Bill James - The Bill James handbook 2015

The Bill James Handbook 2015Baseball Info Solutions www.baseballinfosolutions.com Published by ACTA Sports A Division of ACTA Publications Cover Design by Tom A. Wright
Front Cover Photo by Charles LeClaire, USA TODAY Sports
Back cover Photo by Rick Osentoski, USA TODAY Sports Copyright 2014 by Baseball Info Solutions and Bill James All rights reserved. No information contained in this book nor any part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form for commercial use without permission from the publisher. First Edition: November 2014 Published by:
ACTA Sports, a division of ACTA Publications
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www.actasports.com www.actapublications.com ISBN: 978-0-87946-526-1
ISSN: 1940-8668 Dedication This book is dedicated to my sister Emily. Thanks for encouraging me to pursue the career I wanted and for making me feel close to home now that I'm here. And thank you to all of my friends and coworkers at Baseball Info Solutions.

You guys make work feel less like work, at least for the other 50 weeks of the year. Scott Spratt Table of ContentsIntroduction It's virtually impossible for one person to watch every minute of an entire baseball season. With the average time of game over three hours, a 2,430-game season encompasses something like 7,370 hours or 307 days. So, if you started on Opening Day and watched all of the games in sequence, without sleeping, you'd finish in time to get a solid week to catch up on world events before pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training. As appealing as that sounds, most of us haven't been able to pull it off since college. Instead, we share the enjoyment of the baseball season.

No one person can follow every interesting thing that occurs, as the six months of the regular season fly by in seemingly minutes. However, every October we go through the end-of-season stats and double and triple check every number in the entire Handbook before it goes to print. Through this tedious review process, we absorb far more about the season after the fact than we did during the preceding six months. Even though we watch baseball day-in and day-out, we miss many of the idiosyncrasies that make baseball the greatest game in the world. Each oddity occurs so infrequently, yet each game seemingly contains somethingif you watch closely enoughthat we've never seen before. With that in mind, we've picked five of our favorite idiosyncrasies from the 2014 MLB season to share with you here: On August 5th, Adam Dunn started as the White Sox designated hitter, the same way he's done numerous times over the past few years.

With the opposing Rangers ahead 15-0 at the start of the ninth, Dunn took the mound and pitched an inning, allowing a run. (See the "Pitchers Hitting, Fielding, & Holding Runners, and Hitters Pitching" section of this book on page 367.) He then led off the ninth inning, no longer as the DH but as the pitcher. It's just the second time in the BIS database (back to 2002) that a DH has taken the mound and later came up to bat as the pitcher. (Chris Davis performed a similar feat in 2012, actually earning the win after going 0-for-8 at the plate.) Jason Lane, the outfielder who was a major piece in the 2005 Astros lineup that won the National League pennant, had fallen off the map by 2007. Seven years later, he resurfaced in the majors as a Padres pitcher, and he put forth a pretty good showing. (See his Register entry on page 197.) On September 10, pitcher John Lackey was ejected from a game in the middle of an at-bat, with a 3-1 count to be exact. (See his Register entry on page 197.) On September 10, pitcher John Lackey was ejected from a game in the middle of an at-bat, with a 3-1 count to be exact.

Though this seems harmless enough, he was facing a switch hitter, Brayan Pena, who began the plate appearance from the left side of the plate but completed a walk against lefty relief pitcher Tyler Lyons from the right side. In case you are curious, this counts as a left-handed plate appearance for Pena. (See the "2014 Lefty/Right Statistics" section on page 453.) Miguel Cabrera hit a sacrifice fly on May 29 in which he reached base on a fielder's choice. With runners on first and third, Cabrera's flyball to right field was dropped but converted for a force out at second base. Based on the official scorer's judgment, this was considered a "Sacrifice Fly", even though there wasn't an error on the play thanks to the force out at second. As it turns out, this play happens occasionally, and it also happened to Jed Lowrie this year.

But, after winning the Triple Crown in 2012 and leading in batting average, on base percentage, and slugging last year, Miguel Cabrera led MLB in just one category this year: sacrifice flies (thanks to this play). (See the American League leaders on page 472.) On August 12, Arizona manager Kirk Gibson challenged a call in Cleveland in the top of the first inning. The original call, that Aaron Hill was out at first, was upheld. The game was rained out a couple of innings later and restarted the next day as part of a doubleheader. The replay review, along with Hill's groundout and every other event that happened before the downpour, was purged from the official record. (See page 513.) These aren't the moments that we'll remember ten years from now, even one year from now, but they helped to make the 2014 Major League season unlike any other. (See page 513.) These aren't the moments that we'll remember ten years from now, even one year from now, but they helped to make the 2014 Major League season unlike any other.

As we always do, we'll endure the offseason by reflecting on the season that was and hoping that next year has as much to offer. Thanks for joining us. Starting Pitcher RankingsBill James Three years ago I developed a way to rank starting pitchers so as to determine who is the World's #1 Starting Pitcher. That may be poorly stated; a blind Yugoslavian rugby fan with no computer could determine who is the World's #1 Starting Pitcher at this moment. What's fun about it is not Who's #1; it's the list. Tennis has a great list; Golf has a great list.

I don't care who is the world's #47 ranked golfer at this moment, or any moment, but if I cared, I could go check. I care about baseball players. I care about Zack Greinke, and David Price, and Matt Cain, and Cole Hamels, and Stephen Strasburg, and Yu Darvish You, and Gio Gonzalez and Bud Norris and Brandon McCarthy. I always wonder how one guy stacks up against the next. The structure of the baseball schedule invites us to wonder. Let's say there is a game tomorrow, and Sonny Gray is matched up against Garrett Richards.

Who's got the edge? How big is the edge? Who do you like? Rick Porcello or Francisco Liriano, who's got the edge? The system is based on Game Scores. An average Game Score is 50; a really, really bad game is zero, and a fantastically good game is 100. 30% of the Game Score is added to the player's score every time he pitches, so that a pitcher picks up 15 points if he has just a decent, ordinary type gamea borderline Quality Start, let's say. Each starting pitcher starts at 300 when he makes his first major league start (300.000), and a player can't go below 300, but with each start he also loses 3% of his previous scoreso, for example, if a pitcher racks up a "50" in his first major league start, his score goes from 300 to 306: 300, times .97, plus 50 times .30. As long as a pitcher pitches well, his score moves upward from 300. When he pitches poorly, his score moves down.