Baseball Engineer

Manny turns in his Hall of Fame ticket

John Cappello — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:57:56 +0000

The recent retirement of Manny Ramirez was more than just a pre-emptive strike on his behalf against having to serve a 100-game sentence for testing positive for steroids a second time.

The action all but eliminated him from any future consideration for the Baseball Hall of Fame. [...]

Deviating from the Past

John Cappello — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:07:42 +0000

Every baseball ranking—even those based on statistics—is biased in some way. It’s what makes practically every list debatable.

For instance, take a list as fundamental as “hit leaders.” As a counting stat, a player’s hit total is impacted by his place in the batting order as well as his lineup’s offensive strength, two factors that have [...]

Measuring a Pitcher’s Ace Factor

John Cappello — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 04:52:50 +0000

Below is a statistical collection of the seasonal performances of every starting pitcher between 1950 and 2010.

Each pitcher’s season, represented by a blue diamond, was measured by a calculation that didn’t consider any of the usual suspects typically used in measuring a pitcher’s effectiveness, such as ERA, strikeouts, WHIP, shutouts, or even ground ball percentages, contact [...]

With great power comes great responsibility

John Cappello — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 15:57:16 +0000

September 24, 1988: While pointing his finger to the sky and staring tauntingly at rival Carl Lewis of the United States, Ben Johnson of Canada crosses the finish line as he breaks the 100-meter world record at the Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. Three days later, Johnson is stripped of his gold medal and [...]

The Next Stat / Checking in with the 2011 HOF Ballot

John Cappello — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:59:42 +0000

In the latest issue of ESPN the Magazine, Peter Keating trumpets “the next great stat” in sports. It’s called Win Probability (WP), and it can be used at any time during a contest to answer the question, “what are the odds at this very moment of a team winning this game?”

WP is an intriguing concept [...]

Baseball Bloggers Alliance Day

John Cappello — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:41:53 +0000

It’s like having a day of recognition for the microwave oven, or more to the point, the Internet. Today is Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA) Day, and the members of this fast-growing organization are celebrating by (how else?) posting a few words of reflection on their sites. You can read more about the BBA’s mission in [...]

Jamie Moyer, Time Traveler

John Cappello — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:30:09 +0000

Philly.com has reported that pitcher Jamie Moyer had his ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow repaired today in a procedure now famously known as Tommy John Surgery. Moyer wholeheartedly plans to return to the major leagues for the 2012 season at age 49, saying “Thanks to the advances in surgery many pitchers have made [...]

Raw Baseball Spirit

John Cappello — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:47:27 +0000

No matter what your MO is within the world of baseball, as a fan you can always use a reset button every once in a while. Let this story about an amazing young man named Josiah Viera be your reset button today. His pure spirit for the game is what I imagine [...]

The Day the World met the Ryan Express

John Cappello — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 15:56:02 +0000

Young Nolan Ryan

Nolan Ryan was far from the perfect pitcher.

He walked the most batters in baseball history (2,795), 52% more than the next highest total belonging to Steve Carlton (1,833). He lost the most games of any pitcher (292) except for Cy Young (316) and Pud Galvin (310), two players who peaked in the [...]

Sorry Albert, It’s Votto’s Time

John Cappello — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 05:38:49 +0000

Ranking the 2010 NL MVP Candidates

[Author's note: Irony can be pretty ironic, I suppose. It's not the first time that an MVP favorite tanked in the post-season, but Joey Votto did just that, going 1-for-10 against the Phillies as his Cincinnati Reds went three and out. It's worthy to mention that the ballots [...]