(This seemed more appropriate as a FanShot, but I needed to be able to format it slightly differently than a FanShot would allow. So, here we are.)

Here's a photo from Sunday's game:

(Photo by Dave Reginek/Getty Images)

Prince on the left, Miggy on the right. Both pointing. Both looking like badasses. I saw this picture and thought, "Yup, this thing is screaming for a hilarious caption -- and I know just the people who could make one."

Do your best, BYB!

A thought just occurred to me... there are some of us here who are going to Tiger playoff games. One or two of us might enjoy cold frosty beverages. So, why not combine those two pursuits? The BYB meetup games for the past two summers have been tons of fun, and it's always nice to meet people in person who comment on here.

To make things easy, I propose meeting somewhere in the Beer Hall, which is near the carousel in the LF corner of the park on the lower level, before the game. Our seats are probably all over the place, but at least we can get together and talk Tigers beforehand. I'll start: I'll try to shoot for 7:30 for ALDS Game 4; I'll be wearing a Polanco jersey, and I answer to the name Jason. (I might be a bit late, as I'm driving in from Toronto, and yes, I'm just that hardcore.)

So, if you're going and want to meet up with fellow BYBers in this most exciting time of year, post your details below and let's do this up!

No, this is not a reference to that short period in the late '70s when the funk-rock band "Eric Burdon and War" was fronted by a young Bob Welch after Burdon left to pursue a solo career. (Welch even re-wrote the lyrics to "Low Rider" to be an ode to the split-fingered fastball. It was a dark time for music.)

Since Our Man Justin is having a phenomenal year, it's been mentioned a lot in the media lately that he could potentially win the most games in a season since Bob Welch's 27-6 year in 1990. So, off to baseball-reference.com I went, and I noticed something very bizarre about WAR and pitching, at least in Welch's case.

I'm aware that wins, as a pitching stat, are overrated. I'm also aware that the 1990 Oakland A's went to the World Series, so they were a pretty good team. Regardless, I was pretty surprised to see Welch's 1990 season as being described by WAR as being like, say, The Black Crowes: good, but not great. Consider these two seasons, '87 with the Dodgers and '90 with the A's:

Statistically, these seasons look pretty similar, except for Welch's record; yet, his WAR seems to have plummeted by over 4. Full disclosure: I'm not entirely sure what goes into WAR, but I do know it's a pretty neat statistical toy we can use to evaluate players.

But, is it valid for pitchers? Don't get me wrong, Justin's juicy 8.7 WAR this season (as of today) looks pretty darn impressive, and it is. However, we might just want to take it with a grain of salt before we point to it as the be-all, end-all of evaluating a pitcher's value for the team.

(P.S.: Welch finished 9th in MVP voting in 1990.)

In today's News, Tony Paul — a BBWAA writer — made the case for Justin Verlander to be voted the AL MVP this year. He also outlined the BBWAA's apparent distaste, in recent years, for pitchers (especially starters) to be voted MVP.

"The Cy Young is for pitchers and the MVP is for position players," goes the conventional wisdom. "Pitchers only pitch once every five days, but position-players are out there every game." But, consider...

• Any one hitter is one-ninth of a batting order (11%).
• Any starting pitcher is one-fifth of a rotation these days (20%).

Now, I realize there are bullpens, DHs, pinch-hitters, days off, injuries, and a host of other statistical categories I've ignored here (pitchers hitting in interleague games, position-players taking the mound, suspensions for throwing at hitters' heads, etc.). I've also completely ignored fielding, and I've assumed that the BBWAA is a fair assessor of talent; these might be big stretches. This is meant to be a crude, quick-and-dirty assessment, which it is.

I took the last three years' worth of MVP and Cy Young voting data, and considered the top five in each category in each year. (No pitcher, starter or reliever, was in the top-5 in the MVP voting from 2008 onward.) Then, I calculated what percentage of their team's plate appearances (for the MVP) or innings pitched (for the Cy) was attributable to each. All the stats are from baseball-reference, because they're fantastic.

For the MVP candidates:

2010 MVP

 
2009 MVP

 
2008 MVP

 
Now for the Cy Young candidates:

2010 Cy Young

 
2009 Cy Young

 
2008 Cy Young (all pitchers)

 
2008 Cy Young (just the starters)

I did 2008 twice because I didn't really feel like getting into the whole "is a closer worth more than a starter" sort of argument, talking about leverage factors, all that jazz... someone else can, if they like. (For this analysis, I'll ignore the relievers; but, for the record, I think they can be MVP candidates, too.) The point is that the numbers turned out a bit surprising, which is why I'm doing all this.

Is an inning pitched equivalent to a plate appearance? How important is a "stopper" in a rotation? Do voters over-value RBI and wins in these awards? I'm not sure. The moral of the story is that the whole "every fifth day" argument is bunk. Dear BBWAA voters, don't be afraid to vote for a pitcher as an MVP.

So I thinks to myself, I thinks, "Everyone here keeps talking about how Ryan Raburn heats up in the second half of the season. How true is that sentiment?"

Well, in steps statistics to help out. (Wait, is "statistics" a singular noun? Or... are they? Is they? Nevermind.) I decided to compile the stats (source: espn.com) and do what I love doing best: making a graph. I figured I'd never seen this graphed before, so what the hey. Here it is, for the full-ish seasons he's played.

I got rid of his April '09, because he only had 5 AB in that month. Also, when games have been scheduled in March, they've been combined with April (and the same with September/October).

For those of you who like numbers, I'll spare the individuals and give you the overalls:

So, what can we take away from this?

• Ryan Raburn hates May.
• He's also not terribly hot on June or July, but he holds his own somewhat.
• He digs the hot starts, and even hotter finishes.

Oddly, even though he routinely -- and reliably -- stinks it up in May, Jim Leyland dutifully puts him in the lineup just about as much as he does every other month. (insert Leyland-bashing bit here later) Also, 2008 was his first full-ish season (92 G, 182 AB), and the late-season slump seems to be a bit anomalous. But hey, small sample sizes and such, all standard disclaimers apply.

Thoughts? Ideas? Vitriol? Candy? Cigarettes?

I was initially going to put this all in a FanPost, but I figured it'd get a little long, so I whipped up a Google Site page for it instead:

Runs Per Hit: A Useful Statistic?

So... is it a useful way to try and quantify how often the Tigers squander opportunities? A more thorough analysis of all the teams in the league would be useful, and I fully admit that my stats courses were all a few years ago, but this might be a start. I've never seen runs divided by hits; I'm not the biggest stat-head in the world, but I don't ever recall coming across it before.

Your thoughts?

A recent article on espn.com discussed the role of the DH and how it has evolved over the past few years. It's a good read, and offers some statistical food for thought. But, on a more philosophical level, what do you think of the DH? It's been almost 40 years since its inception, and we're still debating this... should it stay? Should it go? Is it fair? Is it morally wrong? Should the NL adopt it, too?