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John Dewan's Stat of the Week
Bill James Handbook Excerpt: Injury Update
The following essay is an excerpt from The Bill James Handbook 2022, which is available at bookstores now and can be purchased at ACTASports.com. The book features essays, stats, leaderboards, and much more. It's more than 600 pages of baseball goodness! by ALEX VIGDERMAN Orioles center fielder Cedric Mullins [...]
Bill James Handbook Excerpt: Shohei Ohtani
By MARK SIMON The following essay is an excerpt from The Bill James Handbook 2022, available now from ACTA Sports. Sometimes in baseball, things happen early in the season that set a tone for the entire year. In Shohei Ohtani’s case, his first series of the season foreshadowed much of what followed. He lived up to the hype. The Home Run Ohtani homered in the ninth [...]
Bill James Handbook Excerpt: The Favorite Toy
By SARAH THOMPSON The following essay is an excerpt from The Bill James Handbook 2022, available now from ACTA Sports. Bill James devised a system, dubbed “The Favorite Toy,” that determines the likelihood of a player achieving a certain milestone. Since most of these milestones are counting stats, the shortened 2020 season did a number on most people’s chances of hitting milestones [...]
The Braves Won The Marathon
By MARK SIMON On April 6, the Braves fell to 0-4 after a walk-off loss against the Washington Nationals. “I don't think anybody is too worried,” said pitcher Drew Smyly. On July 5, Max Fried allowed six runs in an 11-1 loss to the Pirates. “Coming out of my hand, it didn’t feel like I was throwing pitches that were really sharp…” Fried told reporters [...]
2021 Fielding Bible Award Winners
SIS is pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Fielding Bible Awards. This marks the 16th season that we have honored the best defensive players in MLB. The awards are voted on by a panel of experts who consider statistical analysis, the eye test, and any other factors that they wish to consider. This year’s winners are: Position Name Team 1B Paul Goldschmidt Cardinals 2B Whit Merrifield Royals SS Carlos [...]
2021 Fielding Bible Awards Preview Part II
By MARK SIMON Last week and this week, we’re running a two-part series on the top candidates for The Fielding Bible Awards, which will be announced later this month. The Fielding Bible Awards are voted on by a panel of experts who can vote based on whatever criteria they choose, including observation and subjective judgement, as well as statistical analysis. [...]
2021 Fielding Bible Awards Preview Part I
By MARK SIMON For the next two weeks, this space will feature a two-part series on the top candidates for The Fielding Bible Awards, which will be announced later this month. The Fielding Bible Awards are voted on by a panel of 12 experts who can vote based on whatever criteria they choose, including observation and subjective judgement, as well as statistical [...]
An Unlikely Defensive Runs Saved Champion
By MARK SIMON The 2021 team leader in Defensive Runs Saved was … the Rangers. Yes, the 60-102 Rangers. That’s not a misprint. They finished with 85, three more than the second-place Cardinals. The Rangers had by far the worst winning percentage of any team to lead the majors in Defensive Runs Saved. No other leader had won fewer than [...]
Biggest MLB Surprises in 2021
By MARK SIMONOn this week’s edition of The SIS Baseball Podcast, we spoke with New York Times national baseball writer Tyler Kepner about the biggest surprises of the 2021 MLB season.These are some of the highlights:The Giants are the biggest surprise, as they were projected to finish below .500 but have cleared 100 wins and [...]
2021 Minor League Standouts
By MARK SIMONThe Braves have a long line of excellent defensive center fielders, from Marquis Grissom and Andruw Jones to more recently with Ender Inciarte. There’s another pretty good one in the pipeline in Michael Harris.Harris, a 20-year-old who was born in Dekalb, Georgia, not far from Atlanta, led all minor league center fielders with [...]