Wired magazine recently published a short opinion piece about the suggestion that American professional sports consider changing their playoff system to be more similar to the one used in European soccer.  Over the pond, each soccer league is split into levels. Teams that finish with the worst record (or records) in a given level are demoted to the next lower level, while teams winning lower levels can climb up to a next higher one. I don't know a lot of the specifics of how these leagues work, but that is the basic idea as I understand it.

The Wired article suggests that the guys who have come up with the suggestion feel that this sort of system used in MLB would encourage creation of new teams, take away some leverage from ownership (such as threats of moving the team) and force all teams to be as competitive as possible to avoid the lower levels.

My friend Eric P brought the article to my attention and we discussed how such a baseball playoff system might look in baseball. I'm not suggesting this is a good idea--here's just a summary of what we discussed.

First, we limited our discussion to the current 30 teams and how such a system might perhaps increase competitive balance while also making the full season more meaningful for a larger fraction of the teams.

Suppose we break the 30 teams into 6 levels, each containing 5 teams. Let's go by 2009 records to determine the levels.

LEVEL 1

Yankees, Angels, Red Sox, Dodgers, Phillies

LEVEL 2

Rockies, Cardinals, Giants, Rangers, Marlins

LEVEL 3

Twins, Braves, Tigers, Mariners, Rays

LEVEL 4

Cubs, Brewers, White Sox, Reds, Blue Jays

LEVEL 5

Athletics, Padres, Astros, Diamondbacks, Mets

LEVEL 6

Indians, Royals, Orioles, Pirates, Nationals

So here are some thoughts on how such a league would work in 2010 and forward:

• Teams play a fairly unbalanced schedule against mostly teams within their own level. For example, Level 1 teams play 18 games each against the 4 other teams in their level, 6 games each against the teams in Level 2, and 3 games each against the teams in Levels 3, 4, 5, and 6. That's 72 games against Level 1, 30 games against Level 2, and 60 games against Levels 3 through 6, for a total of 162 games.
• The top four teams from each level make the playoffs. The seeding and home-field advantage are determined by best records. There are six sets of playoffs. The ultimate winner from Level is is the overall champion. The winner from the playoffs in Levels 2 through 6 moves up to the next higher level. The team in each level that did not make the playoffs drops down to the next lower level, with the exception of the worst team in Level 6, which can't drop to a lower level.

Again, I'm not suggesting that this idea is necessarily wonderful, but it does offer some interesting benefits:

• By adding the extra playoff series the lower levels, there are more games and therefore more revenue. MLB will never change anything about the game unless they see more revenue.
• By virtue of the ability to move up or down, many more teams will remain invested in game outcomes for most of the year. Fans will remain interested too, especially those in Level 2 or 3 who hope to move up a level. It might be OK to have the moving team determined strictly by best or worst record (and not add the lower level playoffs) but again that would eliminate the extra game revenue.
• By having the in-level unbalanced schedule, there would be new rivalries that would remain somewhat constant from year-to-year. For example, in 2010 there would be lots of games between the Braves and Twins and the Cubs and White Sox. Those rivalries would continue until one team moved up or down from its current level.

However there are many negatives:

• At the beginning of each year, the overall champion can come from only the 5 Level 1 teams, regardless of how well those teams actually play. It gives those teams an unfair advantage. It also means that no team can ever have a significant reversal, such as Tampa Bay making it all the way to the World Series in 2008 after never having had a winning season.
• The scheduling would be a nightmare and in all likelihood, impossible. The 2010 schedule couldn't have been created until the end of the 2009 season, which isn't enough time. Also, check out what Level 1 would be like in 2010: three east coast teams and two west coast teams. That means that Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies fans would have to deal with 27 games on the west coast, and these games are against primary rivals. Imagine, too, if there were 4 west coast teams in Level 1 with a single east coast team. That team would be flying west for 36 in-level games (as well as other out-of-level games against west coast opponents.) It would be such a disadvantage for that team. (Of course, the Mariners face such a disadvantage now by having no nearby divisional rival. Even the Althletics are a multi-hour plane flight away. Compare this to the proximity of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Pittsburgh.)
• The teams in the lower levels know that they can't compete for the championship for a minimum of a certain number of years For example it takes a minimum of 5 years to move from Level 6 to Level 1, and only then if the team wins its level every single season. This goes against the spirit of professional sports as we know it in the U.S., where hope springs eternal and any team can have championship aspirations each season. The idea of keeping fans interested would probably backfire for a team like the Royals, which by such a system would have been stuck in the doldrums for many consecutive years.

