Matt Wieters Facts

Baseball Prospectus gave Matt Wieters an incredible projection for someone with only 530 professional plate appearances in his career, none of it above AA ball.  BP's "deadly accurate" PECOTA projections have him at nearly 400 plate appearances in the majors this year, with a .311/.395/.546 slash line.  To put that in perspective, rising star (and teammate) Nick Markakis is projected for .286/.368/.465.  Superstar Carlos Beltran is projected at .293/.385/.513, for another frame of reference.

Ted Keith at SI reported this:

Indeed, Wieters seemed to be so blessed with ability that his teammates at Tech nicknamed him God after one especially heavenly performance against Miami in his freshman season, in which he put on a power display while playing pitcher, catcher and first base with equal skill.

There were more than 100 comments on the Baseball Think Factory site about Wieters' prowess, many of them in jest -- including one that said his PECOTA projection is so good, they are working on a WIETERS projection system.

And this:

Q: What's the difference between Matt Wieters and Superman?

A: Kryptonite can stop Superman. 

Or "Starting in 2009, Matt Wieters will have homefield advantage in the World Series."

And even better: "Matt Wieters took batting practice this morning. There were no survivors."


Matt Wieters is now the Chuck Norris of baseball.  Prompting my theft of these Chuck Norris facts:

• Matt Wieters can kill two stones with one bird.  (Particularly appropriate for an Oriole.)
• There is no evolution.  Only the divine creationism of Matt Wieters.
• A Matt Wieters home run is the preferred method of execution in 16 states.
• The grass is always greener on the other side of the infield, unless Matt Wieters has been there, and then it is blood red.
• There is an "I" in Wieters, but there is no team.  Not even close.
• If at first you don't succeed, you aren't Matt Wieters.
• Most people fear the Reaper.  Matt Wieters considers the Reaper a promising rookie.
• Matt Wieters doesn't chew tobacco.  He chews tin foil.
• Time waits for no man.  Unless that man is Matt Wieters.
• There are no steroids in baseball.  Just players that Matt Wieters has breathed on.
  
• Pitchers don't throw fastballs to Matt Wieters.  His gravitational pull yanks it out of their hands.

 

Player Height, Pt. Two

Now for the American League. To keep things on par with the National League height analysis, I'll stick with the starting lineups from Sunday, August 10. And, of course, we have an extra player in the mix at DH.

Team      Ht(In)
----      ------
Yankees   74.11 (72.67 with Giambi, IRod and Cabrera)
Rays      73.89 (73.66 with Navarro and Longoria)
ChiSox    73.78 
A's       73.78 
Red Sox   73.67 (73.33 with Youkilis)
Rangers   73.33 (73.56 with Catalanotto)
Twins     73.00 (73.33 with Gomez)
Royals    73.00 (72.78 with DeJesus)
Indians   72.67
Mariners  72.67
Angels    72.55
Orioles   72.44 (72.11 with Hernandez and Scott)
Jays      72.22 
Tigers    71.89 (72.11 with Guillen)

The Yankees started an odd lineup on Sunday, with Molina, Sexton and Christian playing instead of IRod, Giambi and Cabrera. That's 13" difference, primarily because Sexton is the tallest hitter in baseball at 6'8". So even though they top this list, they are really middle of the pack. The Tigers are the shortest no matter how you slice it, although the normal starting lineup ties with the Orioles.

Needless to say, David Eckstein is the shortest hitter in baseball at 5'6".

Here they are sorted by starting lineup height (assuming a "normal" starting lineup), and the number of wins.

Team      Wins
----      ------
ChiSox     67 
A's        55 
Rays       72 
Rangers    61 
Red Sox    70 
Twins      67 
Royals     54 
Yankees    64 
Indians    54
Mariners   46
Angels     75
Jays       62 
Tigers     58 
Orioles    57 

Height does not correlate nearly as well in the American League, at only .30.

However, wins are a factor of both hitting and pitching, and these height analyses only focus on the hitters. So how would height correlate with team performance if I gave them all an average pitching staff and calculated their pythagorean wins?

