In 2010, I wrote about a trip to Pittsburgh and the divine experience of an entire sports city sharing the same uniform colors.

It looks like the Islanders, anticipating sharing a stadium with the Brooklyn Nets, are making a move in that direction.

Which is cool….but.

This would also mark the sixth new set of uniforms worn by the Islanders…since 2007. Which, I mean, why even have jerseys at this point.

The Islanders recently waived longtime goaltender Rick DiPietro. He’s infamous for a massive, overbearing contract and a litany of debilitating injuries.

My initial reaction: “FREEDOM.”

Rick’s: “They ripped my heart out, stabbed it, set it on fire.”

…

I have a really strange relationship with athletes who suffer from chronic injury problems. Probably aided in no small part by a lengthy history of playing fantasy sports. I don’t think I’m in the minority here, either.

So here’s the thing: For the longest time, I’ve actively disliked professional athletes who get injured frequently. I’m sure I’ve even used the word hate before.

I used to hate Fred Taylor. Former All-Star running back for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Nicknamed “Fragile Fred.” I like Josh Hamilton, but I hate how he’s pretty much guaranteed to miss time during the baseball year.

And of course (at least, until I started reflecting during this post), I absolutely, positively despised Rick DiPietro.

I’m led to the following thoughts:

1. It’s weird that a propensity for injuries, in the context of professional sports, is seen as somewhat of a character trait, or even a flaw, as opposed to just a physical body attribute.
2. It’s weird that it’s normal to have feelings about a human being because of this. Really weird. It’s really no different than disliking a person because they wear glasses.

I think I’m going to reverse my position. I feel sorry for these guys. To reach the pinnacle of your profession, in what should be the prime years of your life, and have your body start breaking down on you? It’s not like getting injured or having lengthy recovery times is something they want, or is an active choice they’re making. Imagine if, as a rising business person, I was unable to make good business decisions for weeks or months at a time. My cognitive abilities always used to serve me just fine…but now they don’t. And people are mad at me because of this!

I dunno. Just a thought.

I’m sorry, Rick.

And I can prove it.

In light of all the hooplah surrounding the revolution in baseball statistics (and even well prior to the release of Brad Pitt’s Moneyball), Matt and I have developed a new advanced baseball metric. It’s called Outs Per At Bat.

It’s pretty stupid.

OPAB is a figure designed to gauge how bad a player is. We found it funny that “Grounded into Double Play” (GIDP) is a recorded statistic, and effectively suggests the number of plate appearances in which a batter actually manages to generate two outs, even though he’s just one player.

Key factors weighing in on OPAB:

1. GIDP. Mentioned above.
2. Walks. These are considered “Plate Appearances,” not “At Bats,” and as such don’t count adversely towards a player’s score in the category. These are not counted directly, but typically lead to lower AB totals and smaller denominators (one could argue, Plate Appearances – Walks (and other stuff) = At Bats).
3. Sacrifice Hits (bunts), Sacrifice Flies. These, too, don’t count towards a player’s At Bat total. So, remarkably, the batter generates an out without accumulating an at bat.

We calculate the statistic as follows: (At Bats – Hits + SH + SF + GIDP) / At Bats. Lower scores (IE, fewer outs per at bat) are better.

As it turns out, Cardinals’ centerpiece Albert Pujols is among the league’s worst in OPAB. While leading the league in GIDP’s for the 2011 season, Pujols generated an abysmal .763 OPAB. Eeeugh. In comparison, Cardinals regular guy outfielder/utilityman Allen Craig scored a .735 OPAB on the year. And you don’t see headlines and billion kajdrillion dollar contract deals going his way any time soon.

This year’s leader in OPAB among qualified batters? Jose Reyes stands at .683. In fact, he and Ryan Braun (.689) are the only two players I’ve found thus far (in my admittedly primitive and in all likelihood statistically insignificant research) with OPAB below the .700 mark.

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Update: I realized as of 7:30pm that the stat Caught Stealing ought also apply.

This results in a revised formula of: (At Bats – Hits + SH + SF + GIDP + CS) / At Bats .

As it pertains to the players mentioned above:

Jose Reyes—.696
Ryan Braun—.6998
Allen Craig—.735
Albert Pujols—.765

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In conclusion, baseball is great and basketball sucks.

