Well this forum is full of life!!

MagicMarker

So I got ESPN yesterday and I'm trying to get my money's worth. Currently watching the ''Blue Jays (Toronto) vs the Tigers (Detroit) - did I get that right?

Anyhoo, it's not too bad, this is my first experience of baseball outside of the movies, so can someone please tell me wtf is going on? What all the numbers on the screen mean? And basically why I should continue watching baseball:)

Oh yeah, and I checked out the MLB site and it's completely alien to me, especially different leagues and central/east/west stuff... so yeah.

Help?

MagicMarker

Okay, watching Dodgers & Giants now, it's actually surprisingly simple! It's kinda like Tennis, accept with more players and a pitch instead of a serve!

Pretty good, I like it, although the league system is still confusing, so any help with that is appreciated!

Mad_Max

I'll give it a whirl explaining some of the basics.

Two Leagues, the "American League" (AL) and the "National League" (NL).

Each league has 3 divisions, the east, central and west. i.e.

AL East, AL Central, AL West
NL East, NL Central, NL West

Each team plays 162 games in the regular season. The winner of each division reaches the postseason in september. There is also 2 "wildcard" spots (1 per league) for the team who has the next best record in any division in the league.

In the postseason, there is 3 rounds:

The divisional series, the championship series and the world series.

In the divisional series the winners of the 3 divisions and that leagues wildcard play each other in 2 games. The winners of each game then go on to play in the championship series.

E.G American League:

Winners of AL East -vs- Winners of AL Central (Divisional Series 1)
Winners of AL West -vs- AL Wildcard (Divisional Series 2)

Winners of Divisional series 1 -vs- Divisional Series 2 (Championship series)

The winners then play the winner of the other league in the World series.

MagicMarker

Awesome! That explains a lot thanks.

How long is a regular season? Because that's a crap load of games.

So the regular season finishes in 3 weeks yeah? When does the post season start?

Mad_Max

The regular season starts in April so 6 months overall. Its a tonne alright, thats what i love about it

Postseason starts 7th october this year and will be done by November 5th at the latest.

It's running a bit later than normal as there was the World baseball classic on this year. (baseball's equivalent to the World Cup)

Have you figured out the basics of balls and strikes etc?

MagicMarker

Hey man, I had a reply written to this the other day but was in work and had to suddenly close the window and I forgot about it since!! :rolleyes:

But yeah, I know about balls/strikes. I suppose the main thing now is figuring out what the stats mean, like if someone has an average of .253, I have no clue what this means. Or an ERA etc?

Cheers.

Mad_Max

haha, I never do that. Always lets them know I was doing something I don't want them to see.

Anyway OK well there are more stats that you can shake a finger at so I'll do the main ones for hitters and pitchers.

For hitters the 5 main ones are:

AVG: (num hits/num at-bats). Fairly straight foward. If you have 9 at bats and get 3 hits, thats a .333 average. Anything over a .300 average would be considered very good

RBI: (Runs Batted In). This is when there is a man/men on base and the hitter gets a hit that allows that runner(s) to reach home plate. Over 100rbi for a season would be top drawer

R: Runs, This is when a guy crosses home plate.
HR: Home run, straight-forward
SB: Stolen Base.

There are others like OBP, SLG, OPS etc etc. OBP would be the main one of these. Its the (Number of hits + Number of walks) / Number of at-bats. Gives an indication of how likely a player is to reach base in anyway.

For pitchers the 5 main ones are:

Earned Run Average(ERA): This is the average amount of runs a pitcher would give up over 9 innings. It is calculated by:

9 * (number of earned runs allowed/innings pitched) An example would be a pitcher pitched 6 innings and gave up 3 earned runs = 4.50 ERA

Anything under 3.00 for a starter is exceptional, and for a reliever for that matter. 4+ would be the average.

WHIP: This is Walks and Hits per Inning pitched. Its an indication of how effective a pitcher is in his innings. Its calculated by (walks+hits)/(innings pitched).

An example is a pitcher walks 2 and gives up 3 hits over 5 innings. This is a 1.00 WHIP

K: Strikeouts

W: Wins. There are some rules that determine who gets the W. A starter must go at least 5 and have the lead as he leaves to get a W. If a started leaves and is losing, he stands to get the lose.

When relievers are pitching, the last pitcher on the team to have pitched before the team gets the lead, is the "pitcher of record" and stands to get the win.

