Sports fans reading the Guardian today were treated to an interesting article by Lawrence Donegan about Barry Bonds.  Entitled: “Giant banished from kingdom by the small minds of baseball”, Donegan draws attention to the way in which Bonds is currently without a team, with the Players’ Union raising fears of collusion on the part of the thirty MLB teams.

Whether collusion is really a factor is a difficult thing to assess.  It’s hard to imagine that there is any secret information on Bonds that has done the rounds.  We all know what the issues are: he’s got the accusations of drug use over his head (a P.R. problem for any potential new team), he’s got the impending trial for alleged perjury (a P.R. problem and possible distraction), and he has the reputation of being a surly team mate who might negatively affect the atmosphere in a clubhouse.  Add them together and you can well understand why the thirty teams could have arrived at the same answer independently.

But, none of those factors affect how well Bonds can hit a baseball.  There’s no doubt whatsoever that he would provide a boost to several teams that,  with one big addition or two, might have a shot at the post-season.  So the acid test will be whether Bonds lands with a team in the next month or two.  If he is keeping himself fit (which by all accounts he is) then he is going to be a compelling option for someone willing to take a chance.  With all teams looking to find even the slightest edge on their competitors, it would be strange if not even one of them seriously considers him.

I’m not sure whether we’ve seen the last of Bonds or not.  It will be very interesting finding out over the next few weeks.

Whether you live in Seattle or St Albans, this is not a good time to be a Mariners fan. The team has a woeful record (15-26 as I write this), at least relative to some bold predictions of postseason baseball. But after reading Matt’s two-part piece on Ichiro’s bad luck (part one and part two are here), I was left wondering if other elements of unluckiness are at work.

One thing to notice is the team’s 1-9 record in 1-run games. While there is undoubtedly some room for teams to be “good” or “bad” in close games (through the astuteness of the manager or the small-ball skills of the hitting line-up), a record this lopsided must be at least in part a result of some serious bad luck. Right?

Bill James developed a method, known as Pythagorean expectation, for estimating how many games a baseball team should have won, on average, based on the number of runs they have scored and conceded. The original and simplest formula (winning percentage equals runs for squared divided by the sum of runs for squared and runs against squared) suggests that the Mariners should have a 17-24 record at this moment based on their runs scored and allowed. In other words, bad luck has “robbed” the Mariners of just two wins. Maybe I could add an extra win to account for Ichiro’s bad luck. But even then, I’m still a fair way short of getting my team above .500.

As I write this, the Mariners are tied with the Texas Rangers 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth inning, and the Rangers have just shown poor small-ball skills in bunting into a 3-6-4 double-play, which was an attempt to get a lead-off walk into scoring position. Time to find out if they will be made to pay…

Yesterday, we looked at Ichrio’s plate discipline and concluded that he’s still making contact as well as ever so far this season. As a result, the thorny issue of ‘luck’ was raised as a possible explanation for his lower than normal batting average.

A good way to test this theory is by looking at his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) which can be found on the same page as his plate discipline stats on Fan Graphs if you scroll up a bit. So far this season, Ichiro’s BABIP sits at .296. Compare this to his marks in the 2007 (.390) and 2006 (.350) seasons and you start to think that we might be on to something. A quick glimpse at his 2005 season stats also tells you the importance of a strong BABIP. That year, Ichiro recorded his lowest BABIP of his Major League career (.319), while batting for his lowest average (.303) and gaining his lowest hit total (206) – note that these last two stats really drive home the point that we are talking about a relative down year.

So, there’s a strong case that Ichiro’s BABIP tells the story of his lower batting average, but that then raises the question as to why his BABIP is low? As mentioned above, the stat is traditionally tagged with that unwelcome word ‘luck’. A lower BABIP makes people think the batter has been unlucky, generally explained as a result of their ground balls picking out the infielders at an unusually high rate. “Luck evens itself out” is a well-used phrase in sports, so perhaps we could say that Ichiro’s good luck in past seasons has turned on its head?

That might be a valid argument were it not for the fact that Ichiro consistently has strong BABIP numbers. While fortune does sometimes seem to favour certain people more than others, no one can be that lucky over such a period of time. There must be something about Ichrio’s performances that allow him to generate a strong BABIP.

Can a batter deliberately ‘hit them where they ain’t’? Missing fielders is a genuine skill in cricket, where a large part of a quality batsman’s craft involves guiding the ball into the gaps; however with a round ball and a round bat to play with, it seems like guiding a baseball to a specific point (beyond deliberately hitting it to one side of the infield or the other) is a lot less easy. Ichiro has an ace up his sleeve though that normally allows him to beat the odds: he doesn’t need to hit it past the infielders. With his lightning foot speed and his left-handed stance, that sees him running to first almost before the ball has come off his bat, Ichiro can rack up infield hits at a freakish rate. This has a big impact on his BABIP and is undoubtedly a repeatable skill.

Now, Ichrio’s BABIP so far this season is virtually the same as the average MLB mark. That he has already stolen thirteen bases suggests that he is not suffering from any injuries that are affecting his speed (I’ve not heard any reports along those lines either), so he should still be getting his big boost from beating out infield hits. Chances are, the reason his BABIP isn’t 30-40 points higher, and therefore his batting average isn’t higher, is that he is just hitting into bad luck right now.

The Mariners have only played thirty-seven games so far this season. There is plenty of time for that luck to turn around and when it does, expect Ichiro’s batting average to start resembling an ‘Ichiro level’ rather than that of a normal ballplayer.

These are scary times: Ichiro appears to be human.

After last night’s game against Texas, he was hitting .282. That’s far from the worst mark in the American League, but Ichiro has set himself spectacularly high standards. With the Mariners failing to live up to the pre-season hype that some showered on them, the form of their star hitter has naturally come under the spotlight. The M’s need a hero and Ichiro has performed that role pretty well (to say the least) since he landed in the U.S. back in 2001.

His plight provides a good excuse to showcase some fantastic new batting data that is available for free on the brilliant Fan Graphs website. Back in March, I posted about the pitching data that had been launched on their site and they’ve now added to the goldmine by publishing similarly illuminating data about batters.

If you use the search box and select an active hitter, you then need to click on the ‘Season stats’ tab and scroll to the bottom of the page to find these new delights. You will be confronted by headings such as ‘O-Swing%’ and ‘Z-Contact%’. Have no fear, a quick glimpse at this introductory guide reveals that they are less complicated than they appear. Essentially the data tells you:

• The percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside/inside the strike zone.

• The overall percentage of pitches a batter swings at.

• The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with outside/inside the strike zone when swinging the bat.

• The overall percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with when swinging the bat.

• The overall percentage of pitches a batter sees inside the strike zone.

Put them together and they provide a unique insight into the batter’s plate discipline and hitting characteristics.

But do they provide any clues as to why Ichiro’s batting average is lower than normal? Fan Graphs shows the data (when available) for the previous three seasons and the batter’s 2008 season to date. This allows you to compare their approach year on year. Looking at Ichiro’s 2008 stats, two things come to mind. Firstly, his success rates so far at making contact with pitches in the strike zone when he swings at them (97.69%) and making contact when he swings regardless of the location of the pitch (94.14%) are ridiculously good. Secondly, far from being worse than his previous years, his stats in these plate discipline categories are generally better than his 3 and a bit year averages. So, his lower than usual batting average is nothing to do with him missing more pitches.

If he’s still making good contact with pitches on a frequent basis, the obvious line of thinking to pursue is that he is just being unlucky. ‘Luck’ is a dirty word in professional sports, but it can play a much larger part in performances (whether individual or as a team) than some would like to admit. Maybe Ichiro’s batting average is purely a result of him hitting infielders at an unusually high rate?

I will test that theory tomorrow in part two.

Written by Steve Bartley

The Nationals, hurrah! A new ballpark, a hangover from 35 years of bilingual agony in Montreal, and not a single damn World Series appearance. That is all I know about the team in Washington. They have a ‘W’ on their caps, I believe, and they play in red.

I love this team. I say this as my introduction on this blog. I may know more about ‘nationalists’ than Nationals but they are my team. And with that comes my neatly packaged undivided loyalty. I imagine most would expect this vomit of pride to come after a period of established grind; year after year of disc-slipping dedication. Instead mine comes after let’s see, 38 days of support.

It’s all the fault of the goddam Boston Red Sox and all that Red Sox nation guff that twisted a once beautiful if tragic ride into some glory-bound open-top bus tour around a land called Success. When I’d hopped on that bus years ago it was a lot uglier, devoid of anything like a World Series pennant. Then in 2003 they came close, an Aaron Boone homer short of a pennant for the first time in 86 years. We lost. It was brilliant. The full force of the adrenaline from that night is still slowing to a stop in my veins and has giggled all the way.

Then the next year they win it all. All of a sudden success didn’t feel the same. Jumping up and down with joy? Champagne? For crying out loud, that’s not baseball! And it certainly wasn’t Red Sox baseball which was still chewing on the Curse of the Bambino. But there was a new veneer to a team growing more and more media friendly. I’d “cowboyed-up” in 2003 but now the panache had disappeared, replaced by swagger.

Then last year, the final nail and the death of mediocrity complete. Forget them, I thought, I don’t have to put up with these swine. I packed up my allegiance and took it somewhere that wouldn’t let me down – the lowest bidder you might say. A city of high crime, a GTA4 regard for casual murder and the seat of world power.

Washington D.C. hadn’t had a team since 1972 when the Senators booted it to Texas with the bus doors locked and no looking back. I needed a team that would lose consistently and with honour. Who’s left you can trust to do that anymore, the Rockies? Those treacherous…

So Washington was the perfect fit from day one. On opening day at the new stadium Ryan Zimmerman hit a walk-off home run to beat the Braves. We’d peaked. I caught a few innings on NASN a week or so ago for a slow trudge through the fourth and fifth innings against Milwaukee. I remember a slight pain in my chest thanks to the pitching of Odalis Perez. It was the kind of exemplary averageness that made me feel right at home.

So it’s the Nationals. No more concern about the “you can’t change teams!” folk. That’s behind me now. Washington’s side of the deal is to fall short year on year of anything like the play offs. In return I’ll check in on their scores each day, not worry about the reputations of even our most mediocre of hitters and worry not that the starters should each be rotated in the direction of Single-A Hagerstown.

There you have it. A season a month or so old, a team 14 and 20 with no hope at all of anything more than a fifth place finish in the National League East. You can keep your playoffs. Here’s to a slow, inning-by-inning slog toward the winter.

Go Nats! As we Nationals fans apparently say.