35.8%). The increase was surprising because it occurred despite the fact that a new drug testing policy was implemented for the season. What about 2005? We now have [...]
Can a team last in on-base percentage get to the playoffs?
April 21, 2005 The two teams that are currently in last place in on-base percentage are the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago White Sox. Remarkably, both teams lead their respective divisions. On top of that, the Cardinals are the defending National League champions while the White Sox currently have the best record in the American [...]
Intentional walks—what's the over/under? On average, are they called over or under once per game?
April 14, 2005 Last season there were 1,379 intentional walks in 2,428 games. That comes out to a little more than one IW every other game. In a recent game a TV anouncer said "It's amazing how many times an intentional walk is followed by an unintentional walk." How amazing is it? [...]
Who are the projected batting and pitching leaders for 2005?
April 07, 2005 Based on hitting projections from The Bill James Handbook Projections Update 2005 and pitching projections from Ron Shandler’s website update to the Baseball Forecaster 2005, this year’s projected year-end leaderboards are: American National Average 1. Suzuki .337 1. Pujols .344 2. V. [...]
Is Spring Training performance a good predictor for the regular season?
March 30, 2005 Based on past research, Spring Training doesn’t tell us much about the regular season. It doesn’t really relate to the regular season if players or teams have poor or average Spring Training camps. In fact, earlier this month two former GMs made virtually the same comment. In separate interviews, Dallas Green and Steve [...]
Who's better—Alex Rodriguez or Bobby Abreu?
March 09, 2005 From an offensive standpoint, it wasn't even close in 2004. Bobby Abreu created 139 runs while A.Rod had 112. Abreu beat Rodriguez in most of the key categories—batting average (.301 to .286), on-base percentage (.428 to 375), slugging percentage (.544 to .512), and even stolen bases (40 to 28). Not only that, [...]
Who are the top 10 projected hitters for the 2005 season?
March 02, 2005 *This information is taken from The Bill James Handbook: Projections Update 2005. Hitter Age Team Runs Created (RC) Pujols, Albert 25 STL 162 Helton, Todd 31 COL 153 Guerrero, Vladimir 29 LAA 141 Ramirez, Manny 33 BOS 133 Abreu, [...]
Can you recognize this pattern? Bako, Bako, Blanco, Blanco, Bako, Blanco
February 23, 2005 The recent acquisition of catcher Henry Blanco by the Chicago Cubs allows pitcher Greg Maddux to team up once again with one of his two personal "caddies" that he's had over the last five years. Blanco and Paul Bako (now with the Dodgers) have caught most of Maddux's starts since 2000, despite being [...]
Are pitchers who throw harder better?
August 30, 2006 A couple of weeks ago we looked at the fact that about half the pitchers who pitched in Major League Baseball throw over 90 miles per hour, but surprisingly, a low percentage of hard throwers are left-handed. This week's question: Does it matter? If you throw hard, does it mean you are [...]
What about bad throws that don't count as errors?
August 24, 2006 How often does a bad throw occur that's not called an error but costs the defensive team a base? An example would be a base hit with a man on first. The runner goes to third, the outfielder attempts to nail him, but comes up short, allowing the batter to get to [...]