Nearing the Halfway Point… Some Baseball Musings

Before jumping into my post, please allow me to Re-introduce myself.  As you can see, my byline has changed from Vlookup Vince to Gideon.  Otherwise, though, the Vince I have pretended to be is not all that much different to the Gideon that I am.  I love the business of sports, love viewing sports through the analytical/statistical/logical (oooohh, burn!) lens, and I love baseball and football the most.  I spend a fair share of my time in Excel, and many of my posts indicate as much.  That’s my story, now on with some baseball.

As we near the half way point of the MLB season, I’m going to steal a page from the Mickey and Smokey playbook and throw down some completely unrelated musings, well of course other than they are MLB related, and fairly interesting to me.

• Can Albie Pujols win the triple crown?  After bashing another 2 homeruns last night he sits at 30 for the season.  He is running away with both homeruns and RBI, and currently sits about 10 points back in batting average, at .332, normally the category he does lead the league in.  This will be a story well into September, and one worth following as the icing on Pujols ridiculously dominant decade.

• What will the reception be if Pujols were to break Roger Maris’ 61 homerun season?  The only people to ever break Maris’ mark have serious asterisks next to their name.  In this day and age, no one is out of the realm of suspicion, but Pujols very well may be very revered if he were to break the mark.  He is one pace for 62 as we speak.

• Carl Crawford is stealing bases at an amazing rate.  He is on pace to become the first player since 1988 to steal 80 bases in a season.  While stealing 80 happened numerous times throughout the ‘80s by the likes of Ricky, Vince Coleman, Eric Davis, etc., it hasn’t happened since, with the sole player to make a run since being Jose Reyes in 2007 (78). Crawford needs 40 in his last 84 games.

• Tim Wakefield is pitching at All-Star quality, and deserves to make the All-Star for the first time in his career, at the age of 42.  He leads the league in wins at 10, and fittingly is on the verge of a few significant milestones, including most wins ever by a Red Sox pitcher.  He is currently a few shy of Roger Clemens’ team record.

• Chris Davis is making a heroic assault on the single season strikeout mark.  After a breakout season last year, it seems that pitcher have figured how to pitch him.  While the power hasn’t waned, he is on pace for 244 strikeouts.  The current mark was set last year by Mark Reynolds – 204.  Breaking the record by 40, or 20% would be absurd.

• Our saves leader as we near the halfway point is 22 – Brian Fuentes, who funnily enough pitches for the Angels. Last season, KRod, who then pitched for the Angels got his 22^nd save on June 2, almost a full month earlier than Fuentes.  On June 30, KRod had added another 10 to his total.  His record seems safe for a year.

• Love that ESPN has begun making a number of stats that were originally only important to the sabermetric nerds more front and center.  Every box score now includes OBP and pitches seen.  Five years ago few ESPN analysts had much regard for these stats, now every box score includes them – a great step forward for the nerds, and the pitches seen is a super interesting data point.  Who knew that Chris B Young, widely considered a free swinger saw 29 pitches against the Reds last night?  Fascinating.  Miguel Montero saw a mere 8 in four at bats.  ESPN has also taken to showing OPS on Sunday Night Baseball, along with league average for many players.  Bringing these stats main stream can only be a good thing for the game.

Enjoy the baseball and the long weekend and the stories over the next few months.

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