Billy Paultz Reconsidered

The results of the voting for the annual Internet Baseball Awards are in. This is essentially a survey of Sabermetric nation. Yes, BPR is a voter.
Random observations:
The MVPs are so obvious - Joe Mauer got 1,153 of 1,290 possible first-place votes, Albert Pujols 1,045 of 1,105 - that the BBWAA can’t screw them up in the […]

[Read more →]

Here’s an interesting piece claiming that Cole Hamels was essentially the same pitcher in 2008 and 09, but lucky in the first year and unlucky in the second.
I know, that sounds ridiculous, but there is considerable research out there that suggests that while pitchers have some control of their strikeout, walk and home-run rates, they have […]

[Read more →]

Both the Phillies and the Yankees have had AAA franchises in Scranton-Wilkes-Barre. Here’s a pretty nice look at the Series from, to that area, a local angle.
And speaking of local angles….
Chase Utley has won over at least one New York scribe.
Tim McCarver made a good point that I missed in last night’s live blog: You […]

[Read more →]

We are live from Chez Gross…
7:45 p.m.- Phils starters being introduced. I know TV flattens sound, but I thought the boos for Jimmy “Shut him up” Rollins were fairly subdued. Don’t hear any evidence that there’s a Philly presence in the crowd, though. Could do without the music….
7:50- Over on Comcast, Sixers are being lit up […]

[Read more →]

One could make an argument that, by formal analysis, the Yankees have the better offense, defense, starting pitching and bullpen.
Problem:  I just went through the last 30 World Series at length. There were 22 in which, by my reckoning, a superior team could be identified. In those 22, the better team went 10-12. (The other eight I considered, […]

[Read more →]

of this World Series matchup:
1. Secondary-market tickets are going for about $50 percent more in Philly than in New York. With the I-95 corridor proximity of the teams, ticket brokers are expecting a bigger Philly presence at the games in Yankee Stadium than the other way around.
“We’ll be watching prices in Philadelphia and New York […]

[Read more →]

My all time favorite newspaper headline appeared in the long-gone Philadelphia Journal, a sports-oriented tabloid that could best be described as a cross between the Philly Daily News and one of the colorful, scandalous London Fleet Street papers.
The story was on an economist from the University of Pennsylvania winning the Nobel Prize. It appeared during […]

[Read more →]

I’m not ready yet to really break down the World Series (especially since we don’t know who’s going to be in it), but I do want to say it’s nice to see the national media - even the stat-geek media to which I pledge allegiance - start to acknowledge what the Phils have already done.
In […]

[Read more →]

The truest sentence in yesterday’s NLCS preview was this one:
The problem, as always, is that everything we know about these teams could completely fail to manifest itself over a 4-7-game stretch.
It’s not a problem, really. It’s fun.
Consider:
Ryan Howard, who hits lefties like Mario Mendoza, hit a two-run double off a lefty.
Andre Ethier, who if anything […]

[Read more →]

I was all set to pick the Phillies over the Dodgers until I read the following:
“Actually, about the last three times he’s been out there, I think he’s been good. Also, sometime when you have a decent outing and then you take a break, I think that can be good for you and it has […]

[Read more →]