Leadoff Rankings: Week 8

Previous Rankings: Week 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

The eighth weekend of the 2011 season has come and gone, and we're changing up the way we do our rankings. For the first time, our Leadoff Rankings have been determined not by my all-knowing power, but by the use of a formula. Similar to what we did on Thursday with our Rotation Rankings, we set all the statistics relative to league average, and then weighted each statistic to mean more or less than others (OBP means more than slugging percentage, for example). This gives us an overall average of 1.000, with lower scores correlating to above-average performance. More a fan of pitching? Check out our Rotation Rankings, published every Thursday, where we rank each team by the performance of their starting pitchers. The rankings are based on season performance (90%), with a small bias towards recent performance. The stats come from each team's first and second batters every game, regardless of the name on the back of the jersey. To see how things turned out this week, hit the jump!

The Great Debate: 5/19

Welcome to the May 19th edition of the Great Debate. Today, Andrew Leff and Jake Adams discuss some of the most interesting sports topics of the day. Today, we talk about the never-ending NFL lockout, the recent Heat-Bulls contest, a frustrating start from the NL East favorites, and a surprising comeback in the NL Central. Hit the jump for the discussion!

Rotation Rankings: Week 7

Previous Rankings: Week 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Week seven of our Rotation Rankings: the statistical ranking of every rotation in Major League Baseball. More a fan of offense? Check out our Leadoff Rankings, based on every teams' first and second batters.This week, we're bringing out something new: a normalized formula. For the last few weeks, we've been basically eyeballing the stats, using our knowledge of the teams as well as the numbers to try and place each time in a slot that made the most sense based on season performance, while keeping in mind how the last week went for each team. Now, however, we have a formula--using WHIP, ERA, and some other statistics, we've compared them all to league averages to come up with normalized scores, which we've then set to a ratio according to importance (WHIP being more important than K/9, for example), which gives us a final, weighted, relative score. The season stats get weighted towards 90% of the total, while the last week's statistics account for the last 10% (allowing some fluctuation based on recent performance, which is really what most Power Rankings do without realizing it). To see how much movement there was when we switched to the formula (as well as how your favorite team stacks up), hit the jump!

Leadoff Rankings: Week 7

Previous Rankings: Week 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

The seventh weekend of the 2011 season has come and gone, and we're changing up the way we do our rankings. For the first time, our Leadoff Rankings have been determined not by my all-knowing power, but by the use of a formula. Similar to what we did on Thursday with our Rotation Rankings, we set all the statistics relative to league average, and then weighted each statistic to mean more or less than others (OBP means more than slugging percentage, for example). This gives us an overall average of 1.000, with lower scores correlating to above-average performance. More a fan of pitching? Check out our Rotation Rankings, published every Thursday, where we rank each team by the performance of their starting pitchers. The rankings are based on season performance (90%), with a small bias towards recent performance. The stats come from each team's first and second batters every game, regardless of the name on the back of the jersey. To see how things turned out this week, hit the jump!

Rotation Rankings: Week 6

Previous Rankings: Week 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Week six of our Rotation Rankings: the statistical ranking of every rotation in Major League Baseball. More a fan of offense? Check out our Leadoff Rankings, based on every teams' first and second batters.This week, we're bringing out something new: a normalized formula. For the last few weeks, we've been basically eyeballing the stats, using our knowledge of the teams as well as the numbers to try and place each time in a slot that made the most sense based on season performance, while keeping in mind how the last week went for each team. Now, however, we have a formula--using WHIP, ERA, and some other statistics, we've compared them all to league averages to come up with normalized scores, which we've then set to a ratio according to importance (WHIP being more important than K/9, for example), which gives us a final, weighted, relative score. The season stats get weighted towards 90% of the total, while the last week's statistics account for the last 10% (allowing some fluctuation based on recent performance, which is really what most Power Rankings do without realizing it). To see how much movement there was when we switched to the formula (as well as how your favorite team stacks up), hit the jump!

