David Studenmund has posted an article detailing the essays and statistics contained in The Hardball Times Annual 2007. I have seen the final product, and it's spectacular (I know I'm biased, but honestly, it is). If you like The Hardball Times website, or if you simply like great baseball writing and research, I suggest you buy the Annual...now.

I have an article up on my blog on what the numbers say.

At some point Marc is going to start yelling at me for posting these technical, boring posts on BtB. Until he does, I'll continue writing about things the best runs/win estimators, which is the topic of today's post. In a nutshell, the importance of these methods (and there are a bunch) is to best convert a player's marginal runs (like runs above average or runs above replacement) into wins (above average or above replacement). Runs are a nice measurement, but baseball is all about wins and losses.

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Marc wants me to introduce myself, so I guess I should start by saying that my name is David Gassko, as my handle here might have given away. I write a weekly column for The Hardball Times, and also have been blogging at Statistically Speaking for almost a year now. I'll be writing here at BtB now as well, semi-regularly. I hope you enjoy my writing, and if not, I hope you enjoy my wrath.

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