Reports suggest that John Lackey is about to sign a contract with the Boston Red Sox.

Much has been made in recent years of Lackey pitching in Fenway Park, where he has by far the worst numbers of his career. Check out his splits by ballpark. These are offensive stats against Lackey:

Of particular interest is the final column, tOPS+, which basically shows the share of the total offense against Lackey. It shows that, for example, he has pitched very well in Dodger Stadium, Network Associates Coliseum, and SkyDome (isn't that called the Rogers Centre now?) His worst mark is at Fenway Park.

Now, of course, there is one big factor here that we cannot forget. For much of Lackey's career, the Red Sox have been a very good team. More pitchers than not from the last several years have worse numbers against the Red Sox than against most other teams.

The Angels and Red Sox have played each other a few times in the playoffs recently and there was much speculation that the Angels tried to set up their rotation to avoid having to pitch Lackey in Fenway for fear that he would do poorly. How much does that have to do with the ballpark vs. the Red Sox offense? Will it be different for Lackey when he himself wears red socks?

One of the interesting new features of the PI is the sortable summary provided when using the game finder. This summation provides the total statistics of the games found can be ranked by a variety of different stats. I find this very exciting because it represents the first step in searching splits. Let me explain with an example.

Suppose we wanted to find the player with the most hits on the road in a single season.

1. Use the Game Finder called Player Batting.
2. select "Find Players with Most Matching Games in a Season"
3. Limit your search to Visitor
4. Search for H>=1

That will provide you with this list:

Until now we had to stop at this point and say that "Lou Brock had the most road games with a hit in a season (since 1954)". However, the new version of PI lets us take this a step further. Assuming that it is logical that the player with the most hits on the road in a season would be among the top 300 in games with a hit, we can find that player by sorting for hits. After completing the above search, simply click on the column heading "H" and you will be presented with this list:

Brock drops down to #22 and Ichiro now tops the leader board!
Let's do the same thing for hits at home:

Clearly, this technique is limited. It can't be used for stats that usually occur in bunches (most pitching stats). It also can't be used for rate stats like batting average. However, for a lot of hitting stats it can be a fun and useful new tool.

Bobby Abreu re-signed with the Angels for 2 years yesterday,which surprised me. He had a nice year for a 35-year-old guy and I thought would have wanted to test the open market. Of course, he did that last year after having a good year and had to wait until just before spring training to get signed. Maybe he was happy to jump at a 2-year contract offer.

Anyway, most people know that he's got a long active streak of 100-RBI seasons. Here are the guys with the most 100-RBI seasons in the last 7 years:

                   From  To   Ages Seasons Link to Individual Seasons
+-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------+
 Alex Rodriguez    2003 2009 27-33       7 Ind. Seasons
 Albert Pujols     2003 2009 23-29       7 Ind. Seasons
 Bobby Abreu       2003 2009 29-35       7 Ind. Seasons
 Mark Teixeira     2004 2009 24-29       6 Ind. Seasons
 Miguel Cabrera    2004 2009 21-26       6 Ind. Seasons
 Carlos Lee        2003 2009 27-33       6 Ind. Seasons

Only Abreu, A-rod, and Phat Albert have 100-RBI seasons each year.

The PI doesn't yet enable us to search for seasonal streaks, although I am hoping that this is coming down the pike. (I can tell you for sure that many significant additions are in fact coming down the pike, as I have seen the beta of the new version...) I don't know how many players have had 7-season 100-RBI streaks, but it's probably been done a fair amount.

Anyway, the last time Abreu didn't have 100 RBI in a season was 2002, but check out his stats that year. He played in 157 games, had 685 plate appearances, batted .308, slugged .521, and had an OPS+ of 151 (a career best.) And yet, he totaled only 85 RBI. Isn't that crazy? If he got 100 RBI that year, he'd have a streak of 9 such seasons going into next year.