The true spirit of the Wired article is different from what I suggest above. To follow its suggestion would mean something more like this:

• Create a 12-team "developmental league." Any owner can put together players he or she acquires as free agents and pay a yearly fee to place his team in the league. The league fee would need to be quite large to cover costs associated with travel, locating stadiums to play in, etc.
• Each year, the winner of the developmental league moves up to the major leagues, while the major-league team with the worst record moves down to the developmental league. If creating your own baseball team is exceptionally difficult, then the major league team that falls into the D-league should easily win the D-league championship, and the D-league team playing in MLB should finish with by far the worst record. Then they just switch places the following year. Eventually, though, as things develop, the D-league might get good enough to be able to promote some of its teams to the majors and keep them there.
• Falling out of the MLB and into the D-league would represent a major loss of revenue for that team and therefore should strongly motivate the owners of all teams to try to avoid losing a lot of games.

It seems remarkably unlikely that the playoff system in MLB will ever shift to anything akin to what I've written here, but I still find it fun to think about.

Every now and then there is game that seems to be headed in no particular direction. One team has the lead , then other, and round and round they go. It's almost as if the team batting last is sure to win. Games with multiple lead changes are usually sloppy, but exciting nonetheless. Lets take a look at a couple of these bizarre games.

PI does not yet have the ability to easily provide us with a list of games with the most lead changes. However, we can still find some crazy see-saw contests by searching for the games with the most blown saves:

Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball-Reference.com Play Index / Subscribe to the Play Index

We did a major reworking of nearly the entire website last April. One area that remained unchanged was the Play Index. It took seven months, but the Play Index has finally been updated to match the rest of the site including features like in table sorting, the Share Tool, and pre-formatted and csv text. I have also reworked a number of the tools allowing for more types searches.

The main advantage to this update besides those listed above is that these changes will speed the development of new features dramatically. I've basically been on hold for new Play Index features for 18 months as I worked to move the entire site over to our new platform. Thankfully, that is essentially done now, and we can focus on improvements and additions rather than refactoring old code.

Some of the new features.

I've added a fifth criteria for the game and season finders allowing searches like seasons with "HR > SO" or "CS > SB". This is still pretty crude, but it is a first step toward full arithmetic searches.

The season and game finders now have more matching options at the top of the forms. Most of these options were already in the tools, but were buried in the sort options. These are for searches like "Most multi-hit games in career, 1954-2009" or "Most 20-HR seasons".

For the game finders there are additional new features. When doing a matching search (like "most games with a home run in first 50 games"), you also get a summary line for all of the games matching that search, which allows you to definitively say that Wally Joyner has the most home runs in a player's first 50 games since 1954. This also gives you a way to do a reasonable good split search ("Most wins against the Blue Jays in the last ten years"). There are also more matching options for things like most players with a multiple hits in a single game for one team or both teams.

I've also re-organized the front page and now show only the last 30 days of saved searches by default.

We are also going to add a few more photos to Play Index, so look for those later this week.

Special thanks to our team of bloggers who put these updated tools through their paces. They will be highlighting some of the new things you can do in upcoming blog posts. There are definitely still bugs in there to be ironed out. There are millions of potential searches to do, so we just can't test every possible combination. You can report issues you find through our bug system. Suggestions are also welcome there. Please be as specific as you can.

Subscribe to the Play Index

To celebrate the update, we are offering a free trial for the play index through November 20th. Give it a whirl for free and we hope you'll find it worth your while to subscribe after the 20th. Also, it has been three years since we launched the Play Index and our prices have held constant during that time. We have increased the prices with this update, so that a full year subscriptions has gone from $29 to $36/year.