Stats calculated based off of 2011 season totals, courtesy of fangraphs.com

Part Three:

Batting works a little differently in kickball than baseball. The underlying premise is the same: Get batters on base. The execution is different: In baseball, you optimize get on base by drawing walks and running up long pitching counts. In kickball, you optimize getting on base by creating rallies.

As I explained in detail in Part One of this guide, fielding can’t be taken for granted as effective. In Part Two, we looked at baserunning as a tool to exploit poor fielding in aiding offense. In Part Three, we’ll investigate ways to optimize your batting strategy to capitalize on both your team’s smart baserunning and the opposing team’s suspect fielding.

Like we did earlier, we’ll take as a given that your team has an uneven distribution of talent, and we’ll assume the same of Three Good, Six Medium, and Three Awful. Everyone will have a spot in the batting order. Traditionally, in baseball, your lineup looks like the following:

1. Speedy contact hitter
2. Speedy contact hitter
3. Big slugger
4. Big slugger
5. Big slugger
6. Eh
7. Eh
8. Eh
9. Eh

This is designed primarily to get one of the first two batters on base for batters 3-5 to knock in. It’s de-facto, but it’s inefficient—even in baseball (ask anyone who’s read Moneyball). But as we’ve seen before, the optimal baseball and kickball solutions are divergent. In baseball, you’d simply want your batters who are most likely to score runs (probably sluggers 3-5) to have the most potential plate appearances. In kickball, your batters are most likely to get on base and score runs when the defense is distracted—you want to always have somebody on base. And thus, your batting lineup should aim to (roughly) evenly distribute your team’s talent. As follows:

Part Two:

Many baseball stat geeks scoff at baserunning, often citing that the number of outs created only very rarely warrants the marginal increase in bases stolen. Not that that matters really; there’s no base stealing in kickball. Nonetheless, it’s an important and underrated element of kickball, as intelligent baserunning is an incredibly effective means of disrupting the other team’s fielding.

As we were under the assumption in Part One that catching the ball could not be taken for granted, so must we here assume that not everybody knows the basics of smartly running the bases. Here they are:

1. When there’s two outs, run on everything.
2. When there’s a fly ball (and there’s less than two outs), only take 2-4 steps off the base and wait—whether you move forward will depend on how close the play is to you (if it’s closer, be less risky), whether you’re planning on tagging up (in which case, stay planted on the base), and whether or not you think the fielder will actually catch the ball (duh). Once the ball hits the ground, advance.
3. When there’s a ground ball and there’s a force, run.
4. When there’s no force, you can run if the next base is open, or not run if you think it will cause an out. Use judgment. Smart teams will put one of the smarter players who’s not up soon in the lineup as a third base coach who can aid in decision making.

Got it? Good. Now that we’ve established the basics of competent baserunning, we can step it up a notch: The actual goal of the baserunner in kickball is to create as much havoc as possible for the opposing team’s defense. Cause throwing errors, generate hesitation. Especially when it leads to other runners advancing, and super-especially, when it leads to the batter getting on base instead of getting out.

Here’s a common example: You’re on second base, and the batter kicks a ground ball to third. You don’t want to run to third; this creates an out. But you do want to advance a few steps. At the very least, the fielder hesitates and gives the batter an extra second to get to first. At best, she hesitates, throws to first anyway, and you’re a few steps down the line to advance to third (take it now, it’s open!). By taking a lead and creating hesitation, you went from a guy on second and an out to runners on first and third with no outs.

Here’s a second common example: You’re on third base, there’s a runner on first, and there’s a ball kicked to the outfield. You know (whether the ball is caught or not) that you’re going to score on this play. Your goal is to generate a throw to home plate (without, of course, risking getting out yourself). This is typically a long, slow throw that’s headed for the other team’s worst fielder. Take off when the ball’s caught, and make it at least half-way while the outfielder still has it. As soon as he throws it, go home. Meanwhile, the intelligent runner on first base is looking at taking second base. She’ll take it as soon she can tell that the ball isn’t headed to the shortstop or the pitcher. If it’s a particularly bad throw (and keeping in mind that the catcher is a horrific fielder), she could even threaten to take third base.

As alluded to above, if you’re not the lead runner, it’s still important to keep an eye on the goings-on elsewhere on the field. Take bases that are open, and even create confusion when they’re not.

Again, and above all else: Create havoc, not outs. Create errors, cause runs.

Kickball is an incredibly popular pastime in St. Louis. Though I couldn’t say how the sport gained adult popularity in the first place, on the most primitive level it’s a fairly reasonable excuse to go out and drink during the day, and a moderately good cover for pretending to exercise.

