I’m a sucker for well done graphics. Here, The New York Times breaks down Mariano Rivera’s cutter.

[h/t The New York Times and Larry, with an "L"]

[Screen grab courtesy of @jose3030]

Gotta love the Internet. This was ready about 10 minutes after it happened. Although, I’m sure Jim Joyce doesn’t feel the same way.

The Web site HitTracker.com is full of baseball data and information. The information doesn’t mean as much as the stuff on Baseball Prospectus or FanGraphs, but it’s pretty cool.

Well, I’ll let HitTracker.com explain what they do: “Hit Tracker determines the true distance a home run travels by recreating the precise trajectory the ball followed during flight, and extending that trajectory all the way back to field level to allow “measurement” of the home run.”

A lot goes into find the “true distance,” but what their spreadsheets are telling everyone is that Jason Heyward is ridiculously strong and he can hit a ball really hard.

And it only took one game, actually one at-bat, to demonstrate this ability. Based on these calculations, Heyward’s first career home run’s true distance was 476 feet, or 20 feet further than anyone else in the young major league season.

Just as impressive: the ball was traveling at 120.9 MPH off the bat.

Heyward’s power isn’t just relevant because the season is so young, either. Based on the data for the last three seasons, 476 feet and 120.9 MPH would put him in the top 5 of those categories.

So, yeah, Heyward’s pretty good.

In the past, Bill Simmons’ two-faced approach to sabermetrics has left some readers dissatisfied. When Michael Schur (Fire Joe Morgan) came on the B.S. Report, sabermetrics are a great way to learn more about baseball; when Jack-O is on, it’s annoying that stat-heads don’t think RBI should be a tool in determining a player’s value.

The Jack-O podcasts and columns with his dad in mind seemed were frustrating for people who want to see advanced stats more widely accepted and comprehended. One would assume someone, like Simmons, involved in the MIT Sloan Statistical Analysis Conferences (SSAC) would feel the same way. So it was disheartening that the most popular sports columnist of our time decided to just ignore advanced stats until mathematicians explained them better.

Especially because Simmons would be one of the ideal writers to bridge the gap — the gap between the 1000+ SSAC attendees and the casual fan who wants to know more.

In Friday’s column, Simmons declared an end to his close-mindedness. He jumped in and wrote a lot of words about advanced statistics in baseball, well, at least the ones he liked. To his credit, he joked about his old way of thinking, calling some his methods of thinking “moronic.”

I’m not a sabermetric expert; his column wasn’t aimed me or anyone else “saber-obsessed.” He kept me interested enough to read all 6000+ words, though. More importantly, I think his column intrigued a group that never cared before.

Jump to Saturday morning: I received a text from a friend of mine asking if a certain stat existed. (It didn’t). But my friend noticed advanced stats. He has heard me say Reed Johnson is a bad fielder because he has a horrible UZR/150, but I think he just tunes me out. Now, he’s asking me about the existence of advanced RBI stats, that account for specific situations.

Some people don’t care, and like Simmons wrote, “you can’t put a gun to their heads and force them to care about this stuff.” But some (like my friend) don’t have to be forced, and if they see well explained advanced stats on a regular basis, they’re in.

I have 20 readers a day, so even if I wrote the most relatable, comprehensive advanced statistical analysis in the world it wouldn’t matter; Simmons is incredibly popular, follows a team among the most influenced by what the numbers say, and he has a writing style that’s both interesting and conversational enough to reach someone who has never heard of FIPS and make it understandable.

It can’t just be Simmons that tries to bridge the gap, though. One thing is clear about sabermetrics, not everyone gets them. A few months ago, Baseball Prospectus’ Will Carroll called on baseball writers to do what Simmons did on Friday: try to relate advanced stats to the casual fans. Because, at least the way Carroll sees it, sabermetrics, even the ones that people assume are simple and easy to understand, just aren’t simple enough.

Remember, ESPN tried to roll out OPS last year as a “new statistic,” explaining it on virtually every broadcast of Sunday Night Baseball. Jon Miller would read a short script, give an example, and then Joe Morgan would say something about the Big Red Machine. All planned out, in great detail. Yet people I know at ESPN have told me that in their testing, their viewers rejected OPS as “too complicated.”

The only thing complicated about OPS is that people aren’t familiar with it. If beat writers started using it more often than BA, and regularly included a sentence-long description to setup the stat, there’s your familiarity. With time, even the most casual fans could drop Alex Rios’ OPS into casual conversation.

The problem with step-by-step explanations is that the writer may come off as an ass to people who already know this stuff. After Simmons’ column, blogger Dan Levy joked on Twitter, “… Still cute to read stuff like “An excellent website called fangraphs.com…” and he’s right. Here in Chicago, we get this every so often from the Daily Herald’s Bruce Miles, who is known to use a sabermetric or two.

