Before the full post, I just wanted to mention a coupla' things:

• Please post your predictions for Game 2 of the World Series here. You do not need to have participated in Game 1 to participate in Game 2 or subsequent games.
• Sean made a few improvements to this blog that he didn't publicize, so I'll mention them. Over on the left, under the names of the writers, there is a link for suggestions. You can post a comment there if you have an idea for this blog you'd like to see posted. I strongly encourage you all to use that suggestion box. Also, you may have noticed that all the posts have categories. Sean recently added a "post-season" category so you can read all posts on that. (It doesn't retroactively apply, though, so it's up to us writers to tag our posts properly.)

Anyway, yesterday I promised you some PI knowledge on youngest pitchers in the post-season.

Here are the youngest players to start a post-season game: Read the rest of this entry »

That was a serious case of rust the Rockies had last night, although some credit goes to Josh Beckett, of course.

Don't forget to make your predictions for Game 2--you have about 12 hours to get that in.

But now, here are the results for the Game 1 challenge.

First, here are the best predictions for each category:

• Francis game score: Nobody guessed such a poor performance, but Dre17 was closest, guessing a 37. A few others guessed 38-39, and the average guess was about 48.
• Colorado runs scored: obviously most people went over on this one, but one person, zimcity, nailed it at 1. The average guess was 3.3
• Colorado runners LOB: Three folks (doug730, truman, and Dre17) nailed it at 5 and the average guess was 7.4
• Colorado Home Run guess: obviously nobody got it right since nobody hit a HR for Colorado.
• Beckett Game Score: his actual score was 69 and a bunch of people got very close. Closest was RonBermuda at 68, but shout-outs to larryhisle, Dre17 again, and kingturtle for also getting very close. Average of all guesses was 63.
• Boston Runs Scored: nobody had anything close to 13. Highest guesses were 8, by doug730 and yanks144. Average guess was 5.9 runs.
• Boston LOB: Kingturtle nailed it at 12, next closest was wellspr, and the average was 8.
• Boston Home Run Guess: Nobody had Pedroia.
• Winning and Losing pitchers: lots had the correct combo of Beckett and Francis.

Here are the top 5 finishers for Game 1 of the 2007 World Series Challenge:

1. Dre17 - 86
2T. larryhisle - 93
2T. zimcity - 93
4. Redsauce- 99
5. doug730 - 100

Dre17 deserves a lot of props, as a score of 86 is really very impressive I think. I'll be curious to see what the winning scores are in the rest of the games.

By the way, the average score was 139, and a few folks topped 200 (those who picked Colorado to win, as you might imagine.)

By the way, Larry Hisle had a very interesting career, worthy of a column in and of itself. He was another guy who started with a dreadfully low batting average but became an awesome power hitter. A serious injury (rotator cuff I believe?) ended his career right at its zenith.

Thanks to everybody for entering, and please rush over and post your guesses for Game 2 (link near the top of this post!) I'll post the winners for Game 2, and also carry over your cumulative scores to figure out an overall winner for the World Series Challenge.

Since Game 2 comes, amazingly enough, with no off day in between, I thought I'd post this page now. Don't feel rushed--you can make your entry any time between now and the first pitch on Thursday night.

For the full explanation, or to enter your Game 1 predictions before the first pitch tonight, see the Game 1 post.

GAME 2: THURSDAY

If you thought predicting Jeff Francis' start was tough, how about predicting the performance of a guy with fewer than 20 career starts? See the regular post tomorrow for info on youngest pitchers to start in the post-season. By the way, Jiminez is 23 and Schilling is 40. I wonder if there has ever been such a large disparity in the ages of opposing starters in a post-season game.

C(game score): Ubaldo Jimenez Game Score
C(runs scored): Colorado Runs Scored
C(batting LOB): Colorado Batting Team Runners Left on Base
C(HR guess): Colorado Home Run Guess (one batter)

B(game score): Curt Schilling Game Score
B(runs scored): Boston Runs Scored
B(batting LOB): Boston Batting Team Runners Left on Base
B(HR guess): Boston Home Run Guess (one batter)

Game WP: Winning Pitcher
Game LP: Losing Pitcher

Here is your ballot. Cut and paste it below with your answers.

C(game score): ?
C(runs scored): ?
C(batting LOB): ?
C(HR guess): ?
B(game score): ?
B(runs scored): ?
B(batting LOB): ?
B(HR guess): ?

Game WP: ?
Game LP: ?

You must have a comment in this post timestamped before the first pitch on Thursday night in order to have your ballot count. Please note that I am not going to allow changes, so once you post your ballot, that’s it.