S: Saves, this is for relievers. Again some rules:

Enters the game with the typing run on base or batting or on deck
OR
Enters with no more than 3 run lead and pitches a full inning
OR
Pitches for 3 innings.

Most saves are just one innings saves but some get 2 innings or 4 outs

zuutroy

3/9 is a .300 average? .333 imo!

Also, the average ERA is far higher than 3.00....The league average this year is 4.3!

A sub 2.00 season is really rare. There's only been 2 in the 2000's and both were in the NL. Wonder when the last AL sub 2.00 season was.

Hynzie

zuutroy wrote: »

3/9 is a .300 average? .333 imo!

Also, the average ERA is far higher than 3.00....The league average this year is 4.3!

A sub 2.00 season is really rare. There's only been 2 in the 2000's and both were in the NL. Wonder when the last AL sub 2.00 season was.

I think the last one was Pedro's outer space year in 2000 when he had an ERA of 1.74!! He was 18 - 6 that year with a WHIP of 0.74 (major league record). AL hitters had a .167 average against him! Also he had over twice as many strikeouts (284) that hits (128) becoming the first pitcher in history to do that. Crazy stuff all together!!

JohnHenry

Good way to learn about pitching, youtube pedro, and watch him deal, genius, magic to see him pitching again with the phils, 130 pitches last week!!! was hoping the giants might pick him up that time, could have had 4 cy young winners on the same staff, and another potential one in matt cain, Ya gotta dream:D
anyway, cant complain the way penny is dealing since they picked him up, sorry for going off on a tangent, i think another important stat for a pitcher is ERA with RISP, and another 1 i personally like is the amount of double play balls a pitcher induces, anyone else got a there own fav stat??:p

Mad_Max

zuutroy wrote: »

3/9 is a .300 average? .333 imo!

Also, the average ERA is far higher than 3.00....The league average this year is 4.3!

A sub 2.00 season is really rare. There's only been 2 in the 2000's and both were in the NL. Wonder when the last AL sub 2.00 season was.

Haha touchè. Forgive the typo, i did give the formula

True about the ERA, 4+ would indeed be more the average over the league, Guess watching CC go every 5 days has me dillusional

Mad_Max

JohnHenry wrote: »

Good way to learn about pitching, youtube pedro, and watch him deal, genius, magic to see him pitching again with the phils, 130 pitches last week!!! was hoping the giants might pick him up that time, could have had 4 cy young winners on the same staff, and another potential one in matt cain, Ya gotta dream:D
anyway, cant complain the way penny is dealing since they picked him up, sorry for going off on a tangent, i think another important stat for a pitcher is ERA with RISP, and another 1 i personally like is the amount of double play balls a pitcher induces, anyone else got a there own fav stat??:p

I like to check the BABIP for pitchers who are on a great run. Also like OPS for hitters.

zuutroy

Aagh Sabremetrics....Thats just mad stuff. OPS is the King of stats. Read a great article about on the back page of the Toronto Star one day long ago.

JohnHenry

Mad_Max wrote: »

I like to check the BABIP for pitchers who are on a great run. Also like OPS for hitters.

BABIP, jez, i had to look that one up, you could see that one on a uni maths exam!!!
I like ops aswell, so who are yo guys cy youngs this year, greinke from KC has been electric, carpenter, wainwright from st. Louis? should nearly start another thread on this, i'm off on a tangent again....:o

Mad_Max

lol it got Ricciardi a job

BABIP has helped me snag some good trades in fantasy ball over the years hence the fondness

8-10

JohnHenry wrote: »

so who are yo guys cy youngs this year, greinke from KC has been electric, carpenter, wainwright from st. Louis? should nearly start another thread on this, i'm off on a tangent again....:o

In the AL it has to be either Greinke (16-8, 2.16 ERA, 242 K's) or Hernandez (19-5, 2.49 ERA, 217 K's)

I think Greinke will get it but hard to say which deserves it more. Halladay was 8-1 with a pretty low ERA before the break IIRC, he was definitely in the running for a while. He tossed a lot of complete games too I think.

But Zach or Felix for me.

In the NL I haven't been following a lot of games this year so I can't give a prediction. I'd expect Billingsley, Lincecum and Wainwright to be in contention from what I remember seeing and reading throughout the season.