Bill James Gold Mine

by craig on Mar 27, 2009 3:13 PM EDT in News and Rumors

ACTA Sports once again sent an email about a book they have for sale. Since I buy it every year I thought I would pass this along. The Bill James Gold Mine 2009,

For example, on the Florida Marlins, James offers the following insights, among others:

"The Marlins were the first team in major league history to have each of its regular infielders hit at least 25 home runs, and they came within one Jorge Cantu homer of making it 30 each." Cantu gave it his best shot, hitting seven home runs in the first fourteen games of September to reach 29, but didn’t hit that one extra homer in his last eight games.

As a rookie in 2006, Ricky Nolasco went 11-11, but had a 4.82 ERA and struck out only 99 hitters. In 2007 he missed most of the season with an injury, and then last year he struck out 186 and cut his ERA to 3.52. What happened? "New slider. Nolasco in 2006 threw no sliders, or anyway 0%. Last year he threw the slider 16% of the time. In 2006 he got 22% swings-and-misses on pitches outside the strike zone. Last year it was 29%."

"When Hanley Ramirez jumped on the first pitch, he batted .481 with a .975 slugging percentage."

The Marlins were 11-3 in Josh Johnson’s starts last season, good for a .786 winning percentage. "The only pitchers with more starts and a higher team winning percentage in 2008 were Chien-Ming Wang (12-3) and Dasuke Matsuzaka (23-6)."

"Dan Uggla in 2008 batted .524 with the bases loaded, driving in 25 runs in 23 situations."

Actually, Nolasco's new slider is closer to a splitter, but what the hey.

I'm not trying to sell the book, I would never, unless they paid me of course, and they aren't. I just thought the info was interesting and that you might enjoy it.

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...can't...resist...

“Dan Uggla in 2008 batted .524 with the bases loaded, driving in 25 runs in 23 situations.”

“We only needed one run not four. He just as easily could have struck out. But typical Dan Uggla going for the glory and selfishly padding his statistics.”

by dan 2.0 on Mar 27, 2009 7:57 PM EDT reply actions

I hadn’t realized he did so well last year with the bases loaded. However it would be nice to see some links for all these stats. For all I know most of these wonder stats are invented. How about a little documentation? It is actually a minimal internet courtesy to show where these figures come from.

What I said about that grand slam is 100% true and on the money. It was completely selfish and unnecessary. Are we here to win games or just create a spectacular show? I only care about winning games. Nothing else matters. Certainly not hallucinated or invented statistics and meaningless convoluted formulas.

He was hot in May of last year. He was a no show for 18 months before that. I watched him lose game after game after game after game for most of his career. The Dan Uggla that impressed me was the Dan Uggla of the All Star game. What also impressed me is that no matter how badly he played, everybody always seemed to love him.

But I am a fanatic Marlins fan and I hope he has a monster year.

by jrhana on Mar 28, 2009 10:24 AM EDT up reply actions