I'd like to highlight a really fantastic post made over on U.S.S. Mariner about random variance and regression to the mean. It's about Russell Branyan and other Mariners, but you can fit the names of Braves's players into the discussion and it will still ring true. Dave explains how when looking at small monthly samples it's often just a few lucky hits sneaking through or a few tough luck called strikes that make monthly lines fluctuate so wildly.

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Much has been said about the Braves' inability to score runs this season to back up what has been one of the best pitching staffs in baseball this season; The Braves rank 23rd in baseball in runs scored, but a stellar 5th in runs allowed and the best FIP of any staff in baseball. Much of the blame for their offensive troubles can be placed on an inability to hit for power (6th worst isolated power in baseball).Lost in this doom and gloom about the offense has been a surprisingly good season for the Braves in the plate discipline department; they are doing a very solid job at walking and avoiding strikeouts with the major's 7th best BB/K ratio, right behind offensive powerhouses like the Red Sox, Yankees, and Blue Jays.

Below is a graph showing a breakdown of each batter's performance in the batter's box this season by breaking data down based on whether a pitch was in or out of the strike zone, swung on or watched, and hit or missed. Hopefully we can discover what has made certain hitters contribute positively or negatively towards the Braves's solid plate discipline this season. (click picture to see a larger view)

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Kenshin Kawakami has had a rough introduction to Major League Baseball after eleven seasons playing in Japan’s highest league. Entering his start against Toronto on Friday, Kawakami had made seven starts, throwing 37.2 innings with 8.4 K/9, 4.5 BB/9, and a 5.73 ERA that had been inflated by bad luck on balls in play. After being out of the house all of Friday, I logged back onto Gameday to check the score and was astonished to see that Kawakami had shut down the Blue Jays for eight innings; the same Blue Jays that entering the series had been leading the loaded AL East . I’m going to use Pitch F/x to analyze what went right for Kawakami on Friday that led to his best ML start yet and what can be drawn from it to help him to further success in the future.

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Andruw Jones reached an agreement with the LA Dodgers just in the last few minutes. Terms seem to be 2 years and $36 million, making him the highest paid center fielder out there. Good move by the Dodgers to get him for two years - if he's back to normal they get two years of production for a team that looks like they can contend behind a strong group of prospects and if he actually is declining rapidly, they're only on the hook for $36 million through 2009. Props to Colletti for getting this deal done and basically making Boras look like a fool after he claimed all along they were looking for a long term deal exclusively.

http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071205&content_id=2319266&vkey=news _la&fext=.jsp&c_id=la

For what it's worth I expect a return to normal for Andruw, especially considering the injury rumors floating around. That normal may be a .260/.340/.500, but even that makes him one of the top handful of center fielders in the game and his defense is still well above average. The Braves weren't going to be able to afford him before the season and even with the train wreck he was this year, we just didn't have the payroll to even offer him arbitration. I'm not going to miss the hot dogging in center, the weak swings at breaking balls, or the rally killing ground outs however.