REMINDER: Submit your ballot for Game 1 of the World Series Challenge before the first pitch tonight.

Mike Schmidt remains one of my personal all-time favorite players, and I was just perusing his stats, remembering how badly he hit in his first regular season, 1973. In 132 games, he batted .196 with an OPS+ of just 92. (A figure of 92 doesn't sound all that bad until you realize that his career mark was 147.)

It got me to wondering--just how badly does Schmitty rank for batting average at the start of a career?

Well here are the "leaders' for worst batting average over the first two seasons, minimum of 400 at bats:

  Cnt Player              **BA**    AB  From  To   Ages   G    PA    R    H   2B  3B  HR  RBI  BB  IBB  SO  HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB   CS  OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions Teams
+----+-----------------+---------+-----+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+----+---+-----+-----+-----+---------+-----------+
    1 Ray Oyler            .178     404 1965 1966 26-27  153   454   38   72  14   3   6   22   44   7  123   3   3   0  15    1   0  .264  .272  .536 *6/435    DET
    2 Bill Bergen          .179     630 1901 1902 23-24  176   668   34  113  14   7   1   53   22   0    0   0  16   0   0    4   0  .207  .229  .436 *2        CIN
    3 Tony Smith           .183     460 1907 1910 23-26  157   585   43   84  11   2   1   24   87   0   53   3  35   0   0   12   0  .316  .222  .538 *6/5      WSH-BRO
    4 Eddie Zimmerman      .186     431 1906 1911 23-28  127   484   31   80  10   7   3   37   34   0   37   2  17   0   0    9   0  .248  .262  .510 *5        STL-BRO
    5 Chuck Wortman        .189     424 1916 1917 24-25  144   476   41   80   8   3   2   25   36   0   45   0  16   0   0   10   0  .252  .236  .488 *6/45     CHC
    6 John Gochnauer       .189     470 1901 1902 25-26  130   518   46   89  16   4   0   39   39   0    0   0   9   0   0    8   0  .251  .240  .491 *6        BRO-CLE
    7 Brandon Inge         .194     510 2001 2002 24-25  174   553   40   99  26   3   7   39   33   0  142   4   3   3   9    2   7  .247  .298  .545 *2/D      DET
    8 Dick Schofield       .194     454 1983 1984 20-21  161   514   43   88  12   3   7   25   39   0   87   7  14   0   9    5   2  .268  .280  .548 *6        CAL
    9 Joe Dugan            .194     545 1917 1918 20-21  164   594   35  106  19   3   3   50   19   0   71   6  24   0   0    4   0  .230  .257  .487 *6/4      PHA
   10 Jack O'Neill         .194     438 1902 1903 29-30  138   480   36   85  10   2   0   39   26   0    0  10   6   0   0   13   0  .255  .226  .481 *2        STL
   11 Matt Williams        .195     401 1987 1988 21-22  136   436   45   78  15   3  16   40   24   4  109   3   6   2  12    4   4  .244  .367  .611 /*65      SFG
   12 Mike Schmidt         .197     401 1972 1973 22-23  145   483   45   79  11   0  19   55   67   3  151  10   1   4   8    8   2  .324  .367  .691 *5/463    PHI
   13 Ted Kazanski         .198     464 1953 1954 19-20  134   502   46   92  19   5   3   35   30   0   67   3   3   2  11    1   2  .251  .280  .531 *6        PHI
   14 Gair Allie           .199     418 1954 1954 22-22  121   482   38   83   8   6   3   30   56   0   84   2   3   3   3    1   1  .294  .268  .562 /*65      PIT
   15 John Knight          .199     578 1905 1906 19-20  162   623   57  115  19   3   6   49   28   0    0   1  16   0   0   10   0  .237  .273  .510 /654      PHA

These are the only 15 guys meeting those criteria who come in under the Mendoza line. The full list is here.

Interesting that adjacent to Michael Jack is another power-hitting third baseman who had a very slow start: Matt Williams. Williams actually hit under .210 in each of his first 3 years, although he never got as many as 300 at-bats in any of them. Year 4, in 1990, he broke out with a .277/.319/.488 year, with 33 HR, 122 RBI, and an OPS+ of 123. People sometimes forget that in 1994, he had 43 HR in 112 games when the strike hit, putting him on a pace for 62, back when 61 still meant something and nobody talked about asterisks (except for those who wanted Maris' mark to have an asterisk for coming in 162 games instead of 154.)

