Monday, April 4, 2011

Rox Talk - Week 1

The Week That Was
A 1-1 week against the D-Backs. The Rox currently stand at 1-1. One game back from division leading LA in third place. Currently 1-1 at home and 0-0 on the road, the Rox have outscored its opponents 9-8 (expected wins is 1 versus historical wins at 1). On pace for 90 wins with 729 runs scored and 648 runs against. Playoff indicator (Runs scored/Runs Against ratio) is 1.13 (1.16 indicates high playoff potential).

Not much to say after two games.  Just to say that 1) Tulo will get a hit, 2) U-Ball won't have too many more 1 strike out games, and 3) Home Runs will come!

Odds and Ends
Found MLB payroll chart in the newspaper today and was a bit surprised to see our Rox so high.  Ranked 14th we find ourselves right below Texas with a payroll of $92,299,265 and right above Atlanta at $87,003,192 (bit surprising there).  Rox come in at $87,998,071.  Yanks lead the league at $201,689,030 and KC is at the bottom with a payroll of $36,126,400 (Yikes!).  Does the baseball model work?  Does anyone in the right mind believed Royals can compete with a payroll of $36 million?  I mean players make more than this!

Five Questions: Colorado Rockies at Hardball Times there is a paragraph which states:

"In his evaluation of park factors, Dave Studeman pointed out that we should not place our faith in one year’s worth of data in determining park effects, but he also pointed out that the increase in home runs at Coors Field in 2010 could be signaling several things. Either the data used to anoint the humidor as the answer to home runs didn't use a large enough sample size (years) to make an accurate determination of its success or that 2010’s 1.50 home run ratio was an aberration, and we can expect a correction soon. Either way the jury must still be out on whether treating baseballs like a Cohiba is really working."


Not for sure what the 1.50 home run ratio is but the graph below shows both Rox and opponents home runs summed divided by 81 games to give a home run rate per game.  As you can see since 2002 this rate has decreased quite a lot since the 'roid era.  Now of course this rate could have decreased because of drug testing or better home pitching from the Rox but I do think something has changed...whether it is the humidor or not (?)



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