Leadoff Rankings: Week 6

Previous Rankings: Week 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

The sixth weekend of the 2011 season has come and gone, and the Leadoff Rankings are starting to settle out. The division leaders are all in the top-10 (along with two last-place teams), while the bottom 10 is filled with truly offensively challenged clubs. More a fan of pitching? Check out our Rotation Rankings, published every Thursday, where we rank each team by the performance of their starting pitchers. The rankings are based on season performance, with a small bias towards recent performance. The stats come from each team's first and second batters every game, regardless of the name on the back of the jersey. To see how things turned out this week, hit the jump!

Stat Line of the Day: May 7th

J. Garcia (StL): 9 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 Ks vs. MIL

Garcia dominated the Brewers in a
complete-game shutout on Friday night

There are quite a few pitchers having outstanding starts to the 2011 season, and St. Louis' 24-year-old righthanded placed himself among that group with his complete-game shutout of the Milwaukee Brewers last night. Garcia threw 66 of his 102 pitches for strikes--not a great strike-to-ball ratio, but he struck out eight while walking only one Brewer. Garcia's start was the fifth start this year with a gamescore of 90 or higher, and the first gamescore over 90 of Garcia's young career. He's now 4-0 with a 1.99 ERA, good enough for the 6th-best ERA in all of Major League Baseball. The only problem with Garcia's season thus far has been his non-complete game starts: in the four games prior to last night, he'd been throwing to a 3.80 ERA and a 1.41 WHIP, averaging just over five innings per start with an average gamescore of 48.3. Garcia has talent, but he needs to become more consistent pitcher on a start-to-start basis if he's going to be taken more seriously as an "ace" in the National League. Still, he's only 24, and hitters are batting just .205 against him--even with a .270 BABIP, not too much below the league average. He's avoiding the dreaded "sophomore slump" thus far, and starts like these help the future look bright in St. Louis.

Honorable Mention(s)

C. Lee (PHI): 7 IP, 9 H, 3 R (3 ER), 1 BB, 16 K vs. Braves
Well, it's pretty obvious why this one jumped out at us. 16 strikeouts in any start is quite impressive, but to do so in just seven innings shows domination of the Braves lineup. Yet, Lee still managed to give up nine hits and three runs, taking the loss against Derek Lowe (6 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs). This seems like one of those starts where Lee was around the strike zone too much--87 of his 117 pitches, or 74%--but really he got killed by BABIP. Only 14 balls were put in play against Lee, and on an average night one would expect around four hits and nine outs to result from those batted balls--but instead, the numbers were reversed. On a different night this could have been the most dominant start in the majors this year, but the luck just didn't hold up for Lee.

D. Rose (CHI): 44 points , 5 rebounds, 7 assists vs. Hawks
D-Rose put the Bulls on his back yet again as Chicago got home-court advantage back with the win in Atlanta last night. He shot the ball really well from the floor (16-27 FG, 4-7 3PT) and went 8-9 from the free-throw line to finish off his scoring line. The five boards and seven dimes are nice, but that's what you come to expect from Rose, which is why he only merits the honorable mention.

Leadoff Rankings: Week 5

Previous Rankings: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4

The fifth weekend of the 2011 season has come and gone, and the Leadoff Rankings are starting to settle out. More a fan of pitching? Check out our Rotation Rankings, published every Thursday, where we rank each team by the performance of their starting pitchers. The rankings are based on season performance, with a small bias towards recent performance. The stats come from each team's first and second batters every game, regardless of the name on the back of the jersey. To see how things turned out this week, hit the jump!

NFL Draft Preview: NFC West

Welcome to part seven of our eight-part preview of tomorrow's NFL draft (ESPN, 8 P.M.). After focusing on the AFC for the first two days, we will take a look at the NFC over the last two days in four division-by-division increments. We continue our analysis with a preview of the NFC West.

Yes, yes, the NFC West was atrocious. It was terrible. It was the laughingstock of the NFL. For the first time in the history of the league, a team won the division with a 7-9 record. The Cardinals went from first to worst after Kurt Warner retired and nobody stepped up to replace him. San Francisco cut Mike Singletary halfway through the year and brought in Jim Harbaugh to rebuild a team trying to find its identity. Even the division winners, Seattle, have huge question marks. Who's their future quarterback? Do they have any offensive weapons? How do they fix their defense? The lone surprise and possibly the only team on an upswing are the St. Louis Rams. Rookie Sam Bradford led the Rams to one game short of a playoff berth. They have a young offense with lots of talent and a defense with some pieces to build around. So how do the Rams build on their success? How does the rest of the division try to catch up? Let's take a look at what they may do in the draft.