Actually, worse. The correlation b/w the starting lineup height and actual wins for MLB is 0.485 (between the NL and AL correlation figures). The correlation b/w the starting lineup height and wins if you only take offense into account is only 0.408. Still fairly correlative, but not much to go on. :)

Player Height

Watching the St. Louis Cardinals, and their lineup of apparent midgets, made me wonder which teams' starting lineups today were the shortest (excluding the pitcher).

We'll start with the National League to find out if this is interesting. Don't want to calculate the entire MLB if it's a boring question.

Since I used today's starting lineups, I added a couple of parentheticals if the regular starters would have made a significant difference.

Team      Ht(In)
----      ------
Braves    73.38 (73.88 with Johnson)
Marlins   73.50
Rockies   73.50
Brewers   73.38 
Cardinals 73.25 (1 of 3 teams with two < 5'10" starters)
Cubs      73.25 
Reds      73.13 (73.75 with Votto and Bako)
D-Backs   72.75 (73.25 with Hudson)
Mets      72.75
Dodgers   72.63
Phillies  72.50
Astros    72.25 (71.875 with Wiggington)
Giants    72.12 (2nd of 3 teams with 2 < 5'10" starters)
Pirates   72.00
Padres    70.63 (71.12 with Bard)
Nationals 70.63 (3rd of 3 teams with 2 < 5'10" starters)

Well I was wrong about the Cards. Glaus and Ludwick saved them, and Adam Kennedy and Brendan Ryan are not as short as they appear. David Eckstein, where are you?

The tallest lineup today was the Marlins, but if Kelly Johnson had played 2b instead of Omar Infante, the Braves would have the tallest lineup. If Votto and Bako had played for the Reds, instead of Andy Phillips and Hanigan, the Reds would have been second.

The Padres and Nationals tied for the lowest average height, but the Padres started Carlin instead of Bard at catcher. If Bard had played, the Nationals (which started a normal lineup), would have been the shortest.

Adam Dunn and Corey Hart are the tallest (6'6"). Ronnie Belliard is the shortest (5'8").

The presence of the Padres and Nationals at the bottom made me wonder if there is a correlation with the number of wins. Here they are sorted by starting lineup height (assuming a "normal" starting lineup), and the number of wins.

Team      Wins
----      ------
Braves    55
Reds      52
Marlins   61
Rockies   53
Brewers   66 
Cardinals 65
Cubs      70 
D-Backs   59
Mets      62
Dodgers   58
Phillies  63
Giants    49
Pirates   53
Astros    57
Padres    45
Nationals 44

Visually height doesn't seem connected to wins, but the correlation is .59, which is a pretty strong positive correlation. The only thing that keeps it from being higher is the presence of the Braves and Reds at the top. If you take them out of the equation, the correlation jumps to .78. Of course, you can't do that.

Japanese Ballplayers

One of the advantages of having a Japanese ballplayer on your team is the ability to sell advertisements to the Japanese. The Japanese are so crazy for coverage of American ballplayers, advertisers get exposed to the entire island of Japan.

Behind the Rays hitters, on the backstop, was an advertisement for Dandy House, at http://www.dandy-house.co.jp/. All the text on the backstop, other than the Web address, was in Japanese, so it was not possible for me to know what kind of business it is.

Through separate research I've learned it is a "men's day spa." I guess it makes sense that it's called Dandy House. Going to the Web site won't help you, as it is also entirely in Japanese. Most of the language is in picture format, so it can't be automatically translated, but here are some phrases I got from the text translation:

Triple burning body method
Self-depreciation dehairing (design dehairing)
Face slim

The triple burning body method, probably not legal in the U.S., is illustrated solely in Flash format.  You'll just have to see it yourself.  Suffice to say it is a weight loss method.

The "dehairing" is obvious, though not very eloquently stated.  Why call a place "Dandy" and then use a term like "dehairing"?  Anyway, it looks painful to me. Like they'll pull your whole face off:

How about face slimming? Here's some info about it:

The cog and the cheek which do not have the wasteful surplus fat are the important point in order to show to the sharp feeling which will be the whole face clear.Because of that the Hollywood star where “the face” is the commodity in order to maintain the sharp face line, has regularly used healing the face and the [se] from several dozen years ago.Please try looking at the mirror again.Haven't the sag of the cheek, the solid seeing and the double cog of the face started? As for the one which becomes matter of concern please try this healing which by all means, the dandy house in Japan introduces for the first time from Hollywood.

