Sporting Madness

As long-time readers will know, I'm a great admirer of the "Moneyball" strategy of acquiring undervalued players. At the time of Moneyball, most of these players (at least the ones successfully targeted by Billy Beane ) fit into the high on-base percentage, low batting average category. There still are deals to be had on some of those players, but most major-league teams (except maybe the Kansas City Royals) have realized the importance of OBP, making it harder to exploit that particular market inefficiency. However, there are still inefficiencies out there, and some of them can be spotted with sabermetric research. This suggested an interesting train of thought to me. In the last experimental post , I took a look at how Madden users might fare against NFL coaches in play-calling and clock management. Now, I want to see if a baseball fan with a passing knowledge of sabermetrics like myself could put together a better lineup than experienced MLB general managers. Imagin...

Apologies for things being slow around here lately; I've been pretty swamped with other writing work. I'll try to get a full new post up tonight, but until then, I thought I'd share a few of the other pieces I've been working on. Hope you enjoy them! Feel free to leave comments on them at those sites or here, or send them to me via e-mail (andrew_bucholtz AT hotmail.com) or Twitter . Thanks as always for reading! - Over at my new blog, Canuck Puck , I have an analysis of how the Sedin twins stack up against other elite NHL players and why resigning them would be a great Moneypuck move. - At The Phoenix Pub , I have a few thoughts on how the recent increase in statistical analysis has changed sports. It's a bit of a follow-up to the piece I wrote here the other day about the (partial) demise of Moneyball . - At The Rookies , I have a piece looking at the most annoying fan traditions in sports.

Some interesting news came out this evening. Apparently, Columbia Pictures decided to cancel [ Will Brinson , FanHouse ] the upcoming movie of Michael Lewis ' famed book Moneyball at the last minute, only a few days before shooting was set to start. It's rare to see that kind of cancellation so close to production on any film, but even more unusual when it's a big-ticket film involving the likes of Brad Pitt and director Steven Soderbergh . Apparently, the studio didn't like the direction Soderbergh was taking the project. There's a chance the film could still get picked up by someone else; we'll have to wait and see on that front. This is a somewhat unfortunate move in my mind. Moneyball was a brilliant book, and one that truly revolutionized how many segments of people—from print journalists to television personalities to fans, bloggers, and even team executives—approached baseball. Its influence spread beyond baseball to other leagues, and it dramatically...

This past season in American college football, Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell broke the NCAA record for most touchdown passes thrown in a college career with 134. He completed 442 of 626 passing attempts for an outstanding 70.6 completion percentage, threw for 5,111 yards, completed 45 touchdown passes while only being picked off nine times and became the first NCAA quarterback to record multiple seasons with more than 5,000 yards passing. Despite all that, Harrell wasn't selected in the NFL draft. In the first five picks alone, the Detroit Lions and New York Jets opted to take Matthew Stafford and Mark Sanchez respectively, despite each accomplishing significantly less than Harrell at the college level. By comparison, Stafford completed only 235 passes on 383 attempts at Georgia last season for 3459 yards and a completion percentage of 61.4 per cent; he also threw 25 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Sanchez completed 241 of 366 attempts (65.8 per cent) at USC for 320...

In unbelievably perfect timing, Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas turns 40 today, and his Oakland Athletics take on the Toronto Blue Jays this evening. Everyone remember how shabbily he was treated by the Jays' organization, including being benched for the supposed crime of not producing in April (which probably had more to do with his contract , despite the denials by J.P. Ricciardi, who is known to be as truthful as Clay Bennett )? Well, I didn't like the move then , and wrote that I thought it might weaken the team this season for purely penny-pinching reasons. Also, the logic is somewhat stupid, as the Jays are now paying Thomas almost $8 million this year to tear up the league for Oakland, who got him for the bargain-basement price of $337,000. Anyways, let's look at some stats to examine the impact of the move. As I pointed out in my post on Thomas' release, April had always been his worst month, and he'd always come around. Before leaving the Jays, he...