Rotation Rankings: Week 4

Previous Rankings: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3

Week four of our Rotation Rankings: the statistical ranking of every rotation in Major League Baseball. For a better explanation, check out our debut rankings. More a fan of offense? Check out our Leadoff Rankings, based on every teams' first and second batters. As we get further into the season, these rankings are based mostly on season performance, with a small bias towards this week's performance when two teams were very comparable. There were some interesting ranking quirks this week, mostly because of fantastic weeks by some of the teams that had previously been lower in the rankings--something to be expected early in the season. A few teams actually improved on their season performances but managed to fall in the rankings, due solely to the fact that the teams behind them out performed them as well. Eventually these sort of things will even out, but after four weeks it's still easy enough for one great week to pull a team up 15 slots. To see which teams were the real movers and shakers this week, hit the jump!

Leadoff Rankings: Week 4

Previous Rankings: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3

The fourth weekend of the 2011 season has come and gone, and the Leadoff Rankings are starting to settle out. More a fan of pitching? Check out our Rotation Rankings, published every Thursday, where we rank each team by the performance of their starting pitchers. The rankings are based on season performance, with a small bias towards recent performance. To see how things turned out this week, hit the jump!

Rotation Rankings: Week 3

Previous Rankings: Week 1 | Week 2

Week three of our Rotation Rankings: the statistical ranking of every rotation in Major League Baseball. For a better explanation, check out our debut rankings. More a fan of offense? Check out our Leadoff Rankings, based on every teams' first and second batters. As we get further into the season, these rankings are based mostly on season performance, with a small bias towards this week's performance when two teams were very comparable.

G: Games; ERA: Earned Run Average; WHIP: (Walks + Hits)/Innings Pitched; GS: Game Score; K/BB: Strikeout-to-walk ratio; K/9: Strikeouts per nine innings

30. (LW: 26) New York Mets (5-13)
This Week: 1-6, 5.80 ERA, 1.74 WHIP, 41.9 GS, 1.32 K/BB, 5.58 K/9
Season Stats: 4-10, 5.68 ERA, 1.63 WHIP, 44.3 GS, 1.58 K/BB, 6.96 K/9
R.A. Dickey became the first Mets starter to make it into the eighth inning last night, but he still managed to let up four runs on eight hits to the lowly Astros.

29. (LW: 27) Arizona Diamondbacks (8-8)
This Week: 2-2, 5.22 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 47.8 GS, 2.36 K/BB, 7.98 K/9
Season Stats: 5-7, 5.65 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 45.8 GS, 1.87 K/BB, 6.92 K/9
Not much changed this week for the D-Backs' starting rotation. Though they are striking batters out at a higher rate (almost 8 K/9), the staff ERA is still above 5.50 and their WHIP remains in the bottom half of the league.

28. (LW: 14) Cincinnati Reds (9-9)
This Week: 1-4, 7.92 ERA, 1.76 WHIP, 38.7 GS, 2.14 K/BB, 8.80 K/9
Season Stats: 7-5, 5.35 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 48.4 GS, 2.62 K/BB, 8.64 K/9
On four occasions in the last week, a Reds starter allowed five or more runs in a game. That includes a 3.1-inning, six-run outing from from youngster Travis Wood, who has a 5.73 ERA on the season.

(For number 27 all the way to #1, hit the jump!)

Leadoff Rankings: Week 3

Previous Rankings: Week 1 | Week 2

The third weekend of the 2011 season has come and gone, and the Leadoff Rankings are starting to settle out. We're seeing a few of the better teams beginning to rise to the top, while the teams that are struggling are beginning to sink to the bottom. This week, as the sample sizes begin to approach something we can call useful (every team is over 105 ABs, with some approaching 130), we can also really start calling out important players who have really been struggling (or over-performing) in the first fifteen or so games thus far. There were a number of positive signs around the league, however, for teams that had been struggling (Tampa Bay) or missing something (Cleveland). The re-emergence of Johnny Damon and the return of Grady Sizemore both produced big boosts for the two American League teams--but just how big? To answer that question, hit the jump for this week's rankings!