Check out the guys over the last 20 seasons to have at least 600 PAs and an OPS+ of 150 or better but not reach 100 RBI:

  Cnt Player            Year OPS+ RBI  PA Age Tm  Lg  G   AB  R   H  2B 3B HR  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+----+----+---+---+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Joe Mauer         2009  177  96 606  26 MIN AL 138 523  94 191 30  1 28  76  14  63   2   0   5  13   4  1  .365  .444  .587 1.031 *2D
    2 Adrian Gonzalez   2009  163  99 681  27 SDP NL 160 552  90 153 27  2 40 119  22 109   5   1   4  23   1  1  .277  .407  .551  .958 *3/D
    3 Todd Helton       2004  165  96 683  30 COL NL 154 547 115 190 49  2 32 127  19  72   3   0   6  12   3  0  .347  .469  .620 1.089 *3
    4 J.D. Drew         2004  157  93 645  28 ATL NL 145 518 118 158 28  8 31 118   2 116   5   1   3   7  12  3  .305  .436  .569 1.005 *9/8D
    5 Bobby Abreu       2002  151  85 685  28 PHI NL 157 572 102 176 50  6 20 104   9 117   3   0   6  11  31 12  .308  .413  .521  .934 *98
    6 Ryan Klesko       2002  152  95 625  31 SDP NL 146 540  90 162 39  1 29  76  11  86   4   1   4   7   6  2  .300  .388  .537  .925 *39/D
    7 Brian Giles       2001  150  95 674  30 PIT NL 160 576 116 178 37  7 37  90  14  67   4   0   4  10  13  6  .309  .404  .590  .994 *78
    8 Edgar Martinez    1999  152  86 608  36 SEA AL 142 502  86 169 35  1 24  97   6  99   6   0   3  12   7  2  .337  .447  .554 1.001 *D/3
    9 John Olerud       1998  163  93 665  29 NYM NL 160 557  91 197 36  4 22  96  11  73   4   1   7  15   2  2  .354  .447  .551  .998 *3
   10 Mo Vaughn         1997  152  96 628  29 BOS AL 141 527  91 166 24  0 35  86  17 154  12   0   3  10   2  2  .315  .420  .560  .980 *3/D
   11 Barry Larkin      1996  154  89 627  32 CIN NL 152 517 117 154 32  4 33  96   3  52   7   0   7  20  36 10  .298  .410  .567  .977 *6
   12 Bobby Bonilla     1995  151  99 614  32 TOT ML 141 554  96 182 37  8 28  54  10  79   2   0   4  22   0  5  .329  .388  .576  .964 5973
   13 Andy Van Slyke    1992  151  89 685  31 PIT NL 154 614 103 199 45 12 14  58   4  99   4   0   9   9  12  3  .324  .381  .505  .886 *8
   14 John Kruk         1992  150  70 607  31 PHI NL 144 507  86 164 30  4 10  92   8  88   1   0   7  11   3  5  .323  .423  .458  .881 *39/7
   15 Will Clark        1992  150  73 601  28 SFG NL 144 513  69 154 40  1 16  73  23  82   4   0  11   5  12  7  .300  .384  .476  .860 *3
   16 Rafael Palmeiro   1991  155  88 714  26 TEX AL 159 631 115 203 49  3 26  68  10  72   6   2   7  17   4  3  .322  .389  .532  .921 *3/D
   17 George Brett      1990  153  87 607  37 KCR AL 142 544  82 179 45  7 14  56  14  63   0   0   7  18   9  2  .329  .387  .515  .902 *3D/975
   18 Fred McGriff      1990  153  88 658  26 TOR AL 153 557  91 167 21  1 35  94  12 108   2   1   4   7   5  3  .300  .400  .530  .930 *3/D
   19 Eddie Murray      1990  158  95 645  34 LAD NL 155 558  96 184 22  3 26  82  21  64   1   0   4  19   8  5  .330  .414  .520  .934 *3

Most of these guys either had fewer PAs than Abreu's 685 or got a lot closer to 100 RBI.

So why did Abreu fall short of 100 RBI in 2002? The Phillies were an average team that year with a record of 80-81. Abreu batted 3rd almost the entire season except for a stretch where he hit 4th. It would seem that he was in good position to drive in 100 runs.

