The financial world has it’s Wall Street, baseball has Oakland. At least that is what it looked like last year as GM Billy Beane added Matt Holliday for a few promising commodities and some penny stocks then dealt him mid-season for a haul that had a better 52-week outlook from their analysts. Of the three [...]

We don’t know how the weather was at the beginning of March in your area but BDD’s Team Preview series comes in like a lamb with Jeff Lubbers’ preview of the 103-loss Washington Nationals. That’s 103 losses in back-to-back seasons, by the way. Manny Acta is gone but Lubbers isn’t as he returns for his [...]

In the past few years a number of teams have introduced variable pricing to their ticket prices in one way or another.  For the most part this has only affected games such as Opening Day or when either the Yankees or Red Sox are in town.  In 2010, however, the San Francisco Giants will be [...]

Last week I attempted to turn on its head the prevailing notion that older players are being phased out of baseball.  I came to the conclusion that what some thought to be a trend in 2009 was not (yet) indicative of a long term trend.  However, after looking at the free agent contracts given out [...]

Move over Seattle, the Minnesota Twins are the new darlings of the 2009-2010 Hot Stove Season.  In addition to what appears to be an increasing likelihood of signing Joe Mauer to a long term deal, the Twins have made what have been largely regarded as shrewd offseason moves with the acquisitions of Jim Thome, Orlando [...]

Don’t get me wrong – I find the latest and greatest defensive metrics as interesting as the next baseball stathead.  Though I’m still in the process of understanding all of them, at the very least I am thrilled that metrics other than errors and fielding percentage exist to gauge defensive proficiency.  Now that these statistics [...]

Recently BDD’s very own Zach Sanders wondered whether or not statistics were ruining baseball.  The sentiments he expressed from both sides of the argument certainly made sense.  On one hand any time a fan can interpret and understand new sources of information their enjoyment of the game will increase.  At the same time it can [...]

Perhaps one of the more amusing outcomes of the early 2000’s-love affair with on-baseball percentage was tracking those who were dubbed the kings of Three True Outcomes.  These players had the highest percentage of their plate appearances result in a walk, strikeout or home run.  Their at bats were most likely to be nothing more [...]

Even baseball fans with little more than a vague understanding of statistics are generally aware of the fallacies of using the RBI, perhaps the most situational-dependent baseball statistic, as a primary measure of runs production.  That being said it generally does not stop players with high RBI totals from being labeled excellent ‘run-producers.’  One simply [...]

Partially lost among the news of the Jason Bay signing was that of Mark DeRosa inking a two year deal with the San Francisco Giants.  For a team desperately in need of a big bat to join the upper echelon of major league teams, this was a signing that will not exactly arouse the fan [...]