If something isn't working as before and you really, really can't wait for it to get fixed, the old version is still available.

Thank you for your support of Baseball-Reference.com and your feedback is always appreciated.

My predictions this year haven't been all that good.

On July 7th, I predicted the playoff teams here. I really missed on the AL East teams, prediction that the Red Sox would win the division and the Rays would win the Wild Card. I had the Yankees missing the playoffs (when in fact they had the best record in baseball...oops). I also missed the AL West where I picked the Rangers, which I'm less embarrassed about, as well as the Giants winning the NL Wild Card (actually won by the Rockies.) I did get all the other division winners correct, though.

Anyway, regardless of my lack of success there, I'm going to make some bold predictions for this off-season. These are based on only my own gut feel and not any inside information. If I am correct on 2 or 3 of these, I'll be proud.

1) The Blue Jays will not trade Roy Halladay during this off-season

The reason for this is pretty simple--trading for one year of a star pitcher is very expensive in terms of talent the acquiring team must surrender and most teams would prefer to wait until the trade deadline to make sure they are in the race before giving up all that talent. The only thing worse than not making the playoffs is trading for a guy like Halladay, giving up your 3 best prospects, and THEN not making the playoffs. Oops. I don't think the Blue Jays will find any takers during the off-season unless the new team is allowed to negotiate a contract extension with Halladay, something that now-fired GM J. P. Ricciardi would not allow at the 2009 trade deadline. Make no mistake--Halladay will be traded by the trading deadline in 2010, just not before the season starts.

2) The Red Sox will dump either David Ortiz or Mike Lowell and sign/acquire two of the following: Jason Bay (free agent), Matt Holliday (free agent), Adrian Gonzalez (trade from San Diego)

When I say "dump" I mean trade or release. Jason Bay did a great job filling in for Manny Ramirez but is now a free agent. And while Ortiz and Lowell had excellent periods during 2009 both are showing significant deterioration. The Red Sox resemble the Yankees circa 2006, with some very old players (Lowell, Wakefield, Varitek), inconsistent starting pitchers (Matsuzaka, Beckett), an enigmatic youngster (Buchholz), a few strong younger players (Pedroia, Ellsbury, Lester, Bard) but an aging core team. The other way in which the Red Sox resemble the Yankees is making the playoffs but getting bounced.

The time has come for this team to get younger and they need to start by getting rid of some of their older, unpredictable talent. They might get nothing in return but this is still a better strategy than standing pat and perhaps getting little or no production from guys on the decline who may be injured. The 3-4 hitters for this team next year are going to be some combination of Bay, Holliday, and Gonzalez. With Jed Hoyer, a former assistant GM in Boston, now running the show in San Diego, the trade of Gonzalez to Boston is as much of a lock as any possible trade. Hoyer knows the Red Sox propsects and there is a trustful relationship between the GMs.

3. The Yankees will not re-sign Hideki Matsui or Johnny Damon

I'm going to hedge my bet right away and say that there's a chance that they'll bring back Damon, but if so, only on a one-year contract. Let's start with Matsui. He's been an outstanding player for the Yankees since they acquired him in 2003. His performance has been excellent and, as with virtually all MLB players born in Asia, he is professional and very hard-working. (Note to Americans...we can all learn something here.) He has two big knocks, however: 1) He's going to be 36 before the All-Star break in 2010 and has had serious injuries in 2 of the last 4 seasons and 2) At this point he can only play DH. Having given Jorge Posada a long contract, the Yankees need to give him probably half the season at DH next year. Look for Francisco Cervelli to catch more. As A-rod and Jeter age (seasonal ages of 34 and 36 next year) they will also benefit from some time at DH. The Yankees simply need to get younger and need to protect Posada.

In the case of Damon, the question will probably come down to whether Xavier Nady will be back in 2010, ready to take over in the outfield. Damon has been outstanding offensively in 2008-2009 but is not a good defensive player. If Nady can take over, I think the Yankees will hand him Damon's spot and move on. Keep in mind that 4 of the Yankees 9 positional starts this year were already 35 or older: Matsui, Damon, Posada, and Jeter. We know that Posada and Jeter aren't going anywhere.