Boone Factor for Jockeys

I couldn't resist calculating the Boone Factor for a jockey. The only jockey's name I know is Willie Shoemaker, and Wikipedia says he weighed 95 pounds (and only 2 1/2 pounds at birth).

His Boone Factor? 7.92. Nearly 8 beers a night!

The Boone Factor

Bret Boone was a productive player for awhile, and then he fell off a cliff and retired in a surprise announcement in Spring Training 2006. No explanation.

Yesterday he revealed that the problem was alcohol. He's clean now, and all that stuff, and trying to make a comeback. We'll see.

What struck me about the story on MLB.com was this sentence: "Boone's problems started in a more subtle matter[sic], but it got to a point where he would drink 12 to 15 beers after a game."

Twelve to 15 beers? Maybe it's just me, but that seems like a lot of beer. That's a party.

Was it a lot for Bret? According to baseballreference.com, Boone's playing weight was 180 pounds, which is about 81,647 grams (using Google's conversion feature). Fifteen beers at 12 ounces per beer, is 180 ounces, or about 5,103 grams.

So, bathroom breaks aside, Boone may have added another 6.25% to his body weight after games. He may have weighed as much as 11 pounds more leaving the bar than when he arrived. I think I know why he lost some bat speed.

The sciences always have names for their formulae, so I'm going to refer to this as the Boone Factor. The Boone Factor has many applications. For instance, how many beers would that be for, say, Tony Siragusa? Football reference.com reports his weight at 330 pounds. The exchange rate would be 27 beers.

To do your own calculations of the Boone Factor:

Step One: Multiply the player's weight (in pounds) times 453.59 to find his weight in grams

Step Two: Multiply the figure in Step One by .0625 (or 6.25%) -- call this the Boone Intake Parameter

Step Three: Divide the figure in Step Two by 28.35 to find the number of beer ounces imbibed

Step Four: Divide the figure in Step Three by 12 to derive the number of beers. (Substitute for the 12 if you are calculating tall boys, cans of malt liquor, or appropriately, Boone's Farm).

He pitches?

Someone named A. Galarraga appears in the Texas Rangers box score as the last pitcher.

Ryan Thomas

One thing has troubled me since last year, when Ryan Howard was making a splash, which I resented for some reason. Is his nose actually bigger than Frank Thomas' nose?

I downloaded their pictures from MLB.com and blended them 50/50. Their heads are not the same size, so I had to manipulate the positioning a bit. I tried to match the top of their nostrils.

The resulting picture looks more like Howard than Thomas, but that's an optical illusion. It is 50/50. In fact, Howard is not smiling in his picture, but in this one, he has Thomas' smile, sort of, but retains the chin hair.

Anyway, my conclusion -- not evident from the picture...sorry -- is that Frank Thomas has an ever-so-slight lead in nose width, but because his nostrils are closed in the picture, and Howard's are open, Howard's nose seems bigger.

If I were a Blue Jay, or a Phillie, I wouldn't sit next to either guy for fear there would be a shortage of oxygen left over for me.

Here are the numbers. I measured from nostril to nostril width, measuring until the nostril cast a shadow on the rest of the face. We'll call than the oWidth.

I measured the height and width of the individual nostril based on the shadowed area within the nostril. We'll call that the nHeight and nWidth.

I also measured the height of the overall nose, measuring from the mid-point of the eyes to the bottom of the nostril shadow. That's the oHeight.

I don't have any profile shots of exactly the same size, so I can't calculate length and produce an overall area.

Thomas:
oWidth (26 pixels)
nHeight (1 pixel)
nWidth (7 pixels)
oHeight (16 pixels)

Howard:
oWidth (24 pixels)
nHeight (3 pixels)
nWidth (5 pixels)
oHeight (19 pixels)

Too close to call. For kicks, I also did Craig Counsell's numbers:

Counsell:
oWidth (16 pixels)
nHeight (2 pixels)
nWidth (4 pixels)
oHeight (20 pixels)