A baseball buffet to feed the stats fanatic

Posted Nov 6, 2011 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Nov 6, 2011 at 07:29 PM

The World Series is over, and spring training is still several months away. If you’re a baseball freak, or a stats geek, then it’s a welcome sight when Bill James fills the void.

James deals in statistics and trends. “This is not a an ‘opinion’ book; this is a book of facts,” James writes in the 2012 edition of “The Bill James Handbook” (ACTA Sports, $24.95, paperback, 552 pages). That doesn’t mean, James asserts, that he cannot wrestle with interesting questions.

For example, based on the facts James has compiled, he has pegged eight active players as future Hall of Famers: Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Ichiro, Derek Jeter, Vladimir Guerrero, Chipper Jones, Ivan Rodriguez and Mariano Rivera have already passed James’ threshold, with Jim Thome on the cusp and Miguel Cabrera gaining ground. It’s hard to argue against any of those.

The book is a wonderful array of team and individual stats, focusing on hitting, pitching, fielding and situational baseball. It’s the kind of book where you can take a few statistics, chew on them for a while, and then come back later and choose something else.

Definitely a baseball buffet.

Some of the stats can be maddening; James claims the 2011 Pittsburgh Pirates were the most efficient team in baseball. Considering the Pirates won just 72 games, that seems almost laughable. However, James argues that given the number of runs that they score and how many they allowed, Pittsburgh should have won 69 games. By winning 72, the Pirates exceeded expectations.

Stop scratching your heads. I don’t know, either.

In James’ annual Fielding Bible awards, the Rays’ Ben Zobrist ranked second among second basemen, behind Boston’s Dustin Pedroia. Zobrist did lead the majors in saving runs by a second baseman, preventing 17 runs from scoring.

Rays third baseman Evan Longoria, who won a Fielding Bible award last year, finished second this year behind Texas’ Adrian Beltre.

James introduced a new feature that I really like. It’s called pitch repertoire, which lists a pitcher’s velocity, the number of fastballs he throws, and what other pitches are in his arsenal. For example, Rays pitcher David Price’s fastball averaged 94.8 mph and he threw it 70 percent of the time. James Shields, on the other hand, averaged 91 mph but only threw a fastball 36 percent of the time. His second-most used pitch? A change-up, 27 percent of the time.

Andy Sonnanstine, on the other hand, relied on his fastball only 2 percent of the time. He went to his cutter the most, 65 percent. Predictably, Tim Wakefield throws the knuckleball 89 percent of the time.
Another feature is hitting and pitching projections for 2012. Based on the formulas he has created, James believes Longoria will hit 35 homers and drive in 116 runs. He believes Desmond Jennings will steal 47 bases, B.J. Upton will hit 19 homers and drive in 70 runs, and Matt Joyce will hit 31 doubles, 19 homers and have 69 RBIs. Pujols, by the way, is projected to hit 41 homers with 120 RBIs.

For pitchers, James sees Price going 15-10 and Shields 13-12; Detroit’s Justin Verlander, who won 24 this season, is projected to go 18-8 in 2012.

Another interesting stat: Price and Shields tied for the American League lead in “tough losses,” with eight apiece; Jeremy Hellickson had six.

At times, Rays manager Joe Maddon has been criticized for varying his lineups too much, but he was nowhere near the American League lead in 2011, according to James. Maddon used 130 different lineups, which ranks him fifth in the AL behind Seattle’s Eric Wedge (152), Minnesota’s Ron Gardenhire (140), Cleveland’s Manny Acta (134) and Toronto’s John Farrell (131).

That’s an awfully interesting stat. And as usual, James loads his book up with plenty of them. It certainly will help a baseball nut pass the time until pitchers and catchers report.