Beginning in late November, we’ve spent much of the offseason asking readers to rate the television broadcast teams (on a scale of 1-5 for charisma, analysis, and then overall) for all 30 major-league clubs — with the intention, ultimately, of determining which broadcasts might best reflect the sorts of inquiry and analysis performed here at the site. (Click here for more on this project.)

Now the results from the ballots for all 30 teams (including two for the Dodgers, who have distinct home and away broadcasters) have been collected and will be published here over the course of the week.

Over the next three days (Tuesday-Thursday), I’ll publish the rankings in groups of 10, starting with No. 30. In the meantime, here are some brief observations after having spent some time looking at, and thinking about, the results. Following that is the 31st-ranked broadcast team, according to FanGraphs readers.

Commentating Requires at Least One Skill
We should take for granted that, because baseball games are three hours long and because a broadcast team is tasked with filling all three of those hours with speech acts of varying descriptions, that not every moment of a baseball broadcast is likely to provide Audio/Visual Magic. The skill that is shared in common among all broadcasters is their capacity, at the very least, to keep talking — nor should the importance of this skill go unacknowledged. At times, I’ve utilized the function on MLB.TV that allows one to hear only the natural sounds of the ballpark — and it’s decidedly pleasant sometimes. However, generally speaking, I find that I prefer even a below-average broadcast team to silence. I won’t venture a guess as to why that is, but it very likely has something to do with how the world is a lonely, frightening place.

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Devin Mesoraco will likely keep doing this.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for the thing that’s now called Daily Notes.

1. Announcement: This Is Now Called Daily Notes
2. Prospecting: John Sickels’ Top 120 Prospect List
3. Projecting: Steamer Projections for Hitters

Announcement: This Is Now Called Daily Notes
During the last two regular seasons, the present author has written a mostly daily column called One Night Only, in which he previews the day’s games. During not the regular season, the present author has written a mostly daily column called Offseason Notes, in which he aggregates from the internet that information most relevant to America’s baseball nerds. Those are facts that even championship lawyer Sam Waterston can’t deny.

What the beginning of spring training has brought to said author’s attention, however, is that there’s a time of the year that is both not the season and not not the season — which, as graduate humanities students everywhere can tell you, problematizes the idea of what is and isn’t the season.

In response, there will now be just one daily piece, and it will be called Daily Notes, and it will appear in these pages until such as time as seven seals and seven trumpets and seven plagues appear unto us.

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Gerardo Parra put together a solid, under the radar season over 141 games in 2011, posting a .340 wOBA and +10 UZR en route to three wins above replacement. He won a Gold Glove flanking Chris Young and Justin Upton and showed some legitimate signs of offensive improvement at just 24 years old.

The Diamondbacks, unsure whether or not the improvements were sustainable, opted to sign Jason Kubel this offseason for at least two years and $16 million. Kubel boasts the opposite set of skills as a decent hitter with a far worse glove. The team has yet to make it known if these two outfielders will platoon, but the more likely scenario has Kubel starting with Parra relegated to fourth outfielder status. Other teams have predictably been inquiring on Parra’s availability as he is now a cheap 25-year old starting outfielder without a guaranteed starting role.

In most cases it makes sense for the team with the supposed logjam to trade the displaced player. He can usually net a decent return and is often worth more to a new employer than as a sub to his current team. In this case, however, the Diamondbacks would be better served by keeping Parra in Arizona. The confluence of his age, abilities and contract status will afford the team another year or two to gauge his ability to start on a full-time basis without really sacrificing anything.

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Joel Zumaya has torn his UCL and will miss the season. At some point, we have to ask if his career is threatened. And, even when that prospect saddens us, if there is something unnatural about throwing as fast as he has.

Since he debuted in 2006, “Zoom Zoom” has pitched in 171 games. He debuted with an incredible 97 strikeouts in 83.1 innings over 62 games that rookie year, and he hasn’t managed more than half of any of those totals in any year since. He missed 2011 completely. In fact, he’s been ineligible for over 600 games due to injury since 2006. His team has only played 1,134 games since 2006.

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The Nationals continued to lock up their core talent today, agreeing to terms on a six year, $100 million extension for third baseman Ryan Zimmerman. The extension is tacked on to the end of his current deal, which pays him $26 million over the next two seasons, so he’s essentially now under contract for the next eight years for $126 million, and if a team option is exercised for 2020, the deal could turn out to be $150 million over nine years.

