This Made Me Happy in a Way Few Things Can...

A new study was released recently at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (still no cure for cancer) that ranked baseball players based on their fielding average and probability of making a play on a ball hit their way.

"[The] method involved looking at every ball put in play in major league baseball from 2002 through 2005 and recorded where the shots went. Researchers then developed a probability model for the average fielder in each position and compared that with the performance of individual players to see who was better or worse than average."

The best shortstop in MLB?

Alex Rodriguez.






And here's the stat that I love: Worst Shortstop in MLB?

Derek Jeter.






Shane Jensen, the Penn student/teacher/stat-nerd who led the study said, "[the information] suggests the Yankees have one of the best defensive shortstops playing out of position in deference to one of the worst defensive shortstops."

Sure this doesn't take into account intangibles like banging supermodels and Alyssa Milano and whatnot, but still.

And Tom Emmanski might want his endorsement money back. The worst first baseman?

Noooo! My childhood was a lie!




On a Reds note, we apparently got our money's worth with our newly locked-up second baseman Brandon Phillips, who ranked second overall at his position.

Also, on an semi-related topic, if you guys haven't read Jayson Stark's article on Dusty yet, I think it's pretty good. The video with Krivsky is boring and uninformative, but Dusty's got some things to say on videos at the Reds' official site.

In reference to something that was written in Stark's article, I also think this year's rallying cry should be "What's up, Big Daddy," which is way cooler and more indicative of the attitude of the team than the consummately queer "C you there" that currently dominates the web-page.

This is my baseball post.

1) Michael, we need some background on Dusty. Give us some perspective. I want to know what it's like to have this toothpick-chewer planting his butt on the home bench.

2) An interesting note about Hank and Hal Steinbrenner that I was thinking about this afternoon. Steinbrenner's daughter recently got divorced. That in itself is not that big a deal, except for the fact that her husband used to be an heir-apparent to a president of baseball operations-type position.
It's possible and even likely they'd been having marrital trouble for some time. Do we think the Boss hung in the saddle longer than he wanted to because he didn't want to risk turning over any portion of control to a man who he feared wouldn't be in his family permanently?

If that's the case, could we find quantifiable evidence that this "Carlo" Steinbrenner's marital habits were actually in some way affecting the performance of the team, by making George hold on even when his heart wasn't in it?

It's an interesting thing to think about. Did a bad marriage sink the Yanks for the better part of this decade?