So I will readily admit that while I am very interested in advanced metrics, I am by no means anywhere close to fluent in them. With that said I had a question. I know there has been much debate on pitch count and I hear talk about difficult pitches (i.e runners on 2nd and 3rd, no out, late in a one-run game) vs. easy pitches. Has anyone developed a leveraged pitch counter. Basically what I was thinking was some metric to account for number of pitches along with the difficulty as judged by leverage. Maybe this could account for why Shields and Price can go higher pitch counts (more skilled pitcher would mean not as many tough situations, thus less-leveraged pitches and less wear on the arm) then say, a Jeff Niemann. Does anyone think that teams may have already developed a metric of this type and it's just proprietary info? Also can anyone give me a good place to start in terms of research if I wanted to try and create this on my own?

Thanks.

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The Bucs picked nine different players in the 2010 draft. However, they will be judged much differently come their first year on the team. 

Third overall pick Gerald McCoy will be scrutinized much more than fellow first rounder Brian Price. Second round WR Arrelious Benn will have much higher expectations than fourth round WR Mike Williams, despite the consensus opinion that Williams has the higher upside. 

Seventh rounders Cody Grimm and Erik Lorig will be deemed to have successful years if they simply make the team. 

Why is this? 

The simple reason is opportunity cost. By taking McCoy at No. 3, we gave up the opportunity to select 31 other players before our next pick, Price. Same thing goes for Benn (picked 39th overall) and Williams (101st overall).

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Hi all,

I have accepted a staff writer position at the new Tampa Bay Regional SBN Site.  I am excited to make contributions to the new site with an eye specifically on the Rays.  Baseball has always been my first love and when I found DRaysBay last year I was able to appreciate it more by broadening my horizons.  I hope to bring more knowledge to the common fan (more who our site is geared to) with a slight saber-slant.  With that said, I am working on a Rays/Padres series preview and am making reference to UZR.  I want to create a link for a definition and was hoping you all would point me to the simplest explanation out there right now.

Thanks,

Josh

Over at Raw Charge this week, user KyleGuthrie4 made a case for the Lightning to draft Nino Niederreiter with the #6 pick. Check out the article here. 

So what do you think Lightning fans?  Does he make a good argument?  Are there better players that could be available? 

New GM Steve Yzerman has said that he wants to let his scouts run this years draft.  What should they do, draft for need or the famous Best Player Available? 

Please add your thoughts.

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With Bartlett back, the Rays face an interesting dilemma.  Who is going to bat leadoff for the Rays going forward?

After his career 2009 season, but prior to his injury, Bartlett was the Rays' primary leadoff hitter.  Since then, Rays skipper Joe Maddon has to some extent used Ben Zobrist, Sean Rodriguez, Reid Brignac, B.J. Upton, and most recently John Jaso in that lead off spot.  Now that Bartlett is back who should we use going forward?

First off, I feel we should look at what we need in a leadoff hitter. 

I define a leadoff hitter as someone who gets on base.  Some (many, actually) will argue it has to be a fast guy who can steal bases.  But I contend you can't steal first base, so unless your fast stolen base guy gets on base at a decent clip he shouldn't be leading off. 

Are stolen bases a plus?  Absolutely!  But neither are they the sole requirement.

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At the beginning of this season the Rays starting rotation set two goals for themselves.  The first was to have the five of them collectively pitch at least 1000 innings, and the second, was to achieve this by having each of them pitch at least 200 innings individually.  We are now just over 1/3 into the season and lets see how they are pacing:

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I usually do not have much down time and today was an odd exception to that.  So as I was trying to find things to do I ventured over to Pinstripe Alley.. which led me to this.  There is now a written guide on how to bow to the Yankees.  And so I would like to submit for review the All-Inclusive Rays Exemption to those rules.  I shall take them one rule at a time.  More after the jump.

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I recall Andy mention this a few weeks ago about discounting a players contract due to future dollars.  This is a fairly common theme in finance (how much would a dollar today be worth 1 yr from now, etc.).  This got me thinking.  In the sabermetrics community is there a discount rate for wins today vs. wins in the future?  I vaguely recall someone put out a primer about minor league prospects (a grading system if I recall--an A hitter/pitcher, B, etc).  But my question is more if player A is projected for a 3.5 WAR season in 2010, 3.3 in 2011, and 2.5 in 2011 vs player B who is projected for 1.6, 2.7, 5.0.  Is there a formula for weithing or discounting the wins in todays standards?  Or do clubs play more to their needs (i.e. win now vs. build for future).  The reason I ask this is if a team always weighs future wins more heavily they may never make "the push' as the Rays have seemed to do this year.  Any feedback would be helpful.

Thanks.

I will be the first to say I love the season Bartlett has had this year.  Call it skill, luck, career year, I don't care--I'll take it.  And as I was listening to the Rays broadcast today, listening to Andy Fried and Dave Wills, talk about how hot he has been of late I recalled this time last year everyone talking about how August was his hot month.  So I looked it up along with how he does prior to August and after.  Results after the jump.

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Play thi may be the 4 hours of sleep I have had in 2 days or my stomach ache speaking, but I really am starting to hate ESPN to the point of nausea.  I am up at 5:30 in the morning due to some stomach pains so I decide I am going to watch some t.v. to take my mind off of my stomach.  Unfortunately MLB Network i showing a classic game and I wanted to watch MLB Tonight.  So I flip to Baseball Tonight.

BIG MISTAKE!!  I switch over just in time to here Eduardo Perez talk about how Robinson Cano is a one of the best defensive 2b in baseball.  Well Eduardo, in a statement.  You are dumb.  Rather than subject Robinson (and more importantly Eduardo's analysis) to the embarrasment of comparing him to all of baseball I looked at how Cano stacked up defensively against all of the other 2b in the AL (NOTE:  Comparison uses only players who have played the top number of games at 2b for their team).

Results after the Jump.

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This is an expanion of something FreeZorilla posted a while back but I thought it might give us a little more insight into the "Which Catcher Hurts us Less?" argument.  Note:  This does not include the 8/4 game.

I looked at each starter's FIP per start given each catcher.  I looked at all 6 starters (Kazmir, Shields, Garza, Sonnanstine, Price, and Niemann).  I analyzed the average FIP per catcher as well as the Standard Deviation.  I must acknowledge the SSS on some of this data but it is still better than the "I think Michel frames pitches better" analysis.  I then looked at Navi vs. Michel on average and St Dev in terms of the whole staff.  More after the jump.

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In short, when your division opponent is on the road.  The reason is quite simple.  Teams perform worst on the road.  So you have a much better chance of gaining ground on a division rival if they are on the road when you win.  From 2005-2008 for all of MLB home teams had a .546 record while road team had a corresponding .454 record.

What does this mean for the Rays?  Well there is some good news.  For the remaining part of the schedule (including 7/28) head-to-head against the Yankees, the Rays have the ability to gain 6.5 games (This derives from a simple +1 if the Rays are Home and the Yankees are away, 0 if both are home or both are away or both are off, -1 if the Yanks are home and the Rays are away, and a .5/-.5 if one is home/away while the other has an off-day).  By the same processing the Rays have a chance to gain 4 games on the Red Sox.  At the start of play today the Rays stood 7.5 games back of New York and 5 Back of Boston.  This is an obviously oversimplified way of analyzing the situation since none of these teams will lose all of their road games, nor will they win all of their home games.  However none of the teams road winning percentages are greater than the other two teams home record , so again the chances of gaining a game on another team is at its greatest when you are at home and they are away and the advantage is for the Rays in both races.

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