When pressed to name the top offensive catchers in the league, names such as Mike Napoli, Miguel Montero, Brian McCann, Yadier Molina, Carlos Santana, and Alex Avila immediately come to mind. That is only natural, as all six of those players were in the top ten amongst catchers for wOBA last season (min. 100 PA). In addition, young, up-and-coming catchers, such as Matt Wieters and Buster Posey, also likely make the list for many people.

This season, however, none of those catchers listed above lead the league in production at the plate. Surprising names have risen