Doidn't Dan R do a writeup on the HOM for the NYT? Anyone know when that was? I wanted to refer to it wrt Bill Dahlen.

I am hugely puzzled by the intro today. Is Dan Rosenheck a good-field/no-hit writer? He is an useful but sometimes overrated part of a really great writing team? Is he from Venezuela?

I am hugely puzzled by the intro today. Is Dan Rosenheck a good-field/no-hit writer? He is an useful but sometimes overrated part of a really great writing team? Is he from Venezuela?

You're missing the obvious: Joe Morgan loves him.

If Dan weren't writing his articles, they would be written by BASN contributors or guys from the Slippery Rock student newspaper.

I am hugely puzzled by the intro today. Is Dan Rosenheck a good-field/no-hit writer? He is an useful but sometimes overrated part of a really great writing team? Is he from Venezuela?

In his handle he calls himself the Dave Concepcion of Standard Deviation en Espanol.

In his handle he calls himself the Dave Concepcion of Standard Deviation en Espanol.

Ah, clearly I had misssed that detail. Good to know.

You all know George Shuba, right? The pinch hitting specialist from Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer? Prior to his 1952 season, when he hit for a 136 OPS+ in 294 PA, Shuba played for Brooklyn's AAA ballclub, the Montreal Royals of the International League. In 1951, the average IL hitter (including pitchers) hit .249/.333/.363. George Shuba's batting line in 1951:

That's right, 20 HR in 281 chances--that's 1 HR every 14 AB. Hitters in the IL had 40,072 chances to hit a HR--they hit 726, 1 HR in every 55 AB (admittedly, w\o pitchers this number would be much lower, but nowhere near Shuba). Over 54% of his hits went for extra bases. And a George Shuba PA ended in a walk nearly 20% of the time; he got on base only 11 more times by swinging the bat than he did when not swinging the bat while hitting over .300.

There's my abstruse baseball post for the day; however, I'm afraid that it won't due much to vitalize the dugout. . . .

Vitalize? No, but I'm impressed.

If possible, what would that look like in rough OPS+ terms?

If possible, what would that look like in rough OPS+ terms?

I get a 210 OPS+ for the IL:

100*(OBP/lgOBP + SLG/lgSLG - 1): 100*(.457/.333 + .626/.363 -1) = 209.689

However, since the league info includes pitchers' hitting stats Shuba's IL OPS+ is actually lower than 210. Also, it isn't his *OPS+ since I don't know park factors. Looking up the Montreal's home park, Delorimier Downs, Shuba's power totals were likely assisted by the park's dimensions: Known to favor lefthanded batters, it featured a short distance of 293 down the right field foul line. So, including park factors & excluding pitchers hitting stats from the league average means that Shuba's initial estimate of a 210 OPS+ is very rough indeed. . . .

Thanks Tiboreau.

You're welcome. Here are the best pictures I could find of Delorimier Downs on a quick GIS.

Unrelated to either George Shuba or the Montreal Royals home park, here's an interesting youtube video featuring photos of Sick's Stadium during its Seattle Pilots days and after set to the Pilots' theme song. (It wouldn't link correctly in Live Preview, so I've just copied & pasted the link below.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U01IKkKqjM