I think the best solution to the league imbalance is not having 15 teams in each league, but having 16 teams in each league. As I heard on ESPN's Baseball Today podcast a few days ago, Keith Law stated that he also believed that this was the best solution. There are markets that could easily support teams, many of which are not currently being covered by MLB. This would also allow for Interleague play to only happen during designated times. Having it happen every day would truly destroy any novelty that still exists in it.
If the gimmick of Interleague Play has lost its draw on fans, it really serves no purpose. Living in Wisconsin, but being a Minnesota Twins fan, I have the opportunity to see the Twins play in Milwaukee for 1 weekend series every year, which is very appealing. I believe that those games are some of the best selling games that the Brewers have. It would make perfect sense to me to only have Interleague play happen on weekends, allowing the games to become destination games for some fans who would like to travel to see their team play.
I don't but in to the whole rivalry thing between the Twins and the Brewers. I have no ill will towards the Brewers or their fans, however I have some friends who are Brewers fans who do buy into it. It seems to sell more tickets in some cases, so it is serving a purpose right now.
There are still a few issues involved with having 16 teams in each league, how would the divisions work? My ideas are either to have 2 divisions of 8 teams, which has been done in the past with fewer teams, or have 4 divisions of 4 teams, with 2 wild cards, similar to the NFL. 4 divisions and 2 wild card teams would actually create more playoff drama, which in turn will sell more tickets. It will also allow for potentially 3 teams from the AL east to make the playoffs. The first round could be 3 game series hosted by the 3 and 4 seeds, and the 1 and 2 seeds would be able to have a few days rest and set up their rotation to win in the playoffs. This would create more of a race to get the #1 and #2 seeds.
I think having these extra races will increase ratings of television broadcasts, as well as ticket sales to the late season games, for some teams who may not have seen those ticket sales in a long time. I just think all of the new things that would be offered by this would be advantageous for many teams.
I think that having these divisions would keep the major rivalries of the Yankees and Red Sox alive, which has been a mainstay my entire sports memory.
Another issues that comes up is the difference in the leagues with the DH available only in the American League. I realize that the tradition has been to have only the DH in the American League, but what would the big difference be? I think the MLBPA would be in favor of it because there would be more decently paid hitters around because of it, I am sure some pitchers would be opposed to it, but I don't think enough of them would show strong enough dissent.
These are just my thoughts on these topics, I am by no means an expert, just an average fan. I would love to hear other people's thoughts on the topic.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
BABIP
I was bored this evening so while I was baking something in the oven, I thought that I would start looking at some advanced statistics in baseball.
BABIP stands for batting average on balls in play. It simply means the % of balls put into play that are hits, it takes strike outs and home runs out of the equation. The equation is as follows:
I stole that graphic from wikipedia, but it had the best image of that I could find. You take out the home runs from both sides, because home runs are not technically in play, and strike outs don't put the ball in play. Sacrifice flies are added back in because they are put into play, they just happen to be beneficial to the offensive team.
BABIP can be used for many different things. It is one of the only stats that gets used for bother hitters and pitchers. It can be used to show how good the defense is. What I have seen it used most common for is how lucky/unlucky a hitter or pitcher is. If a hitter is having a consistently low BABIP he is most likely having some sort of issue at the plate. If you look at the player with the lowest BABIP of all the qualifying hitters in baseball, Dan Uggla, I think there is something more wrong than just bad luck. From what I have read and heard he is not getting his front foot down fast enough, but it would probably indicate that something is out of whack with him batting approach.
Judging BABIP is largely subjective. Different players tend to have different levels for BABIP, it does not mean that they are better than others if their BABIP is higher. Faster players tend to have a higher BABIP than slower players, because they are able to beat out more infield hits than slower players would. Austin Jackson lead the league in BABIP last year. That is helped because he strikes out a lot, which means he puts the ball in play less, and he is a fast runner. Ichiro regularly has one of the highest BABIP's in the league, because he gets lots of infield hits as well as being a generally good slap hitter.
