Utley header

all-star chase utley to stay in philadelphia through 2015

IN AN EAR­LIER ESSAY on this site (“I def­i­nitely didn’t come here for this” posted on Au­gust 1, 2013), I stated that “If I were the gen­eral man­ager of a base­ball team, I would have a plaque on the wall of my of­fices at work and at home that fea­tured Branch Rick­ey’s fa­mous state­ment: It is better to trade a player a year too early rather than a year too late.” [Read more] “all-star chase utley to stay in philadelphia through 2015”

Baseballs SteshkaWillems 1500

local newspapers local statistics and sabermetrics

SABER­ME­TRI­CIANS have seen their re­search, con­clu­sions, ob­ser­va­tions, and even sug­ges­tions worm their way into both Major League Base­ball and the columns of many sports­writers, the people who as­semble sta­tis­tics for local teams in local news­pa­pers have all but ig­nored the ‘new sta­tis­tics.’ So here are a few notes on local news­pa­pers local sta­tis­tics and sabermetrics. [Read more] “local newspapers local statistics and sabermetrics”

Moneyball movie Hoffman 1500

on baseball and moneyball and bill james

MONEY­BALL by Michael Lewis was a look into the work­ings of the Oak­land A’s base­ball team. Pub­lished in 2003 with the un­likely sub­title, “The Art Of Win­ning An Un­fair Game,” Lewis wanted to know how a team in a ‘small’ market—Oakland being deemed such by MLB—with a budget that con­sis­tently ranked in the lower half of base­ball in terms of team pay­roll could so con­sis­tently play com­pet­i­tive ball with the “rich” teams. [Read more] “on baseball and moneyball and bill james”