Athletics Nation, an Oakland Athletics community

The 2009 Bill James Handbook has a section that tries to rate the baserunning skills of major league ballplayers. I say “tries to rate” because even Mr. James acknowledges the crudeness of...

Beane's outsmarting himself.

What does UZR tell us about the free agents to be for our beloved Oakland A's?

Talent wins baseball games.   Talent costs money.   The A’s finished last season 10 games under .500 because of a lack of talent, not funding. They spent over $79 million on player salaries...

Back in March I commented on the similarity between the way Ichiro Suzuki and Jack Cust produce very, very dissimilar results. Ichiro has confounded PECOTA for years because he is a truly unique...

I present to you the fourth and final installment of Pitch, Blease. We have looked at the wide variety of pitches thrown in the majors as identified and described using PitchFX data. To this point,...

Some readers of this site may have noticed that there has been quite a lot of activity surrounding a recent event, the 2008 Major League Rule 4 Draft. Although it is not typically accompanied with...

Introduction So in the ever-expanding mass of information available to we baseball fans, one of the newer tools available is PitchFX data – data on the speed and break of pitches thrown – data...

  Two of a kind, for your information, we're two of a kind Two of a kind, it's my observation, we're two of a kind Like peas in a pod And birds of a feather Alone or together, you'll find...

Grab a snack and pull up a chair.  This will be long. I think I've been called, indirectly at least, a small sample size Nazi.  I don't have the patience to discuss with anybody who insists on...