Brandon Inge makes an appearance too. Inge is an interesting guy. He has some value due to his ability to play different positions (although he's been used exclusively at 3B the last two seasons.) Offensively, he tends to be over-rated thanks to a decent season in 2004, but don't you forget that he has a career OPS+ of just 85. Ouch.

Most of the guys on this list went on to have short and unmemorable careers. Other than those already named, the only other career of much significance is that of Joe Dugan, who was a career .280 hitter and member of 5 World Series teams (3 winners) with the Yankees. Dick Schofield is the only other guy there to play more than a handful of seasons.

It doesn't bode well for Inge.

Any guesses on who has played the most games for the franchise.  Believe me, you're not going to get the correct answer.  For a team that's been around for 107 years, it's incredible that no one has ever played 1700 games for them.  Hell, it's been over a half-century since anyone lasted 1500 games.

Ok, fellow stat geeks, let's have a prediction challenge. And this isn't going to be a stupid thing like who wins the series and in how many games. Let's do a real stat-oriented contest.

The scoring rules follow bellow. We'll do a separate challenge for each game, and I'll post a the winners game-by-game. In addition, those individuals who post entries for all games of the World Series will be eligible for the final leaderboard for the Series as a whole.

OK, now the rules (again this is for each game, scored individually):

Firstly, the goal is to get the lowest score possible.

Secondly, you must submit a prediction for every category or your entry is invalid.

Now here are the scoring rules:

- For starting pitcher game scores, your point total is the difference between your guess and the actual game score. For example if you guess 80 and the actual game score is 50, you get 30 points. Similarly, if you guess 20 and the actual game score is 50, you also get 30 points. (Remember, the goal is to get the fewest points possible.)

- For runs scored, you get 10 points per run for the difference between your guess and the actual number of runs scored. For example if you guess 6 runs and the actual number of runs scored is 4, then you score 20 points due to the 2-run difference. Similarly, if you guess 2 and the actual number of runs scored is 4, you also score 20 points. Note that this is total runs scored by one team (not just earned runs.)

- For winning pitcher and losing pitcher, you get 0 points for each if your guess is wrong. But, if you guess correctly, you get -20 (negative 20) points for each. (So you get -20 points if you guess either the winner or the loser correctly, or -40 for both.)

- For team LOB, you get 5 points per runner left on base difference between your guess and the actual number of team LOB. Just to be clear, this is batting runners LOB, not runners stranded on base by pitching.

- For the Home Run Guess, you guess one player per team who will hit a home run. If that player does hit a home run, you get -8 (negative 8 ) points. Otherwise, you get 0.

I could go on and on, but for the sake of making this easy and fun, I'll leave it at that.

So here is the ballot. "C" refers to Colorado, and "B" refers to Boston. Note that if a different pitcher ends up starting than the one I've named, your guesses simply carry over to the actual starting pitcher.

GAME 1: WEDNESDAY

C(game score): Jeff Francis Game Score
C(runs scored): Colorado Runs Scored
C(batting LOB): Colorado Batting Team Runners Left on Base
C(HR guess): Colorado Home Run Guess (one batter)

B(game score): Josh Beckett Game Score
B(runs scored): Boston Runs Scored
B(batting LOB): Boston Batting Team Runners Left on Base
B(HR guess): Boston Home Run Guess (one batter)

Game WP: Winning Pitcher
Game LP: Losing Pitcher

Here is your ballot. Cut and paste it below with your answers.

C(game score): ?
C(runs scored): ?
C(batting LOB): ?
C(HR guess): ?
B(game score): ?
B(runs scored): ?
B(batting LOB): ?
B(HR guess): ?

Game WP: ?
Game LP: ?

You must have a comment in this post timestamped before the first pitch on Wednesday night in order to have your ballot count. Please note that I am not going to allow changes, so once you post your ballot, that's it.

Playing around with Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Post-Season Pitching Event Finder, looking at the final out recorded in deciding games for a post-season series,  I noticed that there have only been 4 times, to date, in baseball history where the deciding game ended on a double play.  See this list:

