Keeping Score: The Number Beyond M.V.P. Numbers - NYTimes.com.

This week's piece on the A.L. and N.L. MVP races.  Thanks to Raphy who saved me a bad typo (last SP as MVP).  Not sure if it made it into the print version or not.

This one isn't very sabermetrically sexy, but, somewhat interesting, nonetheless. How many players have had at least three seasons where they played 100+ games at SS while posting 10+ HR and 10+ SB?

Every year, a few regulars hit .300 but don't actually contribute all that much to their team's success. This was especially true in 1998-2001 when even my grandma could have .300.

Who's the worst this year? I'll put out a few candidates and let you debate it.

Here are the 3 regulars hitting at least .300 with the lowest WAR totals:

Delmon Young is actually having a pretty good year with the bat. If he could up his walk total in future years, he'd be an absolute stud with the bat. What's really hurting Young's WAR is his fielding runs total, currently at -20 for the year. How accurate is this number? Well that's a subject for debate I guess.

As for Castro and Podsednik, they have done a lot less at the plate. Castro's also got a very low walk total and Podsednik's hitting nothing but singles. They both have pretty low OPS+ values. Castro also has a big negative in fielding runs, giving him that lower WAR value.

Here are the players hitting .300 with the lowest OBP (among players qualified for the batting title):

Some of these guys are having very good seasons--Guerrero, Gonzalez, and Prado for sure. Placido Polanco sticks out as a guy hitting a pretty soft .317. He doesn't have many extra base hits and doesn't have particularly high RBI or R totals.

By the way, as of now, there are only 25 regulars hitting .300.

I guess I jinxed them...losing 4 games in the Astros makes them a long shot for the playoffs at this point. Even with a handful of games against the Braves, history tells us that a 3-game deficit is probably too much to make up.

PITCHf/x Summit | baseball.sportvision.com

I'll be attending the PitchF/X summit in San Francisco this weekend.  If any of our readers will be there, please drop me a line or say hello at the summit.  It's always good to put some faces to names.

Bringing teams together, leaving egos at the door - Omaha.com

This isn't exactly baseball or site related.  But hey it isn't every day your dad is named a Coach of the Year, so I hope you'll indulge me this.  Congrats, Dad!  I'm very proud of you.

We all know that not every 100-RBI season is a great one. You'd think, though, that any 100-RBI season is worth at least something positive for the team, right?

Well if you think that, you're wrong. Following is a list of 100-RBI seasons where the team would probably have been better off releasing the player and bringing up a minor-league replacement.

OK, I've gotta toot our own vuvuzela for a second here: I just found out that the Sports-Reference family of sites has been named to TIME Magazine's list of the 50 Best Websites for 2010! It's a great honor for us, and a thrill to know that our users get so much enjoyment & utility out of the sites. Here's to being your favorite sports stats destination for many years to come...

The note below is a call for volunteers from RetroSheet President Dave Smith. If you like box scores, gamelogs, and splits from baseball's history on this site, you have Dave and his crew of volunteers to thank as their research has provided most of the information for that work. RetroSheet is a completely non-profit volunteer organization, and if you have some free time and love baseball history they have some ways you can help. You can e-mail Dave with an offer to help at dwsmith@retrosheet.org.

Retrosheet’s need for volunteer help
by Dave Smith

As we have accumulated more data, Retrosheet’s needs for volunteers have shifted.  At the present time our most critical need is for help obtaining scans of newspaper stories from newspapers that are not available on-line. There certainly are many internet resources with newspapers and the good news is that these should continue to increase.  However, there are some excellent newspapers from the 20th century that to this point are only available via microfilm. That means going to a library, sitting at the microfilm reader, finding the relevant story (we occasionally find some play by play accounts this way as well) and making a scan.  In many cases it is necessary to get the paper via interlibrary loan.

Until now, our primary mode of operation was for me to collect information and distribute it to volunteers for processing (game entry, deducing game accounts, digitizing of official records, etc).  Volunteers then donated huge amounts of their time to complete the tasks.  However, we are rapidly approaching the point that this model needs to change.  In the past several years, we have relied more and more on newspaper stories, especially for deducing play by play accounts.  The problem is that I have become the bottleneck in this process, since almost all the scanning has been done by me.  I have access to a great library and excellent interlibrary loan services, but the task is just too large for me to keep up with alone.  Others have provided substantial help, especially Bob Kistler in Boston, Jim Herdman in Seattle, Cliff Blau in New York and Walter LeConte in Kansas City, just to name the four most active.  However, the job before us is huge and it would be extremely valuable if others could help us collect the newspaper information.  I realize this is a much more demanding task than our “traditional” pattern of volunteer work at home.

I am therefore asking for help from anyone who can help with scanning from the following newspapers, mostly prior to 1950:

New York Daily News
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh Press
Boston Globe
Boston Record-American
Cincinnati Enquirer
Detroit Free Press
Detroit Times
Washington Times
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin

Over the years, I have worked on these papers in a rather disjointed way to address specific projects.  Therefore, we need selected dates from selected years and not just blanket copying of all issues of the Globe-Democrat from 1928, as an example.  If you can help with this difficult, but absolutely vital effort, let me know which papers you can access and I will provide you with exact dates that we need.

Dave Smith

The Stat Challenge returns!

The winning entrant will receive my copy of Dirk Hayhurst's The Bullpen Gospels. I previously reviewed the book right here.

To enter, post a comment below with what you think the Game Score will be for the Phillies' starting pitcher on Friday August 27th. Currently Roy Oswalt is the scheduled starter. As a tiebreaker, also guess the Game Score for the Padres' starting pitcher in that same game, currently scheduled to be Mat Latos.

If there are identical posts with the same two guesses, the earliest post is the one that counts. Only one entry per contestant. Entries must be in before the first pitch of the game.

In the event of something funky like a rainout, I'll find some fair way to handle the content (probably a do-over.)