Pitchers who strike out a lot of batters can also have higher BABIP's than other types of pitchers, but ground ball pitchers can also get crushed in this statistic, if he plays with a defense that is only decent and not elite. I would venture to guess that groundball pitchers have higher BABIP's than flyball pitchers. That would be my guess.
The stat can be used to show how lucky a player is. Players tend to consistently hover around the same number for BABIP from season to season. If a hitter has an irregularly high BABIP, when compared to his career average, it means that he is most likely due to regress back to the norm. The same thing can be said for a player that is suffering through an unusually low BABIP, unless that player is suffering through an injury, or some other sort of problem like Dan Uggla, mentioned above. One indication earlier in the year that Joe Mauer was hurt, was the fact that he has an unusually low BABIP compared to his averages, of course this was in a small sample size too.
BABIP for pitchers works in in an inversed way. If the pitcher has an extremely low BABIP it means that he is most likely going to be due for some regression. If he has a really high BABIP then that will likely return to the norm as well.
My favorite source for BABIP numbers is fangraphs.com, I usually use baseballreference.com for just about all of my statistics, but this is the one that I use fangraphs for.
Well I just wanted to do a little bit of sports writing tonight. I hope this has been enjoyable, as well as educational.
BABIP stands for batting average on balls in play. It simply means the % of balls put into play that are hits, it takes strike outs and home runs out of the equation. The equation is as follows:
I stole that graphic from wikipedia, but it had the best image of that I could find. You take out the home runs from both sides, because home runs are not technically in play, and strike outs don't put the ball in play. Sacrifice flies are added back in because they are put into play, they just happen to be beneficial to the offensive team.
BABIP can be used for many different things. It is one of the only stats that gets used for bother hitters and pitchers. It can be used to show how good the defense is. What I have seen it used most common for is how lucky/unlucky a hitter or pitcher is. If a hitter is having a consistently low BABIP he is most likely having some sort of issue at the plate. If you look at the player with the lowest BABIP of all the qualifying hitters in baseball, Dan Uggla, I think there is something more wrong than just bad luck. From what I have read and heard he is not getting his front foot down fast enough, but it would probably indicate that something is out of whack with him batting approach.
Judging BABIP is largely subjective. Different players tend to have different levels for BABIP, it does not mean that they are better than others if their BABIP is higher. Faster players tend to have a higher BABIP than slower players, because they are able to beat out more infield hits than slower players would. Austin Jackson lead the league in BABIP last year. That is helped because he strikes out a lot, which means he puts the ball in play less, and he is a fast runner. Ichiro regularly has one of the highest BABIP's in the league, because he gets lots of infield hits as well as being a generally good slap hitter.
Pitchers who strike out a lot of batters can also have higher BABIP's than other types of pitchers, but ground ball pitchers can also get crushed in this statistic, if he plays with a defense that is only decent and not elite. I would venture to guess that groundball pitchers have higher BABIP's than flyball pitchers. That would be my guess.
The stat can be used to show how lucky a player is. Players tend to consistently hover around the same number for BABIP from season to season. If a hitter has an irregularly high BABIP, when compared to his career average, it means that he is most likely due to regress back to the norm. The same thing can be said for a player that is suffering through an unusually low BABIP, unless that player is suffering through an injury, or some other sort of problem like Dan Uggla, mentioned above. One indication earlier in the year that Joe Mauer was hurt, was the fact that he has an unusually low BABIP compared to his averages, of course this was in a small sample size too.
BABIP for pitchers works in in an inversed way. If the pitcher has an extremely low BABIP it means that he is most likely going to be due for some regression. If he has a really high BABIP then that will likely return to the norm as well.
My favorite source for BABIP numbers is fangraphs.com, I usually use baseballreference.com for just about all of my statistics, but this is the one that I use fangraphs for.
Well I just wanted to do a little bit of sports writing tonight. I hope this has been enjoyable, as well as educational.
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