That’s a big paycheck, but Zimmerman is one of the game’s most underrated players, and the Nationals correctly identified his skillset as one worth keeping around. However, there’s continuing skepticism around every player who generates a lot of value with his glove, and people continue to be uncomfortable projecting stardom for guys who rely on their defensive skills to sustain elite performance. Since Zimmerman is a good bat/great glove guy, not everyone is on board with committing $100 million to that skillset, thinking that the value may not be there if the defensive value degrades with age and injury.

So, I figured it’d be instructive to look at how some other players with this skillset have aged recently. Here’s my list of comps, and their performance through age 26 – for reference, Zimmerman’s at a 119 wRC+, +52 FLD, and +30.2 WAR in 3,669 PA, or more generalized, 4.9 WAR per 600 PA.

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I’ll echo Dave Cameron and start by saying I do not know if Ryan Braun cheated. What we do know is that he will not be facing a suspension based on his October 2011 drug test. The independent arbitrator determined that the irregularities in the process were serious enough to warrant tossing out the apparently positive test. It is worth noting that the arbitrator did not declare Braun “innocent,” rather he simply refused to uphold the “guilty” result. In social science terms, the arbitrator decided the risk of making a Type I error was greater than a Type II error. A Type I error occurs when a null hypothesis –- in this case that Braun was clean –- is rejected despite being true. The flipside is a Type II error where a null hypothesis is maintained –- again Braun is clean –- when rejection of the null is warranted.

The fact that the arbitrator decided to potentially commit a Type II error is certainly good news for Braun and the Milwaukee Brewers, but is this good for Major League Baseball? I would argue yes. Our society has a long history of preferring Type II errors to Type I errors. The best example is our criminal justice system. Defendants are assumed innocent until proven guilty. A defendant does not have to prove that he or she is innocent of the crime he or she has been charged with, he or she simply has to raise enough reasonable doubt to prevent the state from proving that they did in fact commit the crime. This bias towards Type II errors is often controversial, as there are cases where many people believe that a guilty defendant was freed through the trial process (i.e. e.g. Casey Anthony, O.J. Simpson), but our society still supports a system that attempts to minimize the extent to which innocent individuals are falsely convicted.

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The concussion has become one of the biggest battlegrounds in sports over the last few years. Much of the focus remains on heavy-contact sports like football and hockey — and rightfully so, given the myriad of injuries we seem to hear about on a weekly basis from these sports. This article from The Classical, for example, details the struggles Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison underwent in the latter half of this past NFL season and is a fantastic read on the impacts concussions can have on players and people.

The nature of injury in baseball is very different, of course. Rather than large masses of metal and human flying at each other, baseball injuries are caused by immense stress on ligaments. That doesn’t mean the concussion isn’t an issue, though, and we’re seeing that now with Justin Morneau. The 30-year-old former MVP managed just 69 games in 2011 dealing with issues stemming from concussions dating back to 2010. Three concussions in and his baseball career could be nearing the end, just like former Minnesota Twin teammate Corey Koskie.

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Episode 145
Charlie Wilmoth is both the manager of SB Nation’s Pirates blog Bucs Dugout and an actual, real-live music scholar. He’s also the guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio. Topics discussed: Pittsburgh’s top prospects (Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, Josh Bell, and Starling Marte); the significance of the A.J. Burnett trade to the organization; and the effects of the new CBA on the Pirates’ draft strategy.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 38 min. play time.)

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In scouting, the term “tweener” used to be more of a dirty word than it seems to be today. With advanced statistics, value is now viewed through a different lens which has allowed for a player like the Yankees Brett Gardner to post 5-win seasons at a position historically reserved for plodding power hitters. This development gives a prospect like Ramon Flores hope that his skill set may find a place in the Majors despite not fitting into the typical mold.

Video after the jump

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By a simple count of singles, walks, and hit by pitches, Paul Konerko was on first base 192 times last season. He attempted two steals, and got caught once. Obviously, not all of those situations had second open or were otherwise good situations for stealing, but it is fair to say that he had more than two good opportunities. In addition, according to UBR, Konerko was about 10 runs below the average runner in terms of taking the extra base, and other “non-steal” base running categories.

Michael Bourn got on first only about 10 more times than Konerko in 2011, but stole 61 bases while only getting caught 14 times. UBR rated him at about 7 runs above average. Overall, Bourn was roughly two wins better than Konerko in general base running last season.

Imagine if Paul Konerko had Bourn’s abilities on the bases. Too bad there is nothing to be done about it. After all, it is not as if the league lets someone else hit for the pitcher, right? Oh, wait… Actually, around the time that the designated hitter rule was proposed and implemented in the American League, a “designated runner” rule was also proposed, although obviously it was never adopted. What if it were adopted now? This is the sort of thing we sometimes on “Rule Change Friday.”

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