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K-Rod, Castillo, and Externalities June 17, 2009

Posted by tomflesher in Baseball.
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On Friday, Luis Castillo committed an error in the bottom of the 9th inning with a one-run lead, two men on base, and two men out. The error was such that had Castillo made the play cleanly, the game would have ended with Francisco Rodriguez notching a save; however, Castillo’s error was directly responsible for two unearned runs scoring, giving Frankie a loss instead of a save.

The question: How much money does Castillo owe Rodriguez? I have a pretty good estimate.

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Quickie: Kiss the Sheff April 22, 2009

Posted by tomflesher in Baseball.
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Why is Gary Sheffield employed for the league minimum when Barry Bonds can’t get a job?

Sheffield had a Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, Slugging Percentage and On-Base Plus Slugging of .225/.326/.400/.725 in 2008; Bonds was last active in 2007 and hit .276/.480/.565/1.045 (with the .480 OBP leading the National League). Clearly, something’s wrong. Collusion?

What’s wrong, in my estimation, is still that Bonds represents a negative externality on his team’s production, reputation, and revenue; Sheffield, meanwhile, is less of a threat to ticket sales. Despite being unpopular and saying bizarre things, Sheffield has not yet to my knowledge irritated fans to the extent that Bonds has, nor is he quite the clubhouse menace Bonds is said to be.

Of course, time will tell whether Sheffield produces $400,000 worth of runs for the ailing Mets.

Pitchers with 4+ RBIs (Sorry, Mets fans) September 23, 2008

Posted by tomflesher in Academia, Baseball.
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Last night, the Cubs’ Jason Marquis hit a rare grand slam. Even rarer is that Marquis was the starting pitcher and got the win. Still rarer: Marquis had one hit and 5 RBIs.

That raises the question: just how common an event is Jason’s productivity?

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Things I spend a lot of time thinking about August 3, 2008

Posted by tomflesher in Uncategorized.
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Baseball generally, the New York teams specifically, applied economics, sabermetrics (wait, those two are the same thing), Canada, Canadian politics, rational choice theory in professional sports, homebrewing, the hop shortage, torbie cats named Samantha, US politics, Brewery Ommegang.