A depressing week where the A's struggled to take advantage of their chances and where there were so many injuries that even people who were already injured got injured. These notes will be a little sparse, due to some behind-the-scenes improvements I'm making to the Baby Winexp engine.

Pleasant surprises have been the resurgence of Zito and the positive play of Ellis and Melhuse (enjoy it while he's in the lineup). A look at the winexp contributions shows that no one is single-handedly dragging the ship down; it's just that the starting pitching has been uninspired and that Elly and Melly themselves cannot offset the generally poor play of the rest of the batting lineup.

A's Contributions, This Week        Top MLB Contributions, This Week

    Name            WXC     Events      Name            WXC     Events
OAK Barry Zito*     +0.890  55      PHI Aaron Rowand    1.007   33
OAK Mark Ellis      +0.267  28      SF  Jason Schmidt*  0.953   63
OAK Adam Melhuse    +0.257  16      OAK Barry Zito*     0.890   55
OAK Kiko Calero*    +0.248  14      NYM Carlos Delgado  0.882   34
OAK Huston Street*  +0.228  18      SD  Khalil Greene   0.881   40
OAK J Duchscherer*  +0.212  17      LA  Olmedo Saenz    0.878   12
OAK Joe Kennedy*    +0.074  17      COL Matt Holliday   0.867   37
OAK Mark Kotsay     +0.049  34      PHI Chase Utley     0.834   39
OAK Jason Kendall   +0.046  23      CHW Pablo Ozuna     0.778   14
OAK Kirk Saarloos*  +0.045  25      CLE C.C. Sabathia*  0.745   55
OAK Chad Gaudin*    +0.000  24      LA  No Garciaparra  0.721   39
OAK Ron J. Flores*  -0.008  11      CHW Joe Crede       0.707   35
OAK Dan Haren*      -0.033  60      SD  Chan Ho Park*   0.689   33
OAK Joe Blanton*    -0.037  31      DET Brandon Inge    0.688   28
OAK Brad Halsey*    -0.045  55      SD  Rob Bowen       0.666   15
OAK Antonio Perez   -0.089  4       BOS Manny Ramirez   0.648   30
OAK Dan Johnson     -0.092  27      COL Jeff Francis*   0.642   59
OAK Bobby Crosby    -0.124  36      TEX Mark DeRosa     0.638   34
OAK Nick Swisher    -0.157  36      BOS Mike Lowell     0.633   31
OAK Bobby Kielty    -0.194  20      DET Jer Bonderman*  0.611   58
OAK Eric Chavez     -0.212  31      ARI Conor Jackson   0.567   24
OAK Frank Thomas    -0.228  28      NYY Alex Rodriguez  0.549   31
OAK Marco Scutaro   -0.266  8       CHC Carl Zambrano*  0.548   27
OAK Jay Payton      -0.287  32      DET Joel Zumaya*    0.541   12

A's Contributions, Season So Far    Top MLB Contributions, Season So Far

OAK Nick Swisher    1.745   154     STL Albert Pujols   4.099   163
OAK Eric Chavez     1.114   133     NYM Carlos Delgado  1.931   165
OAK Joe Kennedy*    0.787   61      NYY Derek Jeter     1.860   166
OAK Barry Zito*     0.721   203     STL Chr Carpenter*  1.794   248
OAK Kiko Calero*    0.418   59      CIN Todd Coffey*    1.793   95
OAK Dan Haren*      0.314   241     OAK Nick Swisher    1.745   154
OAK Milton Bradley  0.255   85      TB  Jonny J. Gomes  1.699   163
OAK J Duchscherer*  0.237   74      CHW Jim Thome       1.643   155
OAK Rich Harden*    0.081   123     CHW JA. Contreras*  1.640   176
OAK Jay Witasick*   0.001   25      NYY Jason Giambi    1.634   146
OAK Randy Keisler*  -0.003  8       NYM Tom Glavine*    1.594   211
OAK Ron J. Flores*  -0.007  16      ARI Brandon Webb*   1.576   235
OAK Brad Halsey*    -0.020  128     CIN Bronson Arroyo* 1.533   230
OAK Mark Ellis      -0.060  138     COL Todd Helton     1.504   113
OAK Matt Roney*     -0.067  13      TB  Ty Wigginton    1.473   144
OAK Mark Kotsay     -0.170  151     NYM Duaner Sanchez* 1.427   92
OAK Kirk Saarloos*  -0.205  113     COL Brad Hawpe      1.418   158
OAK Bobby Kielty    -0.209  42      DET Joel Zumaya*    1.410   68
OAK Huston Street*  -0.218  55      BOS Manny Ramirez   1.373   151
OAK Marco Scutaro   -0.259  62      CHW Pablo Ozuna     1.359   45
OAK Chad Gaudin*    -0.311  47      SF  Barry Bonds     1.346   124
OAK Antonio Perez   -0.441  30      PHI Aaron Rowand    1.307   137
OAK Joe Blanton*    -0.449  194     TEX Hank Blalock    1.223   153
OAK Dan Johnson     -0.507  112     FLA Mig M. Cabrera  1.207   154
OAK Jason Kendall   -0.521  109     HOU Lance Berkman   1.187   165
OAK Bobby Crosby    -0.558  127     MIL Damian Miller   1.186   115
OAK Frank Thomas    -0.563  123     MIL Carlos N. Lee   1.169   169
OAK Adam Melhuse    -0.577  45      CHW Joe Crede       1.161   139
OAK Jay Payton      -0.809  115     DET Jer Bonderman*  1.144   211
OAK Esteban Loaiza* -0.965  95      HOU Morgan Ensberg  1.134   161

Pujols 5.0 continues to play at Bondsian levels and inspire awe and suspicion. I personally think he's corking his bat with HGH.

Two technical notes this week.

1. I've upgraded Baby Winexp to use not just historical data from 1979-1990, but now also 2000-2004 (all from walkoffbalk.com). This is effective this week. It's jostled the data  for a handful of players because Baby W has been punting on computing winexp for situations where there wasn't enough information. Now with a lot more info, she has become more certain about more situations and issued calculations for some plays she ignored before.
   
2. I've added initial support for Retrosheet BOX+PBP data files (not .EVT event files).  These exist for all games played since 1957 (so far).  I'm looking forward to playing with all this data. I was actually hoping to compare Ruth and Ice Cold Ted Williams, but that's not yet possible. But I should be able to trawl through to find the most (winexpy) valuable A's since 1957, which of the Big Three was the most valuable, who was the most to blame for our recent playoff collapses, who was more valuable, Billy Beane or Neifi Perez,  etc. etc. There are still some bugs that will take some time to work out. In the meantime, if you have any ideas for things to research in the data, let me know and I'll try to get around to it.