Reader George S. wrote in to ask about Curtis Granderson. Much has been made of "The Grandyman"'s new-found power.

To illustrate what George is talking about, check out Granderson's game logs since August 14th of last year. From then through Sunday, Granderson has 22 HR and 51 RBI in 71 games. On a 162-game basis that's 51 HR and 117 RBI. He has a .938 OPS over that span.

Brian Heyman of the LoHud Yankees blog reports that since last Aug 14., only Jose Bautista and Troy Tulowitski have more homers than Granderson. Heyman also references the change in Granderson's swing instituted around that time by hitting coach Kevin Long.

So is Granderson a changed guy or is this just a got streak? I tend to doubt that he's a whole new guy. From September 25, 2008 to June 19, 2009 (also a period of 71 games) Granderson had 19 HR, 46 RBI, and an .846 OPS. Yes, those numbers aren't quite as good as he's done lately, but they're not that far off. If a few fly balls go over the fence or stay in the yard, the numbers would be just about identical.

It may be true, however, that Granderson's tweaked swing is helping him drive the ball just a little bit further, pushing his power numbers up a bit.

The Cleveland Indians have won 19 of their first 27 games this season.  How many teams had 19+ wins in their first 27 games since 1993?

Read the rest of this entry »

This is just a quick rundown of teams who have overperformed or underperformed in April. I am referring to teams whose W-L record doesn't match up all that well with their runs allowed and runs scored profile or who have unusually good or bad luck in 1-run games.

Overachievers:

• Dodgers - they are giving up almost a full run more than they are scoring and yet have a 14-15 record. They've also played 20 of 29 games against teams with losing records. Look for them to start losing more often as the season goes on.
• Rockies - they are a good team, but not quite as good as 17-9. They are about 2 wins ahead of where they should be based on their run differential plus they are 5-2 in 1-run games, a margin that is difficult (but not impossible) to maintain for a whole season. They have also played 23 out of 26 games against losing teams.
• Kansas City Royals - their record is perfect relative to their runs scored and allowed (both a little better than even) but they have won 7 out of 10 1-run games, which, like the Rockies, will be tough to maintain for an entire season. I would expect the Royals to hang around .500 for most of the season and maybe post their most wins since 2003.

Underachievers:

• Braves - they are outscoring opponents by a wide margin but have a losing record. Their 2-5 record in 1-run games is a part of that. Look for them to right the ship and at least make it a race with the Marlins and the Phillies.
• Red Sox - their record matches their run differential, but their pitching has been much better of late so I expect their run differential will continue to improve. They've also lost 5 of 7 1-run games and have only played 7 games against teams under .500.

Doing just as expected:

• Indians - these guys might be for real. They have the top run-scoring differential in all of baseball and their record is smack dab where it should be. Plus they are 4-4 in 1-run games and have played the same number of teams above and below .500.
• Cardinals - yes they have the 3rd-best run-scoring differential in the league and should have more wins in theory, but they have only played THREE games against a team with a winning record! They are a good but probably not great (thanks in large part to injuries.)

Some observations about team stolen base totals in 2011 through Friday's games:

• The Orioles have attempted only 6 stolen bases so far this season. That puts them on a pace of about 40 attempts for a full season. The last time a team was even close to so few attempts was 2008, when the Padres attempted only 53 steals. No team had fewer the 53 going all the way back to 1990.
• The Braves have also attempted a fairly small number at just 13, and they have succeeded only 5 times (the same number as the Orioles). The low success rate of 38% is horrible. The worst team last year (in terms of stolen base percentage) was the Giants at 63% on 87 attempts. Of course, that didn't prevent them from winning the World Series...
• The team with the best success rate--with 11 steals and just 1 caught stealing--is the Twins. And the Twins have a very disappointing 9-16 record and are in last place.
• At the other end of the spectrum, the Padres have the second-most steals so far, with 32. However, they have struggled badly to score runs with just 2.77 per game, by far the worst mark in the majors (an an unsusntainably low number.) The steals don't seem to be helping them push runners around, or maybe the only guys getting on base for them are the base-stealers.
• The Kansas City Royals have 33 steals with just 5 time caught. They have the most steals and one of the best success rates. This has probably helped them to their 13-13 record

In Yesterday's 2-1 loss to the Giants, the Nationals had 14 base runners, despite only managing 2 hits. Here are the teams since 1919 with at least 13 base runners (including those who reached via error) and at most 2 hits:

Jorge Posada is having a weird season so far.

After the Yankees' 11th game this year, Posada was hitting just .184. But he also had 5 homers and an .858 OPS.

Since then, though, he's fallen off the map and is at .130, 6 HR, and a .622 OPS.

So far this year, he's got those 6 HR, only 3 other hits (all singles) and 20 strikeouts.

I don't need to look up any of those numbers to tell you that are very unbalanced, strange, and ultimately pretty bad.

Through Friday's games, here are the 15 guys in MLB (minimum 8 IP) who have thrown at least 69% of their pitches for strikes.

For Roy Halladay, these numbers don't even count his CG effort today against the Mets where he threw 80 out of 107 pitches for strikes.

Thanks to reader Jim P. for pointing out Halladay's strike-throwing tendency. Actually Jim pointed out that Halladay didn't throw a single ball to any of the first 9 batters today.  All told, Halladay faced 33 batters today. He walked one of them, meaning he threw 23 balls to the other 32 batters...think about that for a minute.

The Dominican Republic has given us many great ballplayers over the years, far more than you might expect from a nation of its size. In fact, the tiny coastal town of San Pedro de Macorís alone has produced more MLB players per capita than any other municipality in the world. Baseball is so deeply ingrained in the culture of the D.R. that Pedro Gonzalez once said, "Every boy grows up with a bat and a ball—it’s the first present a male baby gets in his crib."

So, as a tribute to the fine baseball being played by its natives, here is the all-time Dominican all-star team according to Wins Above Replacement:

Read the rest of this entry »

Since 1901, there are 196 pitchers who've hit at least 5 HR in their careers. These are guys who appeared in at least 50% of their games as a pitcher (so, no Babe Ruth or Brooks Kieschnick.)

I used a two-tier search to then find the career HR yielded by each of these guys, and then in Excel found those with the best ratios of HR hit to HR yielded.

Reb Russell	3.14
Ed Karger	0.50
Harry Howell	0.45
Clay Bryant	0.38
Dixie Howell	0.38
R Winegarner	0.38
Claude Hendrix	0.34
Garland Buckeye	0.33
Pete Schneider	0.31
Wes Ferrell	0.29

Now, Reb Russell really shouldn't count. According to his BR Bullpen article, he was a pitcher with the White Sox in the 1910's but came back as a full-time outfielder after blowing out his arm.

How many times, since 1901, has a team had two right-handed starters, age 36 or older, in the same season, make 25 starts or more?

Read the rest of this entry »