Trivia Tuesday: More Walks Than Strikeouts

Jeff Keppinger is an unlikely leader in BB/K (FanHouse)

Over Yogi Berra's illustrious Yankee career, he walked 704 times and struck out only 413--a rate of 1.7 BB/K. As baseball has changed, very few players even have seasons where they walk more than they've struck out.

In 2010, there have been 6 players who have accomplished this feat. Amazingly, the list is lead by Jeff Keppinger who has a 1.31 BB/K rate (67 BB to 57 K). Who are the 5 other qualified Major Leaguers who have struck out less times than they've walked in 2010?

Bonus question: There are 9 active players with at least 1500 plate appearances who have struck out less than they've walked over their entire career. One is Jeff Keppinger (130 BB to 111 K). Who are the other 8?

Answer the questions in the comments below. I'll reveal the correct answers later

Arbitrator rules in favor of NHL, creates appearance of Kovalchuk free agency

ESPN's ubiquitous "sources" have reported than an arbitrator, Richard Bloch, ruled tonight that the New Jersey Devils' recent 17-year, $102 million contract with superstar Ilya Kovalchuk is invalid because it circumvented the league's salary cap regulations.  Apparently, the Devils had argued that there is no language in the CBA that prohibits the contract, and that the deal is therefore valid.  No such luck for Lou Lamoriello & Co.

The short-term effect of the arbitrator's decision is that Kovalchuk is hereby, technically speaking, a free agent and therefore free to sign with any team, including the Devils.

It won't be long until Kovalchuk dons a Devils uniform once again.

Realistically, however, the arbitrator's decision won't change much at all.  Kovalchuk is going to be a New Jersey Devil, no matter how much the league hated how the Devils massaged the terms of the nullified deal in order to minimize its salary cap hit.  No other team in the league offered $102 million, and Kovy is going to end up signing -- like pretty much all superstar athletes these days -- where the most money is.  In this case, it's the Devils.

Obviously, New Jersey will have to offer fewer years, which will increase Kovy's average annual salary and increase the cap hit that the Devils will suffer.  But think of this in a best case/worst case scenario.  Best case, the old deal passed muster and the Devils get their superstar and a manageable salary cap hit.  Worst case, the deal is nixed and the Devils sign Kovalchuk to a new deal, for probably the same money but with less favorable salary figures.  That's it.  Unless the Kings or some other team ponies more money, but this author hasn't heard anything to that effect.

(Photo Credit: ESPN)

View from the Seats

The view from the seats (Grandstand Section 419). comes from Yanks-Sox at the big ballpark in the Bronx tonight. The Yankees have batted around this inning, finally driving home some of those runners on base and taken a 7-1 lead behind Dustin Moseley.

The Yankees have spread around the hitting wealth but Lance Berkman has broken out of his snide with 3 big hits so far tonight. A beautiful night in the Bronx can end well if Moseley and the Yankees bullpen can make this an uneventful last few innings (doubtful in Yankees-Red Sox games). With the Rays losing 1-0 today (17 Ks a near no-hitter from Toronto's Brandon Morrow), the Yankees can further their AL East lead with a win tonight.

-Andrew

Some Early Morning Blog Thoughts

Up early on this Saturday morning for the FanGraphs/River Ave Blues event today. It was really not easy waking up early on a Saturday, but I'm sure this will be worth it. Some thoughts

-Let the Francisco Cervelli backlash begin. The Cisco Kid was a fun story last season and at the beginning of this year, but I think people are growing tired of his act. He seems to work well with the pitchers and he's passionate back there behind the plate, but that only seems to go so far when you can't hit and your fielding doesn't make up for it. The cool part about Cervelli was that he never hit in the minors and suddenly could hold his own in the Majors while playing with a swagger that endeared him to fans. That only goes so far when you're grounding out every first pitch and dropping pop ups against the Red Sox. As a backup catcher Cervelli is serviceable, but if Posada continues to miss time, he may not cut it in the long run. Now the Jesus Montero-to-the-Bronx wishers get their chance to voice their opinion.

