*From 1901-2010 I’m in love with the new Baseball-Reference WAR data. WAR, or Wins Above Replacement, is the uber-stat that attempts to encompass the total value of what makes a player, erm, valuable. With the development of FanGraphs and other saber-slanted websites, WAR has become a pretty well known statistic. If you’re new to the game, check out the glossary… Read more →
Andres Torres, career minor league journeyman reborn in 2010, has been a major part of the Giants offense — and defense — this season. One of the reasons that Torres has been so valuable to the G’s this year has been his plate approach. Torres has an excellent BB% of 13.9% at the moment — league average tends to be… Read more →
As Pablo Sandoval continues to struggle this season — currently hitting a wOBA of .326 — it seems that everyone is in search for an answer. Two major things stick out to me: (1) His power, as determined by ISO — which remember, league average is around .150 — has plummeted. Pablo’s 2010 ISO of .145 is about 80 points… Read more →
This one speaks for itself. A graph of fastball velocity by appearance from our favorite flame-throwing closer.
In honor of Tim’s 13 strikeout game against the Marlins on Tuesday, here’s a graph depicting every start in Lincecum’s career and how many strikeouts he had in that particular start. For now, Lincecum’s career high for K’s in a game came against the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2009. In that game, Lincecum pitched 9 innings while striking out 15, walking… Read more →
Outside of on-field performance, there’s a few things that will always endear me to a pitcher. Stirrups, check. Weird facial hair, check. Funky pitching motions, double-check. As a fan of the Giants and their farm system, sometime around 2007 Sergio Romo caught my eye when he completely devastated the California League. If you ever read any scouting report on Romo,… Read more →
A quick graph. I’m trying something new — let me know if it’s helpful or not. What you’re looking at is Tim Lincecum’s fastball velocity by inning. The game data is from his first start — and victory — of the year against the Houston Astros. Each red dashed-line indicates the end of an inning. So, you’ve got 7 dashed-lines… Read more →
How many times this past season did Aaron Rowand swing at a slider and miss completely? Thanks to the magic (and nerdery) of PitchF/X we can answer that question. In 2009, Rowand swung at, and missed, the slider 63 separate times. Seems more than that, doesn’t it? For most of the season, the slider seemed to give Rowand a good… Read more →
Run prevention is a hugely important team skill in baseball. Baseball highlights will often be composed of those who can hit the longest home runs, but having a top defensive team can do wonders for a team’s record. For example, take the Giants. Collectively as a team the Giants can’t hit their way out of wet paper bag. Despite Sandoval… Read more →
/shameless plug alert This morning for Beyond the Boxscore I wrote an article detailing the results of the 2000 NL MVP race along with some observations on the Kent vs. Bonds debate that usually pops up among Giants fans. I ranked the Top-5 Finishers by total runs, here’s the results in graph format: (Click to enlarge) You can read the… Read more →