Stat Line of the Day: April 16th

When you try to pick a Stat Line every day, there are just a few days where no one has a game that REALLY stands out as being so much better than everybody else. So we figured we'd just quickly spotlight a few games around baseball: 

Jhoulys Chacin (COL): CG, SO, 6 H, 2 BB, 7 K vs. Cubs  
Good: Complete-game shutouts are always nice, especially when your team is already 10-2. Eh: Six hits and two walks are higher than a bunch of shutouts we've already seen (Haren, Lee)

A. Pujols and L. Berkman (STL): 4-9, 4 R, 5 RBI, 4 HR vs. Dodgers

Good: Pujols and Berkman led the Cardinals to an 11-2 rout of the Dodgers, in Los Angeles. Eh: They were facing Jon Garland, making his debut off the 15-day DL, and he got hammered.

Texas Rangers: Turned six ground-ball double plays vs. Yankees

Good: Tied an AL record with those six double-play balls, beat the Yankees 5-3. Eh: This is kind of a cop-out, but double-plays are more about getting a ground ball hit in the exact location necessary, not to mention having let a guy on first base in the first place. I'm worried about Matt Harrison as a pitcher for that reason. He's been getting away with getting runners on base, but that won't keep up forever.

Charlie Morton (PIT): CG, 5 H, 1 R (1 ER), 3 K vs. Reds
Good: Pittsburgh improved to 5-2 on the road as Morton picked up his second win of the year, mostly shutting down the Reds until a Jay Bruce homer with two outs in the ninth. Eh: If we're not going to put a complete-game shutout, we can't put a complete-game one-runner. It was a nice performance from Morton, but not even close to the best we've seen this year.

Rotation Rankings: Week 1

Lincecum got off to a hot start, but how 
about the rest of the Giants rotation?

One full week has come and gone in the 2011 Major League Baseball season, enough time for hopes to be built (see: Baltimore; Pittsburgh) or for fanbases to wonder what has happened to their team (see: Boston, Tampa Bay). Are these evaluations always accurate? Of course not--five or six games is not nearly enough time for a large enough sample size in basically any statistic--but they're something, so we use them with quite a large grain of salt. With that in mind, we present our first Rotation Rankings--similar to our Leadoff Rankings (released every Monday), our Rotation Rankings are purely statistical evaluations of the performance of each starting rotation. We've tracked each start, and looked at a few basic, key statistics: earned run average, game score (explanation: here), strikeout-to-walk ratio, and some others explained below. In the first week, ERA is very volatile--just one extra run over the course of a week can mean a difference in ERA of 0.20-0.30 for an entire rotation, so keep that in mind when comparing differences in ERA. Obviously there is going to be quite a lot of movement between weeks one, two, and the rest of the season, but here's what we have so far:

The Best Day of the Year

Today is the best day of the year.  And do you know why?  BASEBALL IS BACK!  Sure, there have been games for about a month, and yes, pitchers and catchers reported about 50 days ago.  But those were just teases.  Evan Longoria doesn't get pulled for a "defensive replacement" in the 5th inning; Roy Halladay doesn't come out after three perfect innings (see March 5th) because he's tired.  Don't get me wrong, Spring Training is great.  It's our first beacon of hope after a long, dreary winter.  After almost four months without strikeouts, it's nice to finally see Tim Lincecum blow away hitter after hitter and hitter.  But it isn't the same. Hit the jump for our Opening Day Preview:

Stat Line of the Day: March 31st

St. Louis Blues: 10 G, 47 SOG vs. Detroit Red Wings

   Not the team you would think to score 10
   on the Red Wings for the first time in 18 years

