A Baseball Article I Actually Enjoyed

Here is a great baseball article by Tom Verducci.  Using statistics to show that the current system of relief pitchers isn't working.  Some highlights:

Fifty percent of all starting pitchers will go on the DL every year, as well as 34 percent of all relievers.

In general, closers are inefficient investments. It's not just that they break down; Wilson, Soria, Madson, Bailey and Farnsworth will earn $30.2 million combined this year, whether they pitch or not. It's that paying a guy $12.5 million to throw 60 innings -- but, good Lord, not when the game is tied on the road and only when about half the plate appearances against him are truly high leverage -- is a waste of a great arm.

So while the hotshot sabermetricians have been working hard to value players a la Moneyball, they have forgotten the Moneyball mantra: use data to buck conventional wisdom and find new ways to win.  For Billy Beane, the new way to win was to identify undervalued players.  But since every team is doing that now, now is the time to find new ways to go against baseball think, such as figuring out how to keep players healthy or getting rid of relievers.