4. The Phillies are going to make some major changes to their pitching staff

What a mess for the Phillies. Brad Lidge was horrendous and Ryan Madson wasn't much better. Cole Hamels was enigmatic both on and off the field. Jamie Moyer was inconsistent but more bad than good and is signed for another year. Their best starting pitcher in the regular season, J. A. Happ, started only one game in the playoffs and pitched a total of 6 innings over 7 appearances. And finally, Pedro Martinez, a guy with no future in Philadelphia, started 2 games in the World Series.

As much as I loved seeing Pedro pitch, it's very odd for a defending champion to rely so heavily on a scrap-heap kind of player. That's what happens, though, when a guy like Hamels becomes unreliable and so many starters from the previous season (Myers, Kendrick, and Moyer) are not available to start in the playoffs.

Anyway, oddly for a team that's been to 2 straight World Series, the only thing that is certain for next year is that Cliff Lee will be the opening day starter. Who else will be in that rotation or that bullpen remains a mystery. I would not be surprised to see Lidge bumped to middle relief and Myers (a free agent) back as the closer. I also wouldn't be shocked if Hamels isn't back with the team next year.

5. There are going to be some bizarre free-agent signings

This year's free agent class is one of the most interesting for a long time. It's the first one taking place after the slow economy hit baseball really hard. This past season was the first full one since the U.S. economy has been so bad and there were big drops in revenue from ticket sales, advertising, and merchandising. Teams are going to have less to spend. On top of this, the class of free agents is one of the weakest, talent-wise, in a long time. John Lackey is the best starting pitcher available and he's a solid #2 type guy.

I predict that during this off-season we'll see some better name free agents go to some smaller market teams and a little bit more balance then we've seen in the past. Don't get me wrong...the Yankees and Red Sox have the AL East and AL Wild Card for 2010 locked up already. But because there aren't as many impact players available and all revenues are down, I think we might see teams like the Royals and Pirates dip into free agency and get some of the better players for smaller dollars.

Many months ago, back when the Mets were in the conversation as the best team in the National League, I posted a contest created by a reader named BoondockSaint. Prior to the start of the season he posted 40 questions and invited everyone to test their  prognostication skills. Now that the season has ended, I invited BoondockSaint to send me the results and here are the final scores:

1. Whiz - 26 correct
2. BoondockSaint - 25
3. Redsauce - 24
4. JohnnyTwisto - 23
5. Bunnywrangler - 22
6. PCG -21

BoondockSaint also sent me the questions with the final results: Read the rest of this entry »

It was noted by an Arkansan on SABR-L that Lee and Burnett were both from Arkansas and were born within a year of each other, Burnett from North Little Rock and Lee from Benton. This was the 38th time that the two WS starters from the same state in the Union. The most recent was Kevin Appier and Russ Ortiz, both from California, faced each other twice in the 2002 World Series.

Surprisingly, at least to me, no foreign country has boasted two native sons starting in a World Series game.

Full List after the jump

Here is the full list.
Read the rest of this entry »

Crowd watching "playograph" at Herald Bldg., World Series, 1911 (LOC) on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Interest in the WS has always been high. The picture above is from the 1911 World Series. Gameday Circa 1911.

Analysis: Phillies Have the Edge on Defense - Bats Blog - NYTimes.com

Watch Sean get killed for presenting the UZR's of the Yanks and Phillies first basemen.

I noticed that in 2009, Elijah Dukes managed to steal just 3 bases to go along with 10 times caught stealing. I thought for sure that would be way up on the leaderboard, but I was wrong.