-One of the things I've liked about the Yankees teams the past two years is that they never seem like they're really out of a game. Last year we saw that in the walkoff pies and this year I've felt that they've had a large amount of games where they've at least gotten the tying run to the plate. That type of swagger (feeling you're never really out of a game) usually helps in October.

-What also helps are the at-bats like Jeter had against Jonathan Papelbon last night. While they still ended up losing the game, making him throw all those extra pitches (he had only thrown 4, I believe, before Jeter's walk so if Jeter grounds out first pitch there, it's not a good result). That type of workload may keep Papelbon out of another game this weekend (though with his small sample size failures against the Yankees, I'm not sure that's what we really want).

-While Jeter's bat seems to be coming around and Mark Teixeira is incredibly hot, Curtis Granderson and newcomer Lance Berkman continue to struggle. Berkman hit a bullet in his last AB that required an awkward diving catch from Jacoby Ellsbury---but his box sheet will still show an oh-fer. Complacency is bad but sometimes constantly trying to reinvent the wheel can be worse.

-Walking across a shut down Park Avenue right now, I wonder why Park Ave can be open to everyone, but Yankee Stadium still feels like a closed caste system at times?
-Worry factor (on a 1-10 scale with 10 being panic)? Probably a 2.5-3. There's some things to work out but I still think this is a team that can win the World Series.

Ok, time for the event. Will try to update everyone later with some good knowledge from the panels.

-Andrew

LOST with Lost: One Last LOST Post--The Epilogue

After LOST was done, I felt like I needed a breather until I thought about it again. It was such a rich and deep show and I felt overwhelmed when it was finished. I was also disappointed that there would be no LOST. 6 seasons never felt like enough even though I was happy in the way they concluded the story. I was pretty sure they concluded the story.

Well...that wasn't entirely true. The "Official LOST Epilogue" was leaked on the internet and after watching it on Jezebel, I can agree with them you should be seated when watching it and, yes, "OMFG". If you wanted to know more about the package drops, fertility issues, polar bears, or even (semi-spoiler alert after the jump)

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Working the Count: Yankees Pitches Per Plate Appearance Over the Years

We talked a bit in the last post about the gritty, gutsy Yankee teams of the past. One of the observations brought forth was that this was not only a team that seemed to be good at taking pitches and working counts, but one that also produced the results in good hitter who got on base at a good clip. Let's change the subject now and look at pitches per plate appearance. The general logic in P/PA is that the more pitches a player sees, the better chance he has to either get a good pitch to hit or draw a walk, and the more pitches that team sees, the faster they tire the starting pitcher or face inferior pitchers in the bullpen (although the results don't always correspond). Let's work back from 2010 to see how those teams fared in P/PA (for qualified hitters only in the years we talked about in the last post):

Gardner's patience has made him an even more valuable asset (Yahoo)

2010 (3.90 P/PA)
The Yankees sport 6 regulars above league average with Brett Gardner on a historic P/PA pace. Cano and Granderon's spots on this list show, however, that 2010 results haven't exactly been tied to P/PA (though 3.42 ties Cano's career high). Swisher continues to be a high P/PA guy for the Yankee and A-Rod, Posada, and Teixeira provide a patient middle of the order to wear down opposing pitchers. 3.9 P/PA is a lot: if you think about it, this means that an average run through the Yankees batting order produces over 35 pitches meaning that starters will be lucky to get around the lineup 3 times.
 

	Pit/PA ▾
Brett Gardner*	4.61
Curtis Granderson*	4.11
Nick Swisher#	4.04
Alex Rodriguez	3.96
Jorge Posada#	3.95
Mark Teixeira#	3.87
League Average	3.83
Derek Jeter	3.54
Francisco Cervelli	3.54
Robinson Cano*	3.42
Team Total	3.90

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/5/2010.

2009 (3.88)
Nick Swisher was a huge addition to this team and the list as he came over to the Yankees after leading the majors in 2008 (at 4.53) and takes over for Bobby Abreu who was a P/PA cog in the Yankees lineup. Mark Teixeira has impressive first-year results as well as he takes over for the patient Jason Giambi in the lineup. Amazingly only Jeter (who had an MVP-type season but has been below league average his entire career) and Cano fall below the league average putting this group at a very impressive 3.88 P/PA for the entire 2009 season.

