Nate Silver ran a piece the other day at Baseball Prospectus re-examining his earlier look at the 50 most valuable long-term commodities in baseball. He offers thoughts on biggest risers (including Justin Upton, about whom he correctly notes that “age is everything, and for a 19-year-old to come this far this fast is very special”), biggest fallers (comparing Jason Bay’s career path to that of Bobby Higginson), and his “very preliminary, off-the-cuff, subject-to-change, pre-PECOTA Top 20″ for next year.
Read the full article for all the details, but here are Silver’s projected top pitchers for 2008-2013. See if you can figure …read more

This is it. The final day of the regular season. Four teams are fighting for the final two playoff spots in the National League. Baseball Prospectus is tracking the odds as each game finishes this weekend, while David Pinto keeps us posted on his massive tie scenario.
Meanwhile, here are the games that matter:

Marlins at Mets, 10:10 a.m. PT — Dontrelle Willis vs Tom Glavine. I can’t think of a better pitcher to make this start for New York than Glavine. To say the guy is well prepared for this situation is to make a colossal understatement. He’ll face a tough …read more

Or, more to the point, what should it be? That’s the question David Pinto asks at Baseball Prospectus [tip o' the Knuckle Curve cap to reader Didi]. After running through a brief history of the save’s evolution as a baseball statistic, Pinto drops this little bomb:
It’s time to decouple the save from the person who finishes the game, and start awarding it to the reliever who does the most to increase the chance of his team winning. This should encourage managers to use their best pitchers in game situations, and still allow these pitchers to gather saves to use to …read more