Fili's SABR link of the day (or couple days, maybe a week)

[filihok]

What Would Lineup Protection Look Like? | FanGraphs Baseball

Gun to my head, I don’t think Prince Fielder actually had an effect on the way pitchers pitched to Miguel Cabrera. I think pitchers generally pitch to one guy without thinking about pitching to the next guy. The effect Prince Fielder had was that, if Miguel Cabrera reached base, there was Prince Fielder to try to drive him in. Interestingly, Cabrera actually scored fewer runs than he did the two seasons previous. But he had a hell of a hitter after him, instead of just a good hitter or just an okay hitter. Forget about any effect Fielder might’ve had on the number-three slot. The Tigers paid Fielder for his effect on the number-four slot, and for at least the first year, he’s delivered.

Gist of the article, despite having one of the best hitters in baseball behind him instead of a good hitter (Victor Martinez) and despite winning the Triple Crown, Cabrera had a slightly less productive season overall than he had in either 2010 or 2011.

There is no evidence that one hitter can 'protect' another

[filihok]

Individual Stolen Base Break-even Rates (Part 1) - Beyond the Box Score

Just by looking at these lists, we can come to some conclusions that should be fairly intuitive:

The most important factors for SB break-even rates are on-base ability, power, and likelihood of hitting into a double play.
With no outs and one out, on-base ability and, obviously, double play propensity have a much more significant effect on the break-even rate.
With two outs, the most important factor is home run power. However, hitters who make less contact will have a higher break-even rate, all else being equal.
The above data is really just the tip of the iceberg for this concept. We've seen which hitters were best and worst to "steal on", so to speak, but going forward, I will take a look at what teams actually did with these hitters at bat. I'll also use projections for 2013 to come up with similar lists as above, and use those to hypothesize about some potential strategies for lineup construction using this information.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by filihok

Individual Stolen Base Break-even Rates (Part 1) - Beyond the Box Score

Interesting to see confirmed what as the author notes, is the intuitive assumption. I played in a Strat-O-Matic league for a number of years and would never attempt stolen bases when the batter was someone like Jay Buhner, Darrel Evans or Mickey Tettleton. The more the hitter was a three true outcome sort of guy, the less likely one was to benefit from a stolen base. Have they done any historical calculations? I'm guessing that Jack Cust's '07 and '08 seasons must boost the break even point to extreme levels. I would imagine that McGwire's sixty plus homerun seasons also would pump it up to extra extra risky.

[Grandstander]

Gold Glove Awards to get a little smarter - SweetSpot Blog - ESPN

Gold Glove Awards to get a little smarter

Rawlings, the sponsor of the Gold Glove Awards, announced today at the SABR Analytics Conference in Phoenix that the awards will be adding sabermetric component this year -- a committee of smart people will develop a new proprietary defensive measurement called the SABR Defensive Index, or SDI. We need another defensive metric like we need another version of WAR, but this sounds like a step in the right direction.

From the news release:

The SDI will serve as an "apples-to-apples" metric to help determine the best defensive players in baseball exclusively for the Rawlings Gold Glove Award and Rawlings Platinum Glove Award selection processes. The collaboration also installs SABR as the presenting sponsor of the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award.

But.....

Managers and coaches have voted on the awards -- and they still will. The release says the managers/coaches vote will still comprise the majority of the tally; once the SDI is created this summer, Rawlings will announce the exact breakdown.