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The "Nitty Gritty" Yankee Teams of the Late 90s

Last night I got into a discussion with a few friends about baseball. The discussion moved at one point to the Joe Torre teams of the late 90s. I had mentioned how on base percentage was, in my opinion, the most important statistic to measure a team's offensive efficiency--though I mentioned a hollow OBP without power was worthless. I was trying to explain weighted on base average (or wOBA, a category that Dave Cameron of FanGraphs does much better and Alex Remington of Big League Stew adds to) when one of my friends piped up and said that the the offense of those 90s Torre teams were built less on OBP and more on taking pitches and their nitty, gritty mentality. Although I think that pitches per plate appearance has a good deal to do with OBP (more pitches seen usually means patience, more pitches wears out the pitcher and causes them to throw more balls, etc.), I thought that this idea that these Yankee teams didn't win because of OBP and wOBA was false. It turns out I was right.

I think most of this misconception lies in the fact that OBP wasn't exactly a mainstream topic before 2003 when Michael Lewis' Moneyball hit the scene. The truth is that teams were thinking about this before that time, but like good organizations do, they decided not to share that trade secret with others. If you take a look at those Yankee teams, you remember Paul O'Neill's warrior-like ABs, but you forget how they ended many times: with him jogging to first base. Using FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference (and a 50 PA minimum), here was what those Yankee teams looked like:

"The Warror" did more than just foul off pitches (Yankee Yapping)

1995
I add this one in just to show when the change occurred. Obviously, this was not a Torre team (Buck Showalter ran the show), but some of the seeds of Torre teams were planted. The 1995 Yankee team put up a .357 OBP which was good for 2nd in the American League. But the OBP was pretty empty of power. Although they had 280 doubles (2nd in the AL), they had only 122 HR (12th out of 14). Paul O'Neill had 22, Bernie Williams 18, Mike Stanley 18...and no one else had more than 7. The starting infield of Don Mattingly, Pat Kelly, Tony Fernandez, and Wade Boggs accumulated 21 combined. While Paul O'Neill (.387 OBP, .388 wOBA), Bernie Williams (.392 OBP, .385 wOBA), and Wade Boggs (.412 OBP, .373 wOBA) carried the offense, Dion James (.317 wOBA), Luis Polonia (.304), Tony Fernandez (.296), and Pat Kelly (.293) all were black holes. The team made the playoffs as the first American League Wild Card but they were disposed of in a tough 5-game loss in the American League Division Series to the Seattle Mariners.

1996
In 1996, the Yankees got rid of most of the dead weight from the 1995 lineup. They replaced Dion James with Tim Raines (.383 OBP/.377 wOBA), Luis Polonia with Ruben Rivera (.381/.368), Tony Fernandez with Derek Jeter (.370/.353), and Pat Kelly with Mariano Duncan (.352/.364). The team OBP ticked up to .360 and the hitting improved even further when they swapped Ruben Sierra for Cecil Fielder mid-season. Paul O'Neill continued to be a force in the Yankees lineup, walking 15.5% of the time and putting up a .411 OBP. The team gave way too many PAs (219) to Andy Fox (probably the worst Yankee hitter of the past 20 years that they've given that many PAs to) and Gerald Williams was never the answer in left, but this team was able to win the World Series because of those improvements it made.

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MLB.TV overcharges for its iPhone app

You know what really grinds my gears?  The fact that MLB charges $14.99 for its At Bat 2010 iPhone app.

As we have discussed previously, it costs $119.95 for a one-year premium subscription to MLB.TV.  However, this price does NOT include the $14.99 At Bat 2010 iPhone app.  So if I want to watch my games online or via my PS3, I'm all set.  But if I want to watch games on my iPhone, I need to fork up another fifteen bucks.  Ridiculous.

