college course in sabermetrics

[Dean]

Someone went to Tufts a few years too early.

[Stu]

DAMN!!!

BTW, this sucks that this is the biggest size I can put on this forum. I tried for size 240, but size 24 is the highest.

[Dean]

Here's the homepage. Love the syllabus.

[Oliver]

That looks freakin' AWESOME. Or maybe I'm just an enormous nerd.

Some of those "readings" - like "Batting Order James 444" - are really "Go read the comment on Mark Grace in the Bill James Historical Abstract." Which is all of two paragraphs long and says "Just because someone plays first base, that doesn't make him a number three hitter."

Gotta love that Gehrig-Williams-Balboni front page. But where's Ken Phelps?

[Stu]

It's both, Oliver. It's freakin' awesome. And you are a nerd.

But so am I.

[bernieh]

The mention of Ken Phelps made me look up this old Baseball Prospectus article about the Rob Deer Fan Club and the Three True Outcomes (HR, K, BB). Unfortunately, Phelps isn't mentioned but it's still a great article. I never realized it but it's no coincidence that the list of TTO leaders includes a lot of my favorite players.

They mention the promise of Prophet Russell Branyan, who may see the most playing time of his career this year at 3B with the Brewers. It should be exciting to see what kind of numbers he puts up... his 2004 stats projected over 600 PA were .234, 37 HR, 229 K.

[Oliver]

Nice article, Bern. Interesting that the Bonds TTO percentages for the last few years are, although high, not historic; he topped out at 53% in both 2001 and 2004, which doesn't make the top 10 (compare Branyan's 61%). He would probably have a shot at highest five-year stretch though. His failure, in case you didn't guess, comes from his lack of strikeouts.