During the off-season, the one prospect question I never seem to have an answer for in chats is, “give me a sleeper prospect for the upcoming season.” For me, sleeper prospects are discussed throughout the season as a player’s performance is perceived as far more impressive than the prospect chatter surrounding said player.

In 2011, a few sleeper favorites included Rangers Christian Villanueva, Xander Bogaerts, Brandon Jacobs and Nathan Eovaldi who made the jump from unheralded prospects to top-100 performers in a season’s time. However, sleepers in general were few and far between during the 2011 season as so few stones go left unturned with the amount of prospect and rankings information flowing freely on the Internet.

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99.6%. That was the Red Sox’s win expectancy when Vicente Padilla struck out Andruw Jones to open the seventh inning on Saturday. Freddy Garcia did not make it out of the second inning and rookie southpaw Felix Doubront had handcuffed the Yankees’ lineup through six innings, surrendering only a solo homer to Mark Teixeira along the way. The game was all Boston with eight outs to go, and that’s when the national FOX broadcast cut away to the ninth inning of Phil Humber’s perfect game.

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Ivan Rodriguez is reportedly slated to announce his retirement from baseball today. There will be much written about his impressive career, and much of it will focus on whether or not he will get into the Hall of Fame, even though his numbers pretty obviously warrant it. Personally, I think that sidesteps the issue of how such a great player had not one but two lame nicknames: “Pudge,” which would not be so bad if it had not already been used; and “I-Rod,” which involved the incredibly annoying “first initial-first syllable” lazy nicknaming thing. It makes it hard to give this post a decent title.

Rather than looking at a career overview, let’s focus on a few particular moments: Rodriguez’ three biggest in-game hits according to Win Probability Added (WPA).

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There was a slight bug in the system and if you have picked a player from either game of the Giants / Mets games today, the actual game of the double header you picked was not recorded.

I have fixed starting pitchers, because that was easy, but if you have picked a relief pitcher or a position player, please double check which game of the double header you picked for your player.

There are 139 picks that this impacts. Any picks made after this post are okay.

If you do not see this post in time for picks to lock, or notice an issue tomorrow, please fill out a contact form and we will fix it for you.

Over the weekend, Philip Humber had the game of his life, throwing the 21st perfect game in baseball history against the Seattle Mariners. While the Mariners have a lousy offense and Safeco Field is a fantastic place to pitch, those factors shouldn’t diminish what Humber accomplished. A lot of good pitchers have faced a lot of lousy offenses over the years, and only 20 men before Humber had managed to go 27 up, 27 down. This is the apex of a single game performance in the sport, and Humber has now etched his name into the history books.

He’s also serving notice that last year’s breakout season may not have been a fluke.

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If you have dropped by the FanGraphs Library recently, you may have noticed that the place has a bit of a new look. Ben Duronio, Bradley Woodrum, and I have recently finished expanding the Library to include more information, so now there are individual subject headings — with multiple articles under each heading — on the following new areas:

PITCHF/x
Wins Above Replacement
Business

We’ve always had sections for Offensive Stats, Defensive Stats, Pitching Stats, Win Probability Stats, and Sabermetric Principles, but considering the importance of PITCHF/x and WAR, I’ve always been disappointed that we didn’t have fuller sections on each of them. Now we do, and with all the pages we wrote on each, you should be able to answer almost any question you have on either topic.

Want to know how Pitching WAR is calculated or read the explanation behind why we use FIP as the basis of pitcher evaluation? Curious about the concept of “replacement level”? Want to know what a certain PITCH F/x abbreviation represents? Or how to interpret certain charts or data? We have you covered.

We’ve also added a full section going in-depth on some of the more confusing Business aspects of baseball, like how service time, the luxury tax, and revenue sharing each work. It also includes a section detailing all the changes in the most recent CBA agreement.

As always, feel free to contact me on Twitter if you have any questions. Enjoy!

One of the frequently asked questions we get is what are the wOBA constants for a particular season, or what is the FIP constant?

Now there is a single exportable page with all the answers: FanGraphs Guts!

– Any field with a “w” in front of it is a wOBA constant

– R/PA is runs per plate appearance

– R/W is the runs to wins conversion number

– cFIP is the FIP constant

Doug Melvin and the Milwaukee Brewers orchestrated one of the more controversial trades last winter, sending stud prospect Brett Lawrie to Toronto in return for right-hander Shaun Marcum.

Lots of people spent the off-season lamenting the move, especially since Lawrie exploded onto the big league scene last season with a .293/.373/.580 line in his first 43 games and Marcum imploded during the postseason with an unsightly 14.90 ERA in three playoff starts. That regret has seeped into the regular season. Lawrie has avoided a sophomore slump thus far — despite a significant decrease in power production — and is hitting .281/.311/.386. Brewers fans are left to wonder what could have been, as they watch their $36 million man, Aramis Ramirez, struggle at the plate with a .151/.220/.245 line to begin the season.

While Lawrie would certainly look good in a Brewers uniform for the next six seasons, Marcum’s overall production has largely been overlooked. Despite his postseason struggles, he compiled a 3.54 ERA for the Brew Crew in 2011 and held the starting rotation together last April when Yovani Gallardo struggled and Zack Greinke was on the disabled list. Not only that, but the Brewers wouldn’t have been able to nab Greinke last December without Marcum’s transaction preceding it. Greinke turned down a deal to Washington that would have included a $100 million contract extension because he wanted to play for a winner. Marcum’s acquisition symbolized the chance to win in Milwaukee — or at least a strong desire to win now from the organization — which is why Greinke approved a move to Milwaukee.

Fast forward to this season, and we find Marcum cruising along with a 3.79 ERA. Although that level of production is no longer above average in this new, decreased run environment, the 30-year-old has shown signs that he will continue to churn out quality starts this year and anchor the middle of the Brewers’ starting rotation.

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UPDATE: With 314 ballots cast (see below), FanGraphs readers believe that the Rangers and Yankees will score a combined 10.46 runs in tonight’s game (7pm ET).

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

1. Brief Previews of Select Games
2. Shameless Polling Action: Over/Under on Yankees-Rangers
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Cleveland Radio

Brief Previews for Select Games
Here are brief previews for four of today’s games — each including the preferred television feed of FanGraphs readers, per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project. (Information on probable pitchers from MLB.com.)

San Francisco at New York NL | 16:10 ET
• This is the closest thing to afternoon baseball today, and is the first game of a doubleheader between the Giants and Mets, following a rainout of yesterday’s scheduled game.
• Tim Lincecum, subject of much handwringing, starts for San Francisco against Miguel Batista.
• Regard, Lincecum’s defense-independent numbers: 13.2 IP, 23.2% K, 5.8% BB, 45.8% GB, 74 xFIP-.
• Regard, his actual overall numbers: 16 ER, 16 ER, 10.54 ERA, 303 ERA-.
• Regard, in case you haven’t previously regarded it, our most recent piece on Lincecum: History Suggests Tim Lincecum Might Be Just Fine. By Dave Cameron, duh.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: New York NL.

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