Month: November 2018

2018 Trades: The Worst of the Worst

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A few weeks ago, I examined the five best trades from the 2018 trade deadline. Unfortunately, not every trade can be a winner. A great example from 2017 is the Yankees’ trade for Sonny Gray. The Yankees traded three highly-ranked prospects for former all-star Sonny Gray. Since coming to New York, Gray’s performance has been nothing short of disappointing, accumulating an ERA of 4.51 and a FIP of 4.40. Disastrous trades, like this one, happen every season and they can greatly damage teams in the hunt for a championship. Here are the five worst trades of 2018 based on the performance of the traded player and the perceived potential of the players given up.

National League Award Predictions: deGOAT Reigns Supreme

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With awards season in full swing, we decided to do a little award voting of our own here at M-SABR. We voted for MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year in both leagues and below are the results from our award voting, in which 18 members of M-SABR participated. Voters were asked to choose their top 10 players for MVP, top 5 for Cy Young, and top 3 for Rookie of the Year. Here are the results.

Time to Change it Up: An Examination of Changeup Usage and Effectiveness from 2015-2018

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A 2010 study conducted by Dave Allen over at The Baseball Analysts suggested that all else equal, pitchers should try to avoid throwing their changeups to same-handed hitters and should be more willing to throw their changeups to opposite-handed hitters. 2010 was nearly a decade ago and baseball statistics, technology, and data manipulation have come quite far since then, so we figured we would investigate Allen’s claim that a changeup thrown to an opposite-handed hitter should be more effective than one thrown to a same-handed hitter. What we found was not what we expected.