We're Gonna Need a Bigger Shovel
Ramblings of a cranky sports fan
Measures performance and often misused.
After a lot of thought, I have come to the conclusion that WAR is not the best way to measure performance. Case in point, Albert Pujols. I will admit I never got over him leaving St. Louis, but his WAR numbers for the Angels are just wrong. In 2017 he drove in over 100 runs […]
Since there is no sports at present (although NASCAR is starting up in a couple of weeks) I thought I would write about baseball and why it is the best sport ever. First and foremost almost everyone played some form of baseball growing up. Unlike many other sports, you don’t need freakish size and/or athletic […]
As I mentioned earlier, I am part of the age group that hates change. However I really like fantasy sports, especially baseball. I never play for money because I never win when I gamble (former math teacher here!). But running a fantasy baseball team keeps you involved through the season. You need to adjust your […]
I hope baseball fans enjoyed the amazing seven game World Series! EVERY game was won by the visiting team! That has NEVER happened before. As a baseball announcer whose name escapes me said many years ago “No matter how many games you see, there is always something you have never seen before”. The World Series […]
Photo by Charles 🇵🇭 on Unsplash It is getting very tiresome to see writers saying that modern pitchers are better in the postseason than pitchers from baseball’s past. You can NOT compare the two. Until 1969, there was only the World Series. No wildcard games, no division series and no league championship series. Pitchers got two, sometimes three […]
I was a fan of this franchise back when it was the Montreal Expos. It feels good to see the team reach the World Series in its 50th year of operation. And extra sweet to see them do it without Bryce Harper. I don’t think they have much chance of winning the World Series, but […]
It will be a great day when Justin Verlander receives his 2019 Cy Young Award. I can hear the sabermetric “experts” crying now. The man may be the last 20 game winner for a long time. You don’t need to look any farther than the sub 3 ERA, 21 wins, 300 strikeouts and first in […]
Has anyone made any fuss about Nick Castellanos hitting 58 doubles in 2019? That is the 10th most doubles in one season in MLB EVER!!! The media is so in love with advanced metrics they are missing a really historic event. This man is a doubles machine! Tried and true stats like doubles (and total […]
The more I read about the methods used to calculate WAR (Wins Above Replacement), the more I shake my head. Even the sites that explain it admit that the calculation is very subjective (which means suspicious). I imagine the people who come up with calculation sit in front of a spreadsheet on their computer and […]
Wins Above Replacement is defined as a number that shows the wins a player adds to his team above what a replacement player would contribute. For a single-season 8 or more is MVP quality, 5-8 is All-Star quality, 2-5 is a starter, 0-2 is a bench player, less than 0 is replacement level. This stat […]