  Cnt Player             **SB** CS Year Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+-------+--+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Pete Runnels          0   10 1952  24 WSH AL 152 632 555  70 158 18  3  1  64  72   0  55   1   4   0  14  .285  .368  .333  .701 *6/4
    2 Jose Vizcaino         1   11 1994  26 NYM NL 103 456 410  47 105 13  3  3  33  33   3  62   2   5   6   5  .256  .310  .324  .634 *6
    3 Eddie Yost            1   11 1957  30 WSH AL 110 492 414  47 104 13  5  9  38  73   2  49   5   0   0   6  .251  .370  .372  .742 *5
    4 Bobby Doerr           1   10 1939  21 BOS AL 127 574 525  75 167 28  2 12  73  38   0  32   1  10   0  17  .318  .365  .448  .813 *4
    5 Zeb Terry             1   13 1921  30 CHC NL 123 553 488  59 134 18  1  2  45  27   0  19   4  34   0   0  .275  .318  .328  .646 *4
    6 Todd Cruz             2   10 1982  26 SEA AL 136 519 492  44 113 20  2 16  57  12   1  95   0  11   4  18  .230  .246  .376  .622 *6
    7 Charlie Moore         2   10 1982  29 MIL AL 133 492 456  53 116 22  4  6  45  29   2  49   1   4   2  11  .254  .299  .360  .659 *92/4
    8 Luis Gomez            2   10 1978  26 TOR AL 153 469 413  39  92  7  3  0  32  34   1  41   0  19   3  10  .223  .280  .254  .534 *6
    9 Elliott Maddox        2   11 1978  30 NYM NL 119 469 389  43 100 18  2  2  39  71   1  38   2   2   5   8  .257  .370  .329  .699 *958/3
   10 Jerry Morales         2   12 1974  25 CHC NL 151 590 534  70 146 21  7 15  82  46   3  63   2   3   5  15  .273  .330  .423  .753 *798
   11 Curt Flood            2   12 1958  20 STL NL 121 461 422  50 110 17  2 10  41  31   1  56   4   4   0  17  .261  .317  .382  .699 *8/5
   12 Johnny Groth          2   10 1952  25 DET AL 141 580 524  56 149 22  2  4  51  51   0  39   0   5   0  11  .284  .348  .357  .705 *8/7
   13 Bill Knickerbocke     2   12 1935  23 CLE AL 132 577 540  77 161 34  5  0  55  27   0  31   0  10   0   0  .298  .332  .380  .712 *6
   14 Charlie Jamieson      2   13 1929  36 CLE AL 102 422 364  56 106 22  1  0  26  50   0  12   1   7   0   0  .291  .378  .357  .735 *7
   15 Zeb Terry             2   11 1922  31 CHC NL 131 571 496  56 142 24  2  0  67  34   0  16   2  39   0   0  .286  .335  .343  .678 *4/65
   16 Hod Ford              2   11 1921  23 BSN NL 152 614 555  50 155 29  5  2  61  36   0  49   4  19   0   0  .279  .328  .360  .688 *46
   17 Elijah Dukes          3   10 2009  25 WSN NL 107 416 364  38  91 20  4  8  58  46   2  74   3   0   3   8  .250  .337  .393  .730 *98/7
   18 Mike Marshall         3   10 1985  25 LAD NL 135 564 518  72 152 27  2 28  95  37   6 137   3   2   4   8  .293  .342  .515  .857 *9/37
   19 Tony Johnson          3   13 1982  26 TOR AL  70 111  98  17  23  2  1  3  14  11   1  26   0   1   1   1  .235  .309  .367  .676 7D/89
   20 Rick Miller           3   13 1978  30 CAL AL 132 547 475  66 125 25  4  1  37  54   1  70   4  10   4  14  .263  .341  .339  .680 *89
   21 Max Alvis             3   10 1967  29 CLE AL 161 697 637  66 163 23  4 21  70  38   1 107   4  16   2  13  .256  .301  .403  .704 *5
   22 Irv Hall              3   10 1945  26 PHA AL 151 668 616  62 161 17  5  0  50  35   0  42   6  11   0   8  .261  .307  .305  .612 *4
   23 Mike Tresh            3   10 1940  26 CHW AL 135 538 480  62 135 15  5  1  64  49   0  40   1   8   0  12  .281  .349  .340  .689 *2
   24 Red Kress             3   16 1931  24 SLB AL 150 655 605  87 188 46  8 16 114  46   0  48   1   3   0   0  .311  .360  .493  .853 *5963
   25 Red Kress             3   12 1930  23 SLB AL 154 679 614  94 192 43  8 16 112  50   0  56   2  13   0   0  .313  .366  .487  .853 *65
+----+-----------------+-------+--+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
  Cnt Player             **SB** CS Year Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+-------+--+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
   26 Charlie Jamieson      3   12 1928  35 CLE AL 112 501 433  63 133 18  4  1  37  56   0  20   1  11   0   0  .307  .388  .374  .762 *7
   27 Joe Sewell            3   16 1927  28 CLE AL 153 652 569  83 180 48  5  1  92  51   0   7   9  23   0   0  .316  .382  .424  .806 *6
   28 Ray Morehart          3   11 1926  26 CHW AL  73 208 192  27  61 10  3  0  21  11   0  15   1   4   0   0  .318  .358  .401  .759 *4
   29 Andy High             3   12 1922  24 BRO NL 153 659 579  82 164 27 10  6  65  59   0  26   4  17   0   0  .283  .354  .396  .750 *56/4
   30 Ray Powell            3   12 1922  33 BSN NL 142 619 550  82 163 22 11  6  37  59   0  66   4   6   0   0  .296  .369  .409  .778 *8
   31 Larry Kopf            3   14 1921  30 CIN NL 107 427 367  36  80  8  3  1  25  43   0  20   6  11   0   0  .218  .310  .264  .574 *6/457
   32 Larry Gardner         3   20 1920  34 CLE AL 154 683 597  72 185 31 11  3 118  53   0  25   1  32   0   0  .310  .367  .414  .781 *5
   33 Zinn Beck             3   10 1915  29 STL NL  70 245 223  21  52  9  4  0  15  12   0  31   3   7   0   0  .233  .282  .309  .591 *5/64
   34 Butch Schmidt         3   10 1915  28 BSN NL 127 524 458  46 115 26  7  2  60  36   0  59   9  21   0   0  .251  .318  .352  .670 *3