Over the last 15 years, no team has had quite the success of the Detroit Red Wings. But before they won the Stanley Cup in 1997, they hadn't won a Cup in 42 years. Wednesday night's loss to the St. Louis Blues brings back memories of that "Dead Wing" era. The Blues posted 10 goals, with five in the second period alone. The last time the Red Wings gave up 10 goals in a single game was 1993. And eight goals in two periods? March 3, 1986. As for the Blues, the last time they scored in the double digits was in 1994 when they beat the Ottawa Senators 11-1. Tonight's game, however, also gives a unique insight into the current parity in the NHL. The Blues are on the verge of elimination in the Western Conference. The Red Wings, meanwhile, despite a bit of a late season slide over the last six games (1-3-2), are still in second place in the West and and 1st in the Central Division with a comfortable 6 point lead over the Nashville Predators. Despite this, the Blues came out tonight and scored on a whopping 21.3% of their recorded shots. Furthermore, these ten goals were scored by 9 different players. Chris Porter scored his first two goals of the season. Cam Janssen scored his first of the year tonight. Eight different forwards scored in this game, with only one goal coming from a defenseman. This kind of herculean effort bodes well for a team that is looking to build on this year's efforts next season. They have many of the right pieces in place, and this is a team that has a lot of success to build on next season. Although a game like Wednesday's match between the Red Wings and Blues is anomalous in the NHL, with its score looking more like a defensive football struggle than a hockey game, it does speak to what a developing team can do when it gets hard work from its entire lineup and perhaps some lucky bounces.


Honorable Mention

Jhonas Enroth (BUF): 0 GA, 23 Saves, 1.000 SV% vs. NYR
After a quick glance at tonight's score, I wasn't overly surprised to see that the Buffalo Sabres had shut out the New York Rangers. This isn't to say that the Rangers are particularly bad, or that the Sabres are particularly good, but merely that a shutout was not a rare event for Ryan Miller (he has 22 SO in 392 starts over 8 seasons).  But the winning goalie was not Miller, but rather Jhonas Enroth,  a 22-year-old playing in his 10th NHL game. Meanwhile, the impressive rookie goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky of the Philadelphia Flyers has yet to post a shutout in 47 starts.  On the other hand, in his 49 starts this year, the Chicago Blackhawk's young Corey Crawford has posted four shutouts. Enroth was a 2nd round draft pick of the Sabres in 2006, and has spent the years since playing in both his native Sweden and for the Portland Pirates of the AHL, where he has posted 8 shutouts over two seasons. In his ten major league games, he has posted a .906 SV% and 2.77 GAA. Enroth may not be the next Ryan Miller, but nonetheless his first shutout is a nice achievement for the young goalie.

Stat Line of the Day: March 27th

Derrick Rose (CHI): 30 points (9-17 FG, 12-12 FT), 3 rebounds, 17 assists, 2 turnovers vs. Bucks

There's a lot for Bulls fans to like about their star point guard's performance last night in Milwaukee.  Derrick Rose (see left) was not only the game's high-scorer, but he did it efficiently.  Rose ended up at 53% from the field and a perfect 12-12 from the charity stripe last night--way above his 43.7% shooting average coming into last night's game.  Even more impressive, though (and, ultimately, the reason he is featured in this column), was his performance distributing the ball.  Rose, who we earlier found to be the 3rd best point guard in the NBA, had an assist on 17 of the 27 Bulls field goals that he himself did not make--that's 63% of his teammates' buckets!  Also, in order to take 17 field goals (plus 12 free throws) and dish out 17 dimes, Rose must have had the ball in his hand almost the entire night.  Despite that, he only committed 2 turnovers all game--for an astounding 8.5 assist-to-turnover ratio.  He set a career-high in assists (his previous high was 14), and still contributed with scoring and efficiency.  A pretty good night for the Bulls' budding star.

Honorable Mentions

Albert Pujols (STL): 2-3, 3 RBIs, 2 Runs, 2 Home Runs vs. Marlins

Well, I guess he's in midseason form.  And it's still March.  Scary stuff. Wanna know something else scary?  The size of the contract he's going to sign next winter. Oh, and he's won two gold gloves. And has a .331 career batting average. I'm glad I'm not a pitcher in the NL Central. Notice how Pujols is so scary-good that I can't compose a real post about him, instead I can only rant about how good he is. His career OPS in 1.050.

