I recently got an email from a regular reader worth sharing here. He wrote: Do you know if anyone has done any research into the effects of the strength of schedule in evaluating teams and how good or how not so good they may be and the effect it has on individual player statistics? Think [...]
Archive for the ‘Big picture ideas’ Category
Looking for a good baseball researcher
Posted: 23rd August 2010 by Graham Womack in Big picture ideas1
10 great baseball movies that haven’t been made
Posted: 20th August 2010 by Graham Womack in Big picture ideasGame of Shadows: With Moneyball in production, one has to wonder what great baseball book may next become a film. My vote is the best work on the Steroid Era which documented the rises and falls of Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, and Marion Jones, while introducing characters like showboating steroid dealer Victor Conte and dumpster-diving [...]
Here’s a trivia question question that may stump even the most ardent of baseball fans and historians: What’s an offensive feat measured over the course of a season that Wally Berger, Nate Colbert, and Sammy Sosa have accomplished and Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays, and other immortals have not? Answer: Colbert, Berger, and Sosa are among [...]
10 players who might have hit .400 for the 1999 Colorado Rockies
Posted: 2nd July 2010 by Graham Womack in Big picture ideasTags: baseball players who never hit .400, baseball reference stat converter, Players who might have hit .400 for the 1999 Colorado Rockies
At the end of yesterday’s post, I noted that the stat converter on Baseball-Reference says Home Run Baker would have .413 if his 1913 season was translated to the 1999 Colorado Rockies, and I wondered aloud how many other players would hit .400 there. The idea stuck in my head, and I started playing around [...]
An open letter to Baseball-Reference and the statistical powers that be
Posted: 22nd May 2010 by Graham Womack in Baseball Hall of Fame, Big picture ideasTags: 15th and final year Hall of Fame BBWAA, Hank Gowdy 17 years on Hall ballot, new baseball stat Hall of Fame +/-, new Hall of Fame stat
To whom it may concern: On the heels of a pair of great Baseball-Reference blog posts this past week ranking the best pitchers and position players not in the Hall of Fame based on their Wins Above Replacement data, I may have created a new baseball statistic and found another way to gauge worthiness for [...]
The Hall of Limited Fame: The Inaugural Class
Posted: 2nd May 2010 by Graham Womack in Baseball Hall of Fame, Big picture ideasTags: Baseball Hall of Fame Single Season, One hit wonders hall of fame, SABR
I had my first meeting on Saturday as a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and this site came up in conversation with the group. While we waited for others to arrive for our breakfast at Lefty O’Doul’s in San Francisco, I mentioned my most popular post here, The 10 best baseball players [...]
Why the baseball draft is worse than the NFL Draft or NBA Draft
Posted: 17th April 2010 by Graham Womack in Big picture ideasTags: baseball draft busts, MLB draft vs NFL Draft or NBA Draft, mlb first-year player draft
Unlike football and basketball where I eagerly await the drafts each year, study mock drafts in the weeks and months before, and try to envision who my favorite teams will select, I don’t feel the same anticipation with baseball. I can’t remember the last time I cared to read a mock First-Year Player Draft in [...]
The Continental League: It could still happen
Posted: 10th April 2010 by Graham Womack in Big picture ideasTags: best cities without baseball, Branch Rickey Continental League, cities most deserving of a baseball team, could there be another baseball league?
In 1959, a group led by Branch Rickey announced plans for a Continental League with teams in Atlanta, Buffalo, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York and Toronto. Different than former rival circuits such as the American Association, Players’ League or Federal League, Rickey and his associates envisioned a complementary league. However, they folded August [...]
I just finished re-watching the 1999 documentary, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, about the Detroit Tigers Hall of Fame first baseman, when the thought occurred to look up Greenberg’s career statistics. Greenberg is an interesting case. Juxtaposed against our current era, where everyone except Omar Vizquel seems to rack up 500 career home [...]