Since caught stealing has been kept as a statistic, there have been 17 guys to steal even fewer bases than Dukes with at least 10 caught stealings.

I'm flabbergasted at such high CS totals for guys with so few stolen bases.

Check out all the players with at least 10 CS in 2009:

  Cnt Player             **SB** CS Year Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions
+----+-----------------+-------+--+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
    1 Jacoby Ellsbury      70   12 2009  25 BOS AL 153 691 624  94 188 27 10  8  60  49   3  74   6   6   6  13  .301  .355  .415  .770 *8
    2 Michael Bourn        61   12 2009  26 HOU NL 157 678 606  97 173 27 12  3  35  63   1 140   2   5   2   1  .285  .354  .384  .738 *8
    3 Carl Crawford        60   16 2009  27 TBR AL 156 672 606  96 185 28  8 15  68  51   1  99   8   2   5   7  .305  .364  .452  .816 *7/D
    4 B.J. Upton           42   14 2009  24 TBR AL 144 626 560  79 135 33  4 11  55  57   0 152   3   3   3   7  .241  .313  .373  .686 *8
    5 Chone Figgins        42   17 2009  31 LAA AL 158 729 615 114 183 30  7  5  54 101   0 114   1   8   4   8  .298  .395  .393  .788 *5/4D7
    6 Nyjer Morgan         42   17 2009  28 TOT NL 120 533 469  74 144 15  7  3  39  40   2  74   9  10   5   9  .307  .369  .388  .757 *78
    7 Rajai Davis          41   12 2009  28 OAK AL 125 432 390  65 119 27  5  3  48  29   0  70   7   2   4  12  .305  .360  .423  .783 *8/9D
    8 Scott Podsednik      30   13 2009  33 CHW AL 132 587 537  75 163 25  6  7  48  39   1  74   3   6   2   8  .304  .353  .412  .765 *78D/9
    9 Juan Pierre          30   12 2009  31 LAD NL 145 425 380  57 117 16  8  0  31  27   3  27   8   9   1   7  .308  .365  .392  .757 *78
   10 Dexter Fowler        27   10 2009  23 COL NL 135 518 433  73 115 29 10  4  34  67   1 116   1  14   3   4  .266  .363  .406  .769 *8
   11 Denard Span          23   10 2009  25 MIN AL 145 676 578  97 180 16 10  8  68  70   3  89  10  12   6   7  .311  .392  .415  .807 *8*79
   12 Ryan Theriot         21   10 2009  29 CHC NL 154 677 602  81 171 20  5  7  54  51   1  93   6  13   5  13  .284  .343  .369  .712 *6
   13 Troy Tulowitzki      20   11 2009  24 COL NL 151 628 543 101 161 25  9 32  92  73   4 112   3   0   9  20  .297  .377  .552  .929 *6
   14 Hunter Pence         14   11 2009  26 HOU NL 159 647 585  76 165 26  5 25  72  58   1 109   1   0   3  25  .282  .346  .472  .818 *9
   15 Clint Barmes         12   10 2009  30 COL NL 154 604 550  69 135 32  3 23  76  31   2 121  10   6   7   6  .245  .294  .440  .734 *46
   16 Kosuke Fukudome       6   10 2009  32 CHC NL 146 603 499  79 129 38  5 11  54  93   3 112   3   3   5  15  .259  .375  .421  .796 *89
   17 Elijah Dukes          3   10 2009  25 WSN NL 107 416 364  38  91 20  4  8  58  46   2  74   3   0   3   8  .250  .337  .393  .730 *98/7