Here is the email I just received:

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Amar'e Stoudemire Lights the Menorah? (and other weekly questions)

O.J. Simpson is still not a Jew, but if the newest New York Knick star, Amar'e Carsares Stoudemire, has his way, he may be considered for Adam Sandler's next "Hanukkah Song". Stoudemire says that he may have some Jewish roots on his mother's side and wants to find out more about them.  If you follow Amar'e on Twitter, you may have seen some odd tweets recently about his pilgrimage to Israel and his search for his "Hebrew" roots.We may have to change his Twitter handle from "Amareisreal" to "AmareIsrael", especially considering this interview he filmed with an Israeli news station (H/T Ian):

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Late to the Party: My Reaction on a Busy Trade Deadline for the Yankees

I know, I know, I'm late to the party. But after writing a trade deadline wishlist, I was shocked to see the Yankees check off quite a few boxes. While none of the moves guarantees the Yankees a chance at the playoffs (much less the pennant or the World Series), the deadline transactions shows that Brian Cashman is willing to shrewdly work the system towards the Yankees benefit in different ways than they truly have before. Let's take a look at the deadline moves and, putting them in the context of what they improved on, show that while it's not a clear home run for the Yankees, the July 31st moves were clearly a win.

Austin Kearns adds a solid OF bat (ESPN)

Austin Kearns: Probably my favorite move of all just because it fit a need perfectly. Kearns can play all three outfield positions and is extremely solid out there (with a plus arm). He's played most of his career in rightfield where he has a 58.0 UZR in over 6,000 innings, but moved back to leftfield in 2010 for the first time since 2003. After Kearns was a solid hitter from 2000-2007, his hitting dipped to below average numbers for 2008 and 2009 (with much lower BABIPs) and some felt he may be slowing down. But Kearns has been much better in 2010 (though some of that is buoyed by a great start to the season--.689 OPS since May 18th) and the Yankees were looking for a solid right-handed bat off their bench.

Kearns basically replaces Marcus Thames in the field (big win) and Curtis Granderson at bat against lefties (another big win). Kearns has a career OPS of .799 vs. lefties and his .353 wOBA and .383 OBP are exactly what the Yankees need from him when we consider Granderson has given them a .252 OBP, .538 OPS and a woeful .242 wOBA vs. southpaws. The smart move against lefties would be to play Brett Gardner in CF, Kearns in left, and DH Thames (and more on this below). The fear is that Kearns hot start masked a declining player who will flounder playing for his first big-market team--but I don't see that. For what the Yankees need Kearns for (platoon righty and bench bat), Kearns seems to make perfect sense). That he basically replaced Colin Curtis on the roster is a win (despite the fact I like Curtis). And all for the ole PTBNL or cash it was a shrewd and cheap move in what turned into a light outfield market.

Lance Berkman: The Big Puma is no longer and Fat Elvis seems to reign now--but regardless of which nickname you use, Berkman is a player who can certainly help the Yankees down the stretch. With Nick Johnson in a black hole of injury, the Yankees have been working through a platoon of Marcus Thames and Lance Berkman with a few games of Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada in their DH slot. For all intents and purposes, Berkman replaces Miranda on the roster. No matter how much I liked Miranda in the little time I saw of him, this can't be seen as anything but a win. Now it's never as clear cut as that, though. Lance Berkman is not the same guy who finished in the top-5 in MVP voting 4 different years. He's not even close to the player who put up a Wins Above Replacement (WAR) number of 7.5 in 2008 (only Albert Pujols, Chase Utley and David Wright were higher that year). But Berkman is still a premium hitter who knows how to get on base (career OBP of .409). The biggest problem for Berkman has that he's been bad vs. lefties this year (.188/.278/.281 w/ 1 HR) and was not as good away from Minute Maid Park (almost 200 points lower OPS). But the fact that he's going to have Marcus Thames as his right-handed DH caddy and that he's moving to a good hitters park in the Bronx should alleviate some of those concerns--as does his excellent 16.4% BB rate and his top-20 rank in pitcher per plate appearance (4.14) which makes him another patient, dangerous hitter to work through.

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