FanGraphs is one of my favorite baseball sites to visit everyday, mostly because it's perhaps the most informative AND aesthetically pleasing sabermetric site out there. You can even export their leaderboards to Excel files and adjust them at your leisure. Also, it's completely free. So, if you want to know that Jason Bay is third among NL OF in WPA (Win Probability Added), and that Nate McClouth and Xavier Nady are fifth and sixth, respectively, FanGraphs is the place for you. And yes, that means that no outfield in baseball has done more to help its team win games than the starting outfield of your Pittsburgh Pirates. Shocking, isn't it?
In addition to being free to use and peruse, another great feature about FanGraphs are these WPA and Leverage graphs that they do for each game, which show you the most important plays that happen, and their effect on each team's chance of winning said game. Obviously, the picture at the top of the page is from last night's Pirates/Astros tilt at PNC Park, where completely overworked righty specialist Tyler Yates gave up what proved to be the two winning runs in the seventh inning, with some help from Sean Burnett. As you can see, the highest leverage situation was Yates' at bat against Kaz Matsui, which ended with Matsui doubling in Mark Loretta to give the Astros a 6-4 lead.
I have thoughts on the All-Star Game selections, mostly that Pat Burrell ought to be standing with a picket sign outside of Bud Selig's house, but also that the wrong Bucco outfielder got picked for the game if they were going to take just one. We'll get to that; I promise. For now, everything is leading up to the long-awaited finale of the Yankees series, which will be played out today, starring lefty Paul Maholm and Yankee hurler Mike Mussina. It should be good times.
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