What Would The Current Standings Look Like Under Realignment?: The answer comes courtesy of Baseball Nation’s Grant Brisbee, and projects the current standings onto 2 15-team, divisionless leagues.

Who Is MLB’s Most Underrated Player?: Which player combines WAR with a lack of Google hits? Baseball Nation’s Jason Brannon has the answer.

Halladay And Verlander Might Be MVP Worthy, But That’s An Uphill Battle: At Baseball Nation, Marc Normandin examines the chances of an extremely unlikely MVP occurence — namely, a pitcher being given the award.

Topps’ All-Star Rookies Vs. Donruss’ Rated Rookies — Who Won Out?: In the battle between 1980s/90s rookie card labels, which players ended up with better stats? Baseball Nation’s Jon Bois answers this burning question once and for all.

Jim Thome for the Hall of Fame: Is Jim Thome a Hall of Famer? BP’s Steven Goldman thinks so. As does Rob Neyer, although both anticipate some pushback from people crying “compiler!” And Tangotiger points out that Jeff Bagwell was better, but doesn’t have the benefit of that shiny 600-HR Club membership card.
UPDATE: Fangraphs’ Chris Cwik also weighs in on Thome.

Jason Heyward And The Braves – It’s Getting Weird: Baseball Nation’s Grant Brisbee questions Fredi Gonzalez’s recent decision to play Jose Constanza over Jason Heyward on the basis of a 46-AB sample.

An Unexpected Discovery About Position Players Pitching: Baseball Nation’s Jeff Sullivan wrote a humorous piece about position players’ pitching success in 2010 & 2011, but in this follow-up, he inadvertently found real evidence for DIPS Theory — the collective BABIP of position players who had to pitch (since 1970) was .296… basically the league average.

Bourn vs. Pence: Maybe the most curious trade deadline phenomenon (from a sabermetric perspective) was the fact that Hunter Pence received more hype — and got a better trade return — than Michael Bourn, despite Bourn being the better player by various versions of WAR… With more on this, here’s ESPN’s David Schoenfield and Baseball Nation’s Rob Neyer.

The Staggering Implications Of The Pitching Success Of Mitch Maier And His Peers: This is (mostly) a tongue-in-cheek post by Baseball Nation’s Jeff Sullivan, but it is true that position-players have been surprisingly successful over the past 2 seasons when forced to take the mound.

Dustin Pedroia Closing Gap With Jose Bautista … Or Isn’t: As Baseball Nation’s Marc Normandin writes, depending on where you get your stats, Pedroia is either in Jose Bautista’s rearview mirror for the WAR crown… or nowhere close.

An Homage To Batting Average: Baseball Nation’s Grant Brisbee admits that batting average isn’t the greatest stat, but he still found three interesting average-related statistical storylines to watch in the season’s 2nd half.

Checking Out Hits Per Swing For Major League Pitchers: Going back to 2002, Baseball Nation’s Jeff Sullivan looked at the pitchers who allowed the most and least hits per swing by the opposing batter.

The ‘Pitcher Name’ Phenomenon: Baseball Nation’s Jon Bois has a theory that you can predict whether a player is a pitcher or a position player based solely on their name… His first study into the matter yielded surprising results.

15 Teams Are Within Five Games Of First Place. What Does This Mean?: Al Yellon of Baseball Nation went through every season since 1995 and looked at how many teams were within striking distance of 1st place at the break. Does this year’s situation typically lead to 2nd-half excitement?

In Search Of The Best Closer To Never Make The Team: With more relievers heading to the ASG than ever, Baseball Nation’s Grant Brisbee searches for the best closer who never made the team.

Home Run Derby 2011 – Odds For Each Contestant: From Baseball Nation’s Grant Brisbee, Bodog’s odds on the HR Derby. (Bautista’s a 3-1 favorite right now.)

