I was browsing around Baseball Almanac, looking up Hall of Fame catchers (baseball diehards lead sad lives), when I came across the name Ray Schalk.  I had a rudimentary knowledge of Schalk's career, but was surprised to see he was a HOFer, particularly when I saw his stat line (.253/.340/.316).  I am not going to go so far as to calculate secavg, WARP3, etc for him, and I do acknowledge he played part of his career during the Dead Ball Era, but the Dead Ball Era limited power, not average.  It seems to me that he got into the Hall mostly through defense, speed, and the fact that the Veterans Committee (which elected him in 1955) had fond memories of Schalk.  Most of the other catchers seem deserving, but I wanted to know what you guys though about him being in the Hall?

The Bill James Interviews at BDD were quite interesting, in particular when James addressed the bunt.  James said:

"...the general argument against the bunt seems unpersuasive to me.  The essential argument against the bunt is that the number of expected runs scored after a bunt attempt goes down in almost all situations when a bunt is used, and the expectation of scoring one run goes up only in a few situations.  

"But this argument is unpersuasive, to me, because it assumes that there are two possible outcomes of a bunt:  a "successful" bunt, which trades a base for and out, and an "unsuccessful" bunt, which involves an out with no gain.  In reality, there are about a dozen fairly common outcomes of a bunt attempt.  The most common of those is a foul ball, but others include a base hit, a fielder's choice/all safe, a pop out, a pop out into a double play, an error on the third baseman, and a hit plus an error on the third baseman, or the second baseman if you're talking about a drag bunt.  

"Some of those outcomes are reasonably common, and others are quite significant even if they are statistically uncommon.   For example, if there is a 2% chance that the third baseman will field the bunt and throw it up the first base line, that has a huge impact on the calculations, even though it is only a 2% chance.  It seems to me that the argument against the bunt is unpersuasive unless you account for the entire range of reasonably common outcomes."

"...we are in danger of replacing one dogma with another.  And the analysis is not strong enough to justify that."

I have always been part of the silent sabermetrics minority, who like James, hasn't been entirely convinced by the argument that the bunt is completely ineffective.  I believe that if a team practices the bunt, and is extremely efficient carrying it out it can possibly (emphasis on possible) be an effective tool.  

For example, the Angels focus on small ball, and have a team that is speedy, yet lacks the ability to get on base.  Wouldn't it make sense for a team like that to incorporate the bunt (though not abuse it), whereas for a team like the Yankees or A's, the bunt would make less sense?  From casual observation, it seems like Ozzie Guillen is forcing the sacrifice bunting on a White Sox team that is not particularly good at it, nor geared to that style of play.  Like James says, there many factors to consider with the bunt.

I think in particular, what he says about certain beliefs becoming dogma is very important.  We should always be questioning things that are considered principles or outgrowths of sabermetrics - traditional baseball became so incredibly dysfunctional because certain beliefs became accepted without being properly questioned (after all the ideas of John Kruk somehow have respect within the Baseball Tonight set).

Therefore, would it be possible to develop a better way of evaluating the bunt taking into account what James says, along with the situation, the relative strength of a team's offense, the strength of the defense of an opposing team's corner men, and other variables?  I'm curious to hear what you guys think.  Thanks.

    For me, sabermetrics has never been about statistics, but about constant innovation - thinking outside the box and escaping static dogma.  In that vein, I would like to argue that the lowly Colorado Rockies innovate by creating a pitching staff composed completely of relievers.  I do not have the expertise, nor the time to run the numbers and see what would possibly happen, but here are my thoughts, nonetheless.
    Since the Rockies lack the financial resources to overcome this home-field disadvantage, they must overcome it by innovation, and turn it into an advantage.  The Rockies must carry 12 pitchers, with every pitcher used as a reliever.  The Rockies' roster would include 12 pitchers, each with the ability to pitch 2 or 3 innings approximately every other day.

Possible advantages to this proposal include:
-Relievers by nature have lower eras than starters because lineups see them less often in a game, and because they do not have to keep anything in reserve for the later stages of a ball game.
-Relievers that are not over-used require less recuperation time.
-Relievers are less expensive than starters - therefore the Rockies can direct more of their money to offense.
-In the NL, changing pitchers more often could have an offensive advantage - pinch hitters could be brought in earlier in games, in better situations, and more often.
-By not drafting high-priced pitchers with low-success rates, and instead solid pitchers with rubber arms, the Rockies would be taking advantage of a market inefficiency (no one else would capitalizing on such an idea), and would once again be able to save money that could be directed to offense.
-Having a large number of relievers, as well as a farm system stocked with replacements would allow a wise general manager to make a killing in the volatile reliever market.
-Long and expensive contracts tend to weigh down teams and limit their ability to make future moves.  Relievers command shorter, less expensive contracts, and therefore a mistake would be less costly to a team.

    I realize that there are possible disadvantages (there is no track record for such an idea, and the relievers could be overused, but I personally believe that when you are consistently one of the worst teams in baseball, you have nothing to lose, and should always innovate.  I would love to hear your guys' thoughts on this.

-Steven

P.S.  Great work on the power rankings as always.

Hey, I'm a big fan of this site, and hope you guys keep up the good work.  I have a question that hopefully isn't too far out there:

As a student of sabermetrics and a sports columnist at a D3 university, I have done some recreational research into my university's athletic teams.  I have recently taken a close look at my university's softball team (admittedly for reasons beyond statistics).  

I plugged in the softball team's past three seasons into the Pythagenport Formula, using the ((r+ra)/g)^.287 exponent developed  by David Smyth.  The sample size may have been small (approximately 50 games each season), but the correlation between the Pythagenport win percentage and the team's actual win total was exactly the same two out of the three years, and deviated by only three wins the other year.  

I also used Bill James' run created formula to calculate how many runs each player was worth to the team this past year.  When I added each player's total, it came within 10 runs of the total runs scored by the team (the difference can probably be accounted for by luck and small ball).

I am therefore wondering if any research has been done with softball and sabermetrics?  I did not see any such research on the internet, and am curious if you believe the same baseball ideas that have arisen out of sabermetrics may apply to softball.  Certain difficulties stand out in my mind:
-The small sample size.
-The fact that games only last seven innings and that the rules for extra innings are very different than those of baseball.
-The fact that the bases are much closer together, and that the different ball and pitching motion may produce different outcomes.

Nonetheless, I believe much like John Hollinger at espn.com has done with basketball many of the ideas of sabermetrics could be applied to softball, and I am curious to hear what you guys think.  Thanks!

-Steven