  Car#  G# Date          Series G Pitcher           Tm   Opp Batter            Score       Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit  R Play Desc. 
+-----+---+-------------+------+-+-----------------+---+----+-----------------+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+--+-------------------------+ 
      1   1 1912-10-16    WS     8 Christy Mathewson NYG @BOS Larry Gardner     tied   2-2  b10 123   1   -      1 *ENDED GAME*:Flyball: RF/Sacrifice Fly; Yerkes Scores/unER 
      2   1 1921-10-13    WS     8 Art Nehf          NYG @NYY Frank Baker       ahead  1-0  b 9 1--   1   -      0 *ENDED GAME*:Double Play: Groundout: 2B-1B; Ward out at 3B/1B-3B 
      3   1 1947-10-06    WS     7 Joe Page          NYY  BRO Bruce Edwards     ahead  5-2  t 9 1--   1   -      0 *ENDED GAME*:Ground Ball Double Play: SS-2B-1B 
      4   1 1977-10-09    ALCS   5 Sparky Lyle       NYY @KCR Freddie Patek     ahead  5-3  b 9 1--   1 0-2   3  0 *ENDED GAME*:Ground Ball Double Play: 3B-2B-1B 
      5   1 2002-10-07    NLDS   5 Robb Nen          SFG @ATL Chipper Jones     ahead  3-1  b 9 1-3   1 0-1   2  0 *ENDED GAME*:Ground Ball Double Play: 1B-SS

You might be thinking here "Hey, you said there were four - but, there's five games on this list?!?"  Yes, that's correct.  I looked for "Outs by Batter Allowed in Postseason, Deciding Game, as last play of game, and 1 Outs" to try and find my DP list - and it also grabbed that World Series game from 1912 that ended on a SF in the 10th inning.  If I would have used another filter of "Ahead" when the outs were made, it would have only given me games where they ended in a twin-killing.  No biggie, in the end, as I still got the four games that I was looking for here.

Three of the four times, it involved the Yankees - no shocker there, as the Yankees have been in a ton of post-season series.  Also, three of the four times, the batter hit into the DP to end the game, and the series, when the game was being played in his home park.

It's a rare thing to see - where the deciding game of a post-season series ends on a double-play.  Look at it this way:  If you're under the age of 60, it's only happened TWICE in your lifetime.  Wow.

Using the PI, we can compare how many runs are scored in a post-season game as compared to the number of runs scored in a regular-season game. It's long been my assumption that run-scoring in the post-season has been lower than the regular season since the average quality of pitching tends to be higher among playoff teams.

I don't have the time now to do the study for all years, but let's take a look at one year out of each 10, starting with 2006:

In 2006, a total of 228 runs were scored in 30 playoff games, which is an average of 3.80 runs per team per game. (That's 228 divided by 60, not by 30, since there are two teams in each game.)

Also in 2006, a total of 23599 runs were scored in 4858 regular-season games, which is an average of 4.86 runs per game. (In this case, because the data is already summing over all teams, you don't count each game twice--all 162 games for each team have already been added to the game total.)

So that gives us a baseline idea of the recent difference: 4.86 in the regular season, but just 3.80 (78%) in the post-season.

Let's look at other years in history for the same data:

Year               Regular-season R/G         Post-season R/G         % of Regular-season
1996               5.04                       4.20                      83%
1986               4.41                       4.20                      95%
1976               3.99                       4.46                     112%
1966               3.99                       1.88                      47%

So at least for this subset, there's quite a bit of variation. One thing to remember is that the 1966 data is based on just 4 post-season games (there were no league championship series back then) whereas the more recent data is based on many games.

It would be valuable to fill in all the rest of the years with the data to see what the real trends are. My guess is that these days, post-season scoring is fairly consistently around 80% of the regular-season average. (Hey OscarAzocar, this one has your name all over it.)

Post-season complete games have become a very rare bird lately. There have been just 10 since 2002, with Josh Beckett owning 3 of those.

Oh my, how times have changed. Here are the leaders for most complete games in individual post-seasons: Read the rest of this entry »

I'm straying from the usual type of post today. There are a lot of blogs out there that link up to the Stat of the Day blog here on Baseball-Reference.com. I thought I'd show some love for a few of my favorites. If I've missed yours, click on my name all the way at the left and leave it in a comment.

• Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf collects reviews on baseball books, as well as some other media. Kaplan usually keeps his own comments fairly brief, but they are always an interesting read.
• bblog has some neat calculations, mixed in with a bunch of other stuff specific to Triple Play Baseball.
• Chopchat is ostensibly about the Braves, but the author covers a lot of baseball topics quite intelligently.
• Tony...the Killer and Carew is about the Minnesota Twins and also baseball cards for that team, but the authors have a real passion for their team and it's quite a good read even for non-Twins fans.
• MLBTradeRumors is about all sorts of player movement and potential player movement. Tim has just gotten better and better since he started that site, and for me it's an absolute must-read for keeping track of all 30 teams.
• A Pack a Day is a sports card blog that really brings back the memories. Sort of like MattinglyMosaic.com.

There's so much stuff out there that it's impossible to read it all. I find that people who say more using fewer words are really worth reading.