Now, all the guys on this list below B.J. Upton shouldn't have been trying to steal bases this season. A guy's success rate should be at least 75% or the outcomes aren't worth it for the team. But at least guys like Podsednik and Span managed to be successful more times than not. I don't understand how someone can get thrown out 10 times while stealing so few times. I mean--a few pickoffs I can understand. But ten? Geez...

Jimmy Rollins came to the plate last night as his team's last hope. The Phillies trailed by a run and were down to their last out.  However, just three pitches later, it was the Dodgers who were done. Rollins and the Phillies has grabbed a win from the verge of defeat. In doing so Rollins became the fifth player in postseason history to come to the plate with the opportunity to lose the game for  his team and instead provide them with a walk-off win.  The others include some amazing post-season moments, including Cookie Lavagetto' s turning Bill Beven's no-hit bid into a loss, Kirk Gibson's one legged home run, the Braves remarkable comeback in the 1992 NLCS, the only such game in extra innings.

  Car#  G# Date          Series G Batter            Tm   Opp Pitcher           Score       Result Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit RBI Play Desc.
+-----+---+-------------+------+-+-----------------+---+----+-----------------+-----------+------+---+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+
     1   1 1947-10-03    WS     4 Cookie Lavagetto  BRO  NYY Bill Bevens       down   1-2  2B     b 9 12-   2  -        2 *ENDED GAME*:Double to RF; Gionfriddo Scores; Miksis Scores
     2   1 1988-10-15    WS     1 Kirk Gibson       LAD  OAK Dennis Eckersley  down   3-4  HR     b 9 -2-   2 3-2   7   2 *ENDED GAME*:Home Run (Line Drive to Deep RF); Davis Scores
     3   1 1992-10-14    NLCS   7 Francisco Cabrera ATL  PIT Stan Belinda      down   1-2  1B     b 9 123   2 2-1   4   2 *ENDED GAME*:Single to LF (Line Drive to Short LF); Justice Scores/unER; Bream Scores/unER; Berryhill to 2B
     4   1 2003-10-03    NLDS   3 Ivan Rodriguez    FLA  SFG Tim Worrell       down   2-3  1B     b11 123   2 1-2   5   2 *ENDED GAME*:Single to RF (Line Drive); Gonzalez Scores/unER; Pierre Scores/unER; Castillo to 2B
 

Rollins also became the 11th player overall and second this season to give his team the lead, despite coming to bat trailing with 2 out in the ninth.