AGRI Biz

I was playing around with some statistical leaderboards today, and I thought I'd present who I believe were the ten best relief pitchers in 2009. This is according to my new stat, True ERA, which takes FIP, xFIP, and tRA, three "luck adjusted ERA-type stats," into account. Most of these names are familiar, but there are a few surprises... Begin Slideshow

Cole Hamels went 14-10 with a 3.09 ERA in 2008. He ended the year a World Series hero. Cole Hamels went 10-11 with a 4.32 ERA in 2009. He ended the year a World Series bust. Naturally, any fan seeing this would think that Hamels had some sort of huge fall from grace; he must have done more wrong in 2009 than 2008. The media was all over this line of thinking, particularly ...

I think Billy Beane is an excellent GM, and I agree with most of his moves. But it's been reported that the A's are close to a 1-year deal with free agent outfielder Coco Crisp, and while I think Crisp is a fine player, such a move leaves me scratching my head as to what Beane is doing. Presumably, the A's will go into 2010 with Rajai Davis in center field and ...

Since I have a bunch of time on my hands in this month, being that I'm off from college, I've been compiling a leaderboard of what I call "True ERA." The formula for that is pretty simple: True ERA = FIP + (xFIP - FIP) + (.92tRA - FIP) How did I come up with this, you ask? Well, FIP is widely regarded as a sort of "true ERA" since it takes out ...

If you're a regular reader of "Here's a Thought," you probably know that I don't like to use ERA very much. Instead, I prefer FIP, tRA, and xFIP when discussing pitchers. The statistics are just luck-adjusted ERAs, so they slot in nicely to ERA's "traditional" statistical role. Thus, an easy way to tell how "lucky" a pitcher is is to look at the ERA-FIP difference. Fangraphs has a handy leaderboard of this ...

If you take a quick look at Trevor Cahill's 2009 stats from, say, Yahoo! Sports, you probably would come away thinking "It's not great, but he did okay for a 21-year-old." Cahill went 10-13 with a 4.63 ERA...something like a No. 4 starter. However, a deeper look reveals a season built on luck rather than skill, and some serious problems for the righty. Cahill had a 5.33 FIP, 0.70 runs higher than his ...

Only a few franchises in MLB truly understand how to spend money wisely. I would trot out the A's, Twins, Rockies, Mariners, Brewers, Cardinals, Phillies, and the Rays as some of these. Few do a better job of acquiring the best talent with the least money than the last team in that list: Tampa Bay. And they've done it again. Most fans, possibly even many Tampa Bay fans, don't realize that the Rays ...

I'm a member of the "new school," that typically looks hard at sabermetrics as a form of player evaluation and takes issue with those inside the game who don't. Dayton Moore and Ed Wade are the two easiest targets in baseball front offices for sabermetric scorn, but the Mets' Omar Minaya is pretty close. Then again, nobody likes Minaya these days; at least, I don't think many Mets fans do (as an ...

As one of B/R's resident minor league experts, I often like to share my knowledge of the minors with those of you who don't have the desire and/or the time to keep up with all this stuff, particularly outside of your own favorite organization. Few times of year in the baseball world call for such a transfer of knowledge as the Rule 5 Draft, which occurred at the Winter Meetings last ...

Continuing with the theme of last night's position players article (see: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/310728-heres-a-thought-nathaniels-extremely-premature-idea-of-who-should-break-camp-with-the-oakland-as-position-players), here is a look at who, among the current pitchers in the Oakland organization, is best served to break camp with the team in 2010. As I said in the other article, a lot can happen between now and then, but this operates on an "If the Season Started Tomorrow" premise. This is not a long-term setup, necessarily, but ...