Two years ago I devised a plan to better evaluate front offices besides the typical wins and losses used by many casual fans. I perform this evaluation by creating specific metrics using preseason projected statistics and… Read more »
Posts by Stephen Shaw
Two years ago I devised a plan to better evaluate front offices besides the typical wins and losses used by many casual fans. I perform this evaluation by creating specific metrics using preseason projected statistics and… Read more »
During this past off-season I’d been thinking a lot about why it appears major league teams can’t perpetuate success once they have experienced it. By success, I mean making it to the playoffs. There are… Read more »
It seems a majority of teams like to play the market. This can work, considering there is always the potential to find undervalued prospects, but the market is becoming increasingly efficient. By this I mean… Read more »
Last off-season I began work on a framework that would better explain how front offices performed each season by utilizing a couple of frequently used economic measures. My goal was to gain a better understanding… Read more »
Writers Mark Sands & Stephen Shaw join guest host Brandon Lee to talk about the World Series, hold a free agent prediction draft, discuss offseason diversions. and look back on memorable offseason moments.
Last week, I took a look at defensive shifts and how players could possibly fight back by understanding game theory. We used bunt probability research conducted by Tom Tango to give us a better idea… Read more »
Barring a rule change outlawing them, it seems defensive shifts are here to stay. In fact, teams are using them increasingly and becoming more efficient at them in the process. This is not a good… Read more »
I am pretty sure by now we all know what Statcast is, have most likely seen it in use, and (for those of us who have been listening to the BttP Podcasts) are aware of its… Read more »
Before the season, I wrote about Dee Gordon and how he might add value to the Marlins this season if certain benchmarks were met. The main items of concern I laid out was his ability… Read more »
In this installment of “In-Season Scouting”, my amateurish attempt to evaluate players during the season, we will take a peek at Angels pitcher Matt Shoemaker. After a half cup of coffee in 2013, Shoemaker came up… Read more »
In my last post I provided a brief introduction to the concept of creative destruction and how teams and players should consider embracing the principles behind it. The plan for this post is to dig… Read more »
While watching the Angels and Blue Jays game the other day, Blue Jays broadcaster Buck Martinez mentioned that C.J. Wilson had expressed to him before the game that he had re-invented himself six times during… Read more »
Last month I took a stab at creating a way to evaluate front offices using the economic principle of gross domestic product. Out of that concept came the measure “gross domestic wins” (GDW), which uses… Read more »
While waiting around for sample sizes to become large enough to perform quality statistical analysis, let’s take a minute to perform some basic “eye test” inspections of a few players. Statistical analysis is only one part… Read more »
After I titled this post, I began to think I may have bit off more than I can chew, but let’s at least take a stab at determining how Oakland continues to succeed in an unorthodox way – and I’m… Read more »
Earlier this week we took a look at how each team performed in free agency, with respect to the price they paid their new signers, and those free agents’ predicted WAR values. By doing this… Read more »
Now that the 2015 season is upon us and a majority of free agents have signed with their respective teams, I thought I would see by how much each team valued a win in dollars… Read more »
Last week I tried to assemble a conceptual framework for evaluating general managers and front offices by applying a couple of economic principles to player acquisitions and departures. This week we will add a few more… Read more »
The following is a conceptual framework for what I hope becomes a model to help us baseball lovers better evaluate certain aspects of baseball organizations such as general managers effectiveness and farm system efficiency.
Rickie Weeks going to the Mariners yesterday moved a lot of eyebrows, raising some, furrowing others. Weeks’s deal will be worth $2 million for one year, according to Jim Bowden. To the casual fan, this… Read more »
There has been a lot of hype about the new MLBAM StatCast system, a player-tracking/raw data machine. With all of this new data will come a need for more data analysis, and most likely, a… Read more »
“This post goes along with my previous post in which I found that ‘…an All-Star selection can increase a player’s salary significantly; on average by $1,517,550.’ What I did not demonstrate there, but intend to explain here, is how that increase in a player’s salary the year after an All-Star selection relates to their statistical performance in that same year.”
“I am fascinated with MLB player salaries (all sports salaries for that matter), and I wanted to know if it was worth anything to the player to be selected to an All-Star team. I know players typically have incentives built into their contract for achievements such as this, but they usually fall under the category of a one time bonus. What about their actual salary? Is it affected if the player makes an All-Star team?”
Ever wonder which university has produced the highest-paid baseball players? This is a list of the total salaries of all MLB players that attended each NCAA university from 1985-2013 ranked from highest to lowest. This does… Read more »
“Our journey down the forgotten memory lane continues with the final twelve pitchers on our list of pitchers who have only one career appearance without recording a single out.”
“Thousands of pitchers have played major league baseball. Most of us only remember the greats and rightly so. Hall of Famers like Walter Johnson, Sandy Koufax, and Greg Maddux. These are great pitchers and should be remembered. But what about all the others? There are a few that have slipped through the cracks that I find very interesting.”
There are a few items the Marlins must address if they are going to reap the full benefit of acquiring Dee Gordon from the Dodgers. First, the Marlins, and manager Mike Redmond, will need to… Read more »