It seems to me that the key is the guys who were hitting in front of him. Jimmy Rollins hit 1st or 2nd almost the entire year but managed only a .306 OBP, a pathetic value for a leadoff guy and Rollins' worst until this year's abysmal .296 OBP. The guy hitting second was often Doug Glanville, he of the .292 OBP that season.

Check out Abreu's splits for the last 9 seasons batting with runners on base:

Yeah, it looks like Rollins and Glanville not getting on base too much was the difference. In 2002 Abreu had an average number of games with runners on base (145) but the fewest total plate appearances (313). He also had a low total of homers with runners on base (7) despite having an average year in total number of homers (20, not visible in the chart above.) This was a contributing cause to his low RBI total.

In the 8 years above other than 2002, Abreu averaged 93 RBI while hitting with runners on, getting the rest of his RBI each season on solo homers. In 2002, though, he got just 72 RBI with runners on despite having BA, OBP, and SLG just about smack dab on his averages for his entire career in that situation. Had he gotton just his average 93, he would have been over 100 RBI for the year.

I wrote a lot about David Ortiz this year and now it's time to check in on his final numbers for the season.

Check out his 2009 splits by month:

After dismal months in April and May he was great from June on. In fact, in his last 101 games of 2009 (June 6 onwards) Ortiz had 27 HR and 78 RBI, with a SLG of .557 and an OPS of .917. His career averages are .545/.922 so he's really right there in terms of hitting his averages.

The big question for 2010 is whether he'll be the Ortiz of old with just the expected slight decline with age or whether he'll be the guy who produced a lot less during most of 2008 and early 2009.

Some tidbits about the Phillies and Dodgers pitching:

First, check out this table for relief pitching in 2009 (regular season):

Dodgers relievers appeared in the 4th most games this year, which is pretty odd for a playoff team. The Phillies' relievers made 67 fewer appearances than the Dodgers' and all the other playoff teams are well below the Dodgers as well. (Rockies are 12th, Cardinals are 14th, Twins are 16th, Red Sox 18th, Yankees 19th, and Angels 27th.)

When I think about how-off playoff teams are, I always look at the bullpen status. These guys get tired and can often be less effective in the playoffs than they were in the regular season.

Now here are the save stats for the 2009 regular season:

Much has been made of Brad Lidge's poor performance (and Ryan Madson's bad stint as closer in Lidge's absence) but the Phillies ended up about average in save conversion percentage. It was the Dodgers' 26 blown saves that was 3rd most in baseball. Again notice that the 6 other playoff teams are all above average. (This isn't too surprising...if a team blows a lot of saves, it's hard to get a lot of wins and make the playoffs...therefore playoff teams should, on average, have fewer blown saves.)

I also wanted to point out something that happened in the Phillies-Rockies NLDS that shows why the National League is so much more interesting.

In the bottom of the 7th inning of Game 4 Raul Ibanez made a huge error, dropping a fly ball (lost in the lights) and allowing Seth Smith to reach second base. At the time, the Phillies were up by 1 run with one out in the inning.

Why would I label this error as huge? The Rockies ended up not scoring in the inning and the error seemed to have no effect on the game. But...it did. After Clint Barmes flied out for the second out, pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez's spot came up in the lineup. With the tying run on second base, Jim Tracy had no option but to pinch hit for Jimenez. Ryan Spilborghs made out, but nobody would argue with Tracy's decision.

Up to that point, Jimenez had pitched very well, allowing just 6 hits and 2 walks in 7 innings while striking out 7. The runs came on two gopher balls.

In the 8th inning, the Phillies nearly scored off the Rockies' bullpen. Perhaps if Jimenez had still been pitching, he would have breezed through another inning, saving the Rockies' relief pitchers for the 9th. Instead, they used up guys because they had to.