Has Alexi Ogando Hit The Wall?: Baseball Nation’s Jeff Sullivan dissects why Ogando’s stats are down so much recently… Is it velocity? Release point? Or something else?

Mike Cameron Has Been One Of The More Underrated Talents Of His Generation: Baseball Nation’s Jeff Sullivan appreciates the underrated career of Mike Cameron, who was DFA-ed by the Red Sox today.

Point/Counterpoint: Do Statistics Belong In Baseball?: Baseball Nation’s Grant Brisbee responds to Jonah Lehrer’s Grantland article with a funny point-counterpoint that turns both sides of the debate into ridiculous caricatures.

Your Handy Guide To Pitchers As Hitters: Baseball Nation’s Jeff Sullivan with a fun look at the various hitting styles of pitchers.

American League Left Fielders And The Vortex Of Yuck: Baseball Nation’s Grant Brisbee points out how awful AL LFs have hit so far this year.

Catch A Glimpse Of The ‘Moneyball’ Teaser: If you care about the Moneyball movie, Baseball Nation posted a short teaser video.

How The Tampa Bay Rays Have Stayed In The Race: BABIP — for and against — is the big reason Tampa has been competitive so far, writes Baseball Nation’s Jeff Sullivan.

Building The All-Late-Round Team: Grant Brisbee of Baseball Nation uses WAR to construct the the best possible team of players drafted in round 10 or later.

Is MLB Scoring Really Down In 2011? And If So, Why?: These are the questions Al Yellon ponders at Baseball Nation.

The Ten Least Feared Hitters Of The 2011 Season To Date: Baseball Nation’s Jeff Sullivan lists the batters that see the highest percentage of pitches coming over the plate.

The Absurdity Of Neftali Feliz: Baseball Nation’s Jeff Sullivan compares Feliz’s split-level pitch data for 2011 vs. 2010.

The Demise Of The Three-Inning Save: Al Yellon of Baseball Nation takes a look at the severe decline of 3-inning saves in the last decade alone.

Who’s the Single Best Bet to Reach the Playoffs?:Rob Neyer points out that Baseball Prospectus’ highest playoff odds belong to… the Boston Red Sox?

Accomplices To The Five Longest Home Runs Of 2011 MLB Season: From Jeff Sullivan & Baseball Nation, the pitches that led to the 5 biggest blasts of the year so far.

Adjusting For Opponent In The 2011 MLB Season: Jeff Sullivan of Baseball Nation analyzes BP’s strength of opponent metrics for individual batters and pitchers.

Bartolo Colon, Getter Of Strikeouts: Jeff Sullivan of Baseball Nation on Bartolo Colon’s 2011 strikeout rate and contact rate.

The Biggest Changes In Hitter Approach In The 2011 Season: Baseball Nation’s Jeff Sullivan finds hitters whose swing rates have changed the most in 2011.

MLB Attendance – Lower Than Ever?: Baseball Nation’s Grant Brisbee compares MLB’s current down year (attendance-wise) to seasons from the past.

Measuring Team Popularity On Twitter And Facebook: At Baseball Nation, Jeff Sullivan tracks how many Facebook fans and Twitter followers each MLB club has.

Bill James On Colbert: Via Baseball Nation, a video of Bill’s appearance on The Colbert Report.

Recent History’s Most And Least HBP-Happy Pitchers: Jeff Sullivan of Baseball Nation found the pitchers since 2002 that were most and least likely to plunk batters.

Roy Halladay, Pitch Counts, And The Televised Revolution: Baseball Nation’s Grant Brisbee writes about the nearly unanimous adoption of sabermetric pitch-count strategies in MLB.

The Worst Hitters With Long Hitting Streaks In Major League History: Using B-R’s Play Index, Jeff Sullivan of Baseball Nation found the worst hitters to ever tear off long hitting streaks.

On The Houston Astros’ Shoddy Infield Defense: Baseball Nation’s Jeff Sullivan notes that Houston has trouble turning ground balls into outs.