After two seasons of kickball and multiple high school summers of slow-pitch softball under my belt, I present to you: The Bonafide Unathletic Guide to Winning at Kickball.

PART ONE:

If you care to take only one thing from reading this guide, let it be this: Winning at kickball is not about kicking (hitting). It’s not about pitching. And it’s hardly about intelligence or experience. You’re misled by Kickball’s faster, more athletic cousin, Baseball. In fact, winning at kickball is first and foremost about fielding and defense.

Simply put: The team that wins a kickball game is not the team that kicks the most homeruns, but rather, the team that makes the most outs on the balls put in play. We’re talking real basic stuff: Catch fly balls, throw batters out on grounders, and don’t cause unnecessary errors. Subsequently, you’ll want to position your team so as to optimize the likelihood of the fundamentals of baseball happening.

We’ll assume for the tenure of this guide that your team has twelve players whose skills fall along a bell curve: Three Great, Six Medium, and Three Awful.

1. Garth
2. Gerald
3. Greta
4. Matt
5. Meena
6. Mike
7. Molly
8. Murdoch
9. Myron
10. Abner
11. Alice
12. Azzyzx

Also assume that the typical team fields 10 players (4 outfield), and your diamond looks like this:

Here’s how we’ll field our squad:

P: Meena (5th best athlete)
CA: Abner (10th best)
1B: Mike (6th best)
2B: Myron (9th best)
SS: Greta (3rd best)
3B: Garth (1st best)
LF: Molly (7th best)
LCF: Gerald (2nd best)
RCF: Matt (4rd best)
RF: Murdoch (8th best)
Bench: Alice and Azzyzx (11th and 12th best)

Here’s the biggest secret to fielding in kickball: The most important position on the field is third base. This is where you want your absolute best throwing arm (in our case, Garth). Why? Most teams opt to position their best fielder in Center Field, where a slight difference in running speed, throwing strength, and catching ability won’t make all that much of a difference. On the other hand, as most girls (and wimpy guys) opt to kick a slow dribbler to third base and try to outrun the throw rather than actually putting a ball into play, the extra half-step will come in to play far more frequently.

The 3B on my field diagram above is playing shallow intentionally. And the strange hockey-stick shaped line is a rule unique to kickball—the third baseman can’t position himself closer to home plate than that. So, for any given at bat, Garth will need to charge a weak grounder and make a rocket throw across the field in one swift motion. Yikes. At the very least, putting Garth at third makes the prospect of the slow dribbler a little more intimidating.

Some other tips:

• Right-legged batters tend to kick to the left side. We’ll prioritize our better fielders there.
• There’s always one guy on the team who’s “the pitcher.” He/she just is. On this team, we’ll just assume that’s Meena.
• I like putting my team’s tallest competent fielder at SS. This makes it hard for the batters to kick line drives into the outfield, and like having Garth at third, makes kicking the ball to the entire left side of the field more intimidating (see: Tip One).
• Just like baseball, 1B is where you want to hide your weakest fielder—that is, your weakest fielder who has the capacity to catch everything thrown at them (including the bullets from Garth at third). In kickball, however, you can’t take the ability to consistently catch balls for granted. I’m of the impression that catching is pretty much a binary skill: either you’ll usually catch the ball, or you usually won’t. On our team, I’ve presumed Mike (6th best) is the otherwise worst fielder who can consistently lock the ball down.
• The easiest position to fill and field is Catcher. Even in the event of a play at the plate, typically, the pitcher or first baseman can cover. We’ll put Abner there. And we’ll put Myron at 2B—he’ll be able get help from P, 1B, SS, RCF, or RF on most any play, and it’s fairly difficult for batters to kick there—most who try end up kicking an easy out to the pitcher or first baseman.
• Beyond that, we’ll put our two stronger remaining fielders (Gerald and Matt) into the CF positions—not only because there’s more ground to cover and more balls get kicked here, but also because it’s typically the LF and RF’s job to chase down wildly errant foul balls. Better off not wearing down your top talent.

We’ll conclude with two simple, overarching fielding strategies: 1) If the ball is kicked to you, holding on to it is probably always a bad fielding decision. When in doubt, don’t think and throw the ball to the pitcher. And 2) Pegging a baserunner is always harder than it looks. Just throw it to the guy fielding the base in front of the runner.

Part 2 next week.