Vernon Macklin (Florida): 25 points (11-14 FG, 3-5 FT), 5 rebounds, 0 turnovers vs. Butler

I was originally going to pick Butler's Shelvin Mack for this last spot because of his huge role in Butler's overtime victory over Macklin's Gators yesterday.  Then I realized that, winning and losing aside, Macklin did have the better line than Mack (confusing pair of names, I know).  Not that winning and losing aren't important.  In fact, they're the most important things in all of sports.  Just not at this blog.  We're trying to focus as much as possible on the statistics themselves.  In that light, Macklin (see right) gets the nod here.  As I'm sure you'll all learn about me eventually, I really like efficient basketball players.  Any shot you take is one not taken by your teammates.  And sure, you're better than they are, but that doesn't mean that you should be jacking up 3's as soon as you get across halfcourt (I'm looking at you, Jimmer-against-Florida).  For that reason, I love what Macklin did last night.  He managed 25 points on only 14 shots, including a 79% shooting clip from the floor.  Pair that stat with his 0 turnovers, and you got yourself one of the most efficient games of the tournament.  Oh, and he only did it in 24 minutes.

Stat Line of the Day: Bad Pitcher Edition (March 25th)

The last time three pitchers gave up 10 runs each in three separate games was in 1930, according to ESPN.com's Jayson Stark. But, it happened in Spring Training yesterday, as three not-that-bad pitchers all put up some big numbers yesterday, and not in the categories you would want to see them in. Helped out by some questionable defense and some hot hitting by the opposing squads, here's three pitching lines these guys better hope they don't throw up in the regular season (in order of how ugly we thought they were):

Kazmir was a 1st-round draft pick, NYM (2002)

3. Scott Kazmir (LAA): 5 IP, 8 H, 10 R (8 ER), 3 BB, 4 K, 1 HR (7.79 spring ERA)
The only one of the three pitchers that didn't have the majority of his runs in a single inning, Kazmir (left) instead gave up four runs in both the first and second innings against the Milwaukee Brewers. At least Kazmir can say he's the only starting pitcher of the three whose opponent didn't get 20 hits, Kazmir gets the least impressive score of the day because frankly, his wasn't as entertaining as the other two. Kazmir just flat-out didn't pitch well, raising his spring ERA from 5.10 to that 7.79, easily his worst spring of his past three season. Kazmir's regular-season ERA has been on the rise lately as well--not what you want to see from a pitcher who, at 27, should be entering the prime years of his career.

2. Clay Buchholz (BOS): 4 IP, 11 H, 11 R (6 ER), 1BB, 5K, 4 HR (3.71 spring ERA)

The second-best line from this game was that Javier Vazquez gets the win for the Marlins despite giving up 6 earned runs in 4 innings. Where this game went wrong: the 4th inning. Buchholz had a man on first with two out after getting a foul bunt strikeout and a groundout in a 5-5 ballgame. Then, after an error on catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Buchholz gave up the following to the next four batters: walk, home run, double, home run. Still, those 5 unearned runs are pretty impressive until you consider our final pitcher of the day.

1. Jaime Garcia (STL): 4 IP, 14 H, 10 R (3 ER), 1 K, 2 HR (7.94 spring ERA)

The Mets won this game 16-3, also collecting 20 hits, as second baseman Brad Emaus looked to wrap up the second base job with a 4-for-4 day and three runs scored. It was Garcia, though, that had the best line of the day for one reason: all 7 unearned runs came off the SAME ERROR. After Nick Evans started off the 4th inning (those damn 4th innings) with a double and came home to score on two straight fly outs, it seemed Garcia might have an easy inning, even after Brad Emaus singled. Then Chris Capuano reached on a Skip Schumaker error, and the floodgates opened. The next seven batters got hits, and it took Scott Hairston getting thrown out at home by Matt Holliday trying to score from second on a Ronny Paulino single to end the inning--and Garcia's day.

Spring Training Catch-Up

He'll get better. Eventually.

In the context of a 4-or-5 week spring training, 8-10 days can make a lot of difference in who's in the running for a spot and who's already played themselves out of contention. Injured veterans (see right), prospects who aren't just quite ready, and spring surprises have sorted themselves out quite a bit, at least in a few of the towns in Florida and Arizona. Pitchers are starting to go into the 5th and 6th inning when they're pitching well, batting averages are approaching something resembling normal, and sample sizes are starting to get sorta big enough that they might just actually mean something. So with all that in mind, it's time to look back at a few of the teams we spotlighted earlier this month.