During World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill remarked: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” We can get our heads around that. Matt Stairs once said, “When you get that nice celebration coming into the dugout and [...]
Posts from ‘June, 2009’
Do I Still Have My Amateur Eligibility?
I remember distinctly when I was in college having a long discussion with several friends about declaring for the NBA draft. We were just 18 years old, and prior to the new eligibility rules, well within the requirements to declare – if only we gave up our amateur status, and thus our college eligibility. While [...]
The Next Member of the 300 Win Club?
With last week’s Randy Johnson 300th win story, came a slew of predictions around whom, if anybody, will be the next 300 game winner. And while I threw my two cents in regarding our numbness to historic achievement due to the plethora of records broken over the last decade, I have yet to toss my [...]
God’s Gift To The Rubber
T-minus three hours or so until the Washington Nationals find something other than their on-the-field ineptitude to focus on this summer, that “something” being the very likely selection of San Diego State’s Stephen Strasburg with the No. 1 pick in the 2009 MLB Draft at 6pm tonight. Strasburg, of course, now well known as the [...]
Here They Are… Your League Leaders (Pitching)
Following up on last week’s perusal of MLB league leaders (they probably aren’t who you assume they are!), we look today at pitchers, both in the American and National Leagues. As with hitters, we’ll take each major statistic and break down players in terms of “Biggest Surprises”, “Least Likely to Continue”, and “Start Worrying”. The [...]
The Records and Achievements Don’t Mean What They Once Did
A pitcher collecting 300 career wins is an extremely rare feat. In fact, I would rank it as the second rarest feat in sports. No hitters? 256 of those. Cycles? Hundreds. 6 Hit Games? 50+. Even 4 strike-out innings are more common. There are 24 members of the 300 club. Only perfect games, 16 ever, [...]
BP Idol, Very Impressed – Just Not with the Contestants
In a rather creative move, the genius that is Baseball Prospectus began their first ever BP Idol competition a few weeks back. Borrowing a page from the Simon Cowell playbook, they chose 10 contestants to partake in the competition, which, similar to American Idol, eliminates one contestant each week based on fan voting. There is [...]
Here They Are… Your League Leaders (Hitting)
I usually try to avoid even perusing the MLB stat leaderboard for the first six or eight weeks of every baseball season; the sample size is generally too small, so why get hung up on quick starts? We’ve discussed this previously. Come mid- to end of May, however, it is worth taking a look at [...]
Improving my Rec Softball Team with some VORP analysis
Our About page describes CubicleGM as the playground for ‘Working Class General Managers’ where, sitting in our cubicles we each have creative and worthwhile ideas about our favorite teams and sports in general. How to best fill that open Closer, Shooting Guard, or Nickel Cornerback position? We all have well thought out ideas for each. [...]
