"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."

So there I was, thinking my work was done. I could put the 2005 Blue Jays aside, polish off my piece on the 1920 Season (appearing December 1 at a Batter's Box near you!), and get cracking at last on the long-delayed Lobby of Numbers.

And then Mike Green, pondering the eternal mystery of the Blue Jays W-L record in relation to their runs scored and allowed, made a most excellent suggestion:

Maybe I've been watching too much "CSI" (Las Vegas, if you must know), but I'm treating you to yet another forensic examination of the evidence left behind by the 2005 Blue Jays.

This is another in a not-quite endless series: final versions of things I examined while the season was in progress. Today’s text (and ensuing Data Table, and Pretty Pictures) concerns Starting Pitchers and Game Scores.

How did John Gibbons organize the rotation this year? How did he juggle the starters and the off-days? Did he get anything done?

As you might remember, we recently pored over a Data Table that used Bill James' Pythagorean Method to determine the Expected Win-Loss record of every major league team.

I regarded the results as very good news for the 2006 Blue Jays. If the Jays score 775 runs and allow 705 next year, they're much more likely to go 89-73 than to put up another 80-82 record. I may not have been Named for Hank, but I know when the glass is half-full.

THere is another installment in what will surely turn out be a multi-part series: let's think of it as a Post-Mortem Analysis of the 2005 Blue Jays.

Orlando Hudson: 2nd best fielder in the league.

http://www.tangotiger.net/scouting/scout2005_winners.html

This is kind of silly, but I can't resist. Sorry.

An old joke: someone (I forget who) used to do a spoof of a sportscast by saying: "And tonight's baseball scores: 4-1, 3-2, 6-0, and 7-2."

Nearly a quarter of a century ago, writing for The Boston Herald, author and lifelong Cub fan Ron Berler coined the phrase and idea of "The Ex-Cub Factor."

Berler's theory was simple, as summarized by our friends over at All-Baseball.com: "Since the Cubs last won the NL pennant in 1945, only once has a team with three or more ex-Cubs won the World Series." Remarkably, this is still true -- and Berler even came up with a cockamamie way to explain away the single anomaly, postulating that 1960 PIT 3B Don Hoak had somehow overcome his "Cub-ness" and thus did not officially count against the Pirates that year.

This so-called "Ex-Cub factor" is a much-quoted (and often-mis-quoted or mis-represented) theory of the baseball universe, so there's something to this; but there are other factors to consider, too, as we head into the post-season starting ... yikes! ... later today. Let's see ...

There is a fairly predictable relationship between runs scored and allowed, and games won and lost. It does stand to reason, no?

I posted my thoughts at BTF on how to deter behaviours that MLB and the union deem inappropriate (i.e., steroids). Here they are, in a somewhat orderly fashhion. You can skip to my solution at the end, if you are pressed for time.

Well, as good as possible.

But one of the concerns expressed in recent days, by myself and by others, has been more or less as follows: if Vernon Wells is your best hitter, just how good an offense can you have?

Towards the end of today's game, this exchange happened in the Chat:

CaramonLS: Can you do a comparative analaysis of other teams #3 hitters combined?
Magpie31: When I get home!
CaramonLS: I'd like to see where the Jays rank, because I was going over the teams in the AL Central/AL East... Out of those 10, Jays would rank last.

Magpie delivers! A Data Table, what else!

It's an off day... I thought I'd make a little Data Table.

And we have been talking obsessively about how well the Blue Jays hit with runners on base, haven't we?

I wasn't able to get an AL East report up this week due to illness, so I hope this suffices.