Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Actual, Real Game: St. Louis at Miami, 19:05 ET
2. Timeless Video: Marlins Home Run Display
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: New York (AL) Radio

Actual, Real Game: St. Louis at Miami, 19:05 ET
Regarding What the Deal Is With This Game
The deal with this game is that it’s the first regular-season contest of the 2012 season both (a) being played in the United States and also (b) not involving the A’s and Mariners.

Regarding What Else the Deal Is
Another deal is that it’s also the first real-live game to be played in the Marlins’ new ballpark, ever.

Regarding How the Learned Reader Might Feel About That
Ambivalent, probably.

On Why That Might Be the Case
Because new stadia — especially new stadia replacing older, multi-purpose stadia like Sun Life — generally represent improvements, aesthetically speaking, over their predecessors. On the other hand, they’re also almost always the product of public funding, which, according to economist Andrew Zimbalist, is like the worst thing.

For How Much Longer the Author Could Hold Forth on Stadium Financing
About three more seconds.

What He’d Do After That
Maybe start talking in a hilarious accent — as, like, a diversion.

What He’d Do After-After That
Remind the reader that Josh Johnson is pitching for the Marlins (exciting!); Kyle Lohse, for the Cardinals (say wha-?).

Television: ESPN.

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ESPN’s Christina Kahrl wrote a fascinating piece over at the SweetSpot that focused on the rise of the strikeout during the past few decades. In her article, she notes that some teams can get away with lesser defensive players if their pitching staffs have a higher strikeout rate. The logic is that if a team’s pitching staff allows fewer balls in play due to striking out more batters, fewer runners will reach base despite the team’s higher batting average on balls in play (BABIP).

It’s a great point. I wanted to get a more concrete sense of just how much strikeout rates and team defense/park might impact hits allowed in 2012. To do this, I took the ZiPS projections for all pitchers who are currently on the active roster of major-league clubs. The projections were then aggregated by team. Since the active rosters vary at this point, I calculated rates such as projected hits per inning, strikeouts per inning, etc. I then conducted two comparisons: the number of hits allowed relative to league average when BABIP is held constant; and the number of hits allowed, relative to league average, when the number of balls in play per inning is constant. The former gives us a sense of how strikeout rates impact hits; the latter tells us how defense/park impacts hits*. All calculations of hits saved/allowed used an innings pitched constant of 1450 for the year.

Here are the results:

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Read the methodology behind the ratings here. Remember that the grading scale is 20-80, with 50 representing league average.

2012 Organizational Rankings

#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston
#28 – Oakland
#27 – Pittsburgh
#26 – San Diego
#25 – Minnesota
#24 – Chicago AL
#23 – Seattle
#22 – Kansas City
#21 – Cleveland
#20 – New York Mets
#19 – Los Angeles Dodgers
#18 – Colorado
#17 — Miami
#16 — Diamondbacks
#15 — Cincinnati
#14 — Cubs
#13 — Milwaukee
#12 — San Francisco
#11 — Washington
#10 — Tampa Bay
#9 – Toronto

Atlanta’s 2011 Ranking: 5th

2012 Outlook: 57 (tied for 9th)

If I remember correctly (it has been a few months) Atlanta’s 2011 seasons did not end quite the way the wanted it to end. Perhaps the superstitious think that those “bad vibes” are going to hang around and ruin Atlanta’s 2012 as well. There are some other less pressing issues, but the Braves are in a position to make yet another run at the playoffs.

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It’s Opening Night (last week was Opening Oh God It’s Early, I think), so with the season the brink of starting, we polled our staff and asked them to put down their selections for the playoff teams and the postseason award winners. Unlike last year, there was very little agreement among the group, and the consensus picks are often a plurality but not a majority. While there’s a pretty clear divide between the top six or seven teams and the rest of baseball, there doesn’t appear to be one dominant team that stands out from the group of contenders.

So, without futher ado, let’s get to the predictions:

AL West: Anaheim
AL Central: Detroit
AL East: New York
AL Wild Cards: Tampa Bay, Texas
AL Champ: Anaheim

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The Texas Rangers and second baseman Ian Kinsler have been discussing a possible six-year contract extension for the better part of two months, but Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the negotiations will be heating up prior to Opening Day on Friday.

Rosenthal states that the Rangers are willing to exceed the record $12.4M average annual value given to Dan Uggla in March 2011, but Kinsler and his agent may be holding out to determine what Robinson Cano receives, which will help set Kinsler’s overall market. Of course, Cano will likely not be a free agent until after the 2013 season, so there are no guarantees that the Yankees’ second baseman will set the market until that time. That could persuade Kinsler to simply ride out the remainder of his contract with the Rangers and attempt to secure the most lucrative deal possible in free agency.

Although Kinsler may ultimately have a chance to sign for more money if he waits until he reaches free agency, the 29-year-old second baseman would take a serious risk. He has been injury-prone throughout his big league career. He only averages 128.8 games per year, and last season was the first season he played in more than 144 games in a single season. Waiting another two years before signing an extension opens up the possibility for more injuries and more question marks, which would only cost him money in his next contract.

For that reason, I would argue that it makes the most financial sense for Kinsler to sign a contract extension prior to Opening Day. It is the same argument for younger players signing contract extensions in their arbitration years. Take a hit in terms of total possible dollars in return for financial security and removing the possibility of one injury shattering the dreams of a mega-contract.

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Read the methodology behind the ratings here. Remember that the grading scale is 20-80, with 50 representing league average.

#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston
#28 – Oakland
#27 – Pittsburgh
#26 – San Diego
#25 – Minnesota
#24 – Chicago AL
#23 – Seattle
#22 – Kansas City
#21 – Cleveland
#20 – New York Mets
#19 – Los Angeles Dodgers
#18 – Colorado
#17 — Miami
#16 — Diamondbacks
#15 — Cincinnati
#14 — Cubs
#13 — Milwaukee
#12 — San Francisco
#11 — Washington
#10 — Tampa Bay

Toronto’s 2011 Ranking: 8th

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This is footage of Houston right-hander Bud Norris’s second overall pitch — against Alejandro De Aza — from the Astros’ Tuesday night exhibition game against the White Sox. Said footage captures Norris throwing a pitch (a) that, owing to the velocity (91 mph) and arm-side run (about 5.8 inches, according to the game data) looks very much like a two-seam fastball and (b) to which the Astros broadcast team referred as a two-seam fastball.

Why that’s (potentially) notable is because, according to the PITCHf/x data at the site, Norris had no pitches classified as two-seamers in 2011. Brooks Baseball has 7% of Norris’s pitches from 2011 classified as sinkers — i.e. a close relative of the two-seamer — but only four of the 207 (1.9%) he was recorded as throwing induced a swing and miss.

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It’s been 27 months since the Reds signed Aroldis Chapman to that six-year, $30.25 million contract, but he still has yet to make a start for them. That’s not entirely his fault however, as the club decided to use him out of the bullpen last season. Despite a strong showing in Spring Training — 2.12 ERA with an 18/2 K/BB ratio in 17 IP — Chapman is once again headed back to the bullpen to start this season.

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