Weirdly, Ibanez's two-base error actually seems to have helped the Phillies win the game! Isn't it amazing how an error by one team's fielder can get the other team's pitcher out of the game? This is the beauty of the National League and makes NL games so much more interesting than AL games.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying two things:

• In the NLCS, keep your eye on when each manager decides to lift the starting pitcher, especially if you are a relatively new fan of baseball. It's one of the most fascinating things about the National League playoffs.
• The designated hitter concept really stinks, in my opinion. We've had some great DHs over the years, but personally I feel it's time to get rid of it. The MLB players union does not want to allow this as it would cost roster spots for players who fit only as DHs, such as David Ortiz, Hideki Matsui, Jim Thome, etc. In my opinion, the DH should be eliminated, effective in 2014. This would give teams 5 years to change their rosters, etc, to compensate for the coming change.

Today's MLB Oriole's Game Notes has a paragraph chronicling all the doubles lists that Brian Roberts is climbing this season. Here is a closer look courtesy of the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index:

Read the rest of this entry »

Check out Raul Ibanez's splits before and after the All-Star break this year:

So the guy's power and productivity have been largely diminished in the second half. It's also interesting to look at his career splits before and after the break:

It's interesting just how similar his numbers are before and after, especially his OPS being identical. His lopsided performance this season actually brought those numbers in line to each other for his career.

Check out Joe Blanton's numbers so far this season. Not including his nice start tonight, he's 9-7 in 27 starts with a 4.11 ERA. But against the Nationals (again, before tonight) he was 0-2 in 4 starts with a 9.45 ERA over 20.0 innings. By doing a little math, that means he was 9-5 with a 3.40 ERA against everybody else.

I guess things really do average out over time, though, as Blanton tonight pitched 6 scoreless ininngs against the Nats and picked up the win.

Check out the worst slugging percentage by 4th-place hitters for each team (stats through last Thursday...sorry...wrote this one a little early.)

Man, check out just how awful the Royals' cleanup hitters have been. They are nearly 100 points below the second-worst team, and the entire range of everybody else is about 200 points. It's not like their producing in any other way, either. The Royals' #4 batters have a collective batting average of .211 and OBP of .278. Sheesh. The cumulative OBP for all of MLB is .333, meaning that the guys on the Royals who should be in the upper echelon of power hitters have an OBP that's more than 50 points below leave average. And they have struck out a ton. Umm...yeah.

Let's not miss the Mets. Although they have an average SLG out of their cleanup hitters, they have just 14 HR, the second-fewest in baseball.

Here are the performances by the guys who have hit 4th the most for the Mets.

The loss of Delgado hurts for sure. All of the other guys have hit pretty well, truth be told, and 97 RBI over the course of the season is not too bad. For some reason, though, the dingers have been infrequent.

If you check out the major-league batting splits for 2009 to date, you can find the batting splits based on leverage.

For a brief description of leverage, you can check out the glossary here. Basically, each plate appearance can be assigned an index that indicates how big of an influence it has on the outcome of the game.

I've reduced the table to some stats of interest:

First, you can see that medium-leverage and low-leverage plate appearances have about the same frequency, whereas high-leverage plate appearances are about half as frequent. This tells you that in an average game, only about 1 out of every 7 plate appearances can have a large impact on the game's outcome. Interesting, huh? (That's not to suggest that runs scored during low- or medium-leverage situations don't matter--they just have less average effect on the outcome. Many of these are, for example, solo homers late in a game where the run differential is already 5.)

Calculating RBI per plate appearance, high-leverage situations come in at 0.22, medium at 0.10, and low at 0.08.

These numbers might be confusing. Some people interpret them to mean that players focus more during high-impact situations and drive in more runs. (Another way to refer to this is "clutch hitting.") In reality, the reason there are more RBI in high-leverage situations is that there are more runners on base. In other words, a situation with 2 runners on base is more likely to be high-leverage, whereas a situation with empty bases is more likely to be low-leverage. A homer hit in each case results in more RBI in the high-leverage case.

This explanation is backed up by the HR numbers. Here are the HR hit per plate appearance in each situation. High: 0.025, Medium: 0.027, Low: 0.029. They are pretty similar. I would presume that HR (as well as batting average) are slightly lower in high-leverage situations because they often see an effective relief pitcher (such as a lefty specialist or a closer) come in to face the batter.

Anyway, I will be looking at the performance of some specific players in these situations. I just wanted to introduce the numbers for starters.