Fangraphs and Baseball Reference agree on the top four left fielders of the past decade though they don’t quite agree on the order. This brings us to a debate of elite quality versus very high quantity; WAR is a counting stat so if you play more games at a high level, you end up with a higher WAR. Still, though, playing fewer games at an elite level is incredibly valuable. I’ll settle the debate.
Read more "Best of the Decade: Left Field"Fangraphs is currently giving the Dodgers a 72.3% chance to make the playoffs and a 58.5% chance of winning the NL West. FiveThirtyEight doesn’t like the Dodgers nearly as much, giving them just a 56% chance to make the playoffs a 45% chance to win the division.
The discrepancy between the two models is why we play the games; these are contests between two groups of nine humans, and anything can happen in baseball.
Read more "A Look at the National League Playoff Picture"Josh Hader is a RP for the Brewers. This season, Hader leads all relievers in fWAR thanks to his 1.57 ERA, 0.48 WHIP, 0.90 FIP, 18.8 K/9, and 2.4 BB/9.
Read more "The Next Josh Hader"The Christian Yelich trade is an absolute travesty and the Marlins don’t care about winning. Whether Yelich liked it or not, he was going to suit up for the Marlins in 2018 and beyond had they kept him. But they didn’t because the new Marlins ownership group seems to care more about pinching pennies than Jeffrey Loria did.
Read more "I Take Back What I Said About the Marlins"It was a tale of two halves this year for the Cubbies. The season started off a little rocky. The team as a whole ranked in the middle third for both offense and pitching in the first half, but rectified that in the second half thanks to reigning MVP 3B Kris Bryant turning it on (.269/.399/.529 first-half triple-slash; .325/.421/.548 second-half).
Read more "2017 Recap: NL Central"
Musings of a Baseball Addict 