To anyone who knows just where to go to find someone’s GB%, it reads awkwardly. However, it’s necessary to mention because a lot of people don’t actively search for Geovany Soto’s GB%, and wouldn’t know where to look if they wanted to search for it.

Which is why Simmons deserves some credit. Assuming Simmons has heard of FanGraphs before (he had to have, right?), there’s a chance he knew mentioning it the way he did would make him sound like an idiot. Rightfully, it was included anyways.

If only more columnists and beat writers would write, “An excellent Web site called fangraphs.com …”

Compared to every pitcher in baseball, Zack Greinke was more than a win more valuable than his next closest competitor (Justin Verlander), according to FanGraphs.com’s WAR (wins against replacement player). When Greinke’s performance is measured by runs instead of wins (VORP), he was 13 runs more valuable than the next best pitcher in 2009 (Felix Hernandez).

Greinke’s sabermetrics are so off the chart; he’s so far ahead of everyone else that anyone with a general understanding of them had no other choice for AL Cy Young. It’s not like other considerations didn’t back up Greinke. He was the story of the first couple weeks of the season, his ERA was the lowest of any player since Pedro Martinez in 2000 and he was second in the league in strikeouts.

The only thing going against Greinke was that his team sucked and his wins — a team statistic –suffered because of it. The choice was obvious to many, still it’s assuring to see all but three people looked past Greinke’s 16 wins and his team’s lack of success to give him an individual award. Based on individual numbers like VORP, he was more valuable than all but two players in baseball (Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer). Two guys with the added benefit of playing pretty much everyday.

What’s even more amazing is that Greinke’s season could have been better. Greinke’s BABIP (batting average for balls in play) was .309, about .019 above league-average. With just a little more luck, or a better defensive team, Greinke’s ERA creeps even closer to 2.00.

It’s been two days without baseball, and there is still one day to go. Hey, at least there are other things to watch on TV. Oh, wait.

Since it’s been so long, I though I’d remind everyone that there are four teams left in playoffs, two teams in the National League and two in the American League. And, with the NLCS less than 24 hours away, it seems appropriate to give you readers a couple predictions (otherwise known as guesses when it comes to me.)

Or, I can just let Nate Silver and his super-secret formula do it for me.

After Silver invented PECOTA, Baseball Prospectus’ system that projects a player’s performance based on comparisons with thousands of historical players-season, he moved on to slightly simpler projections, like predicting post-season results.

First introduced by Silver and Dayn Perry in Baseball Between the Numbers, the “Secret Sauce” looks at three statistics and team traits generally shared by teams successful in the post-season. These three traits are:

• A power pitching staff
• A good closer
• A good defense

According to the “Secret Sauce,” these three team characteristics were the only ones that related to teams winning post-season games and series, and Silver went out of his way in a post titled “Lies, Damned Lies” to dismiss a few other possible playoff success theories.

“Ending the year hot doesn’t make a whit of difference, for example, nor does having a veteran club, or a smallball offense.”

In the “Secret Sauce,” a power pitching staff is measured by normalized strikeout rate (EqK/9.) EqK/9 is a statistic designed to adjust a major league pitcher’s strikeouts per nine innings, while also taking into account the era in which he played. This allowed Baseball Prospectus to go back years, to further determine the legitimacy of the “Secret Sauce.”

The quality of the closer in the “Secret Sauce” is based on WXRL, a commonly used statistic for relievers. Here’s a fairly basic definition of WXRL, from an article by Derek Jacques of Baseball Prospectus:

“WXRL is a metric developed by Keith Woolner which is based on a Win Expectation framework. Win Expectation has its own statistical report (the Win Expectancy Matrix), and is a pretty complicated topic, so I’ll give you a bare-bones, no-math explanation. Win Expectation breaks down each game situation—inning, score, number of outs, number of runners on base, and which bases they’re on—that occurs in the major leagues, all to measure how the transition from one situation to another alters a team’s chance of winning the game.”

The third factor, a good defense, is measured in the “Secret Sauce” formula with fielding runs above average (FRAA.) FRAA measures the runs saved by a player beyond what a league-average player at that position might have saved.

Together, or separate really, this is a complicated formula with a lot of information going into it. The result at the end, at least this season, is pretty obvious though.

Steve Goldman at PinstripedBible.com rounded up the three parts of the formula and put a list together of this season’s eight playoff teams (and the Tigers and the Rangers) to see how the contenders stacked up against each other.

Ranked first according to Goldman’s calculations, the Yankees, ten spots ahead of the Angels. Right behind the Yankees in second place, the Dodgers. And, the Dodgers have a huge advantage over the Phillies (ranked 20th). ‘

Joe Torre going back to a new Yankee Stadium. Manny Ramirez going back to New York for another big series against the Yankees. The two biggest TV markets in the country in the World Series. I guess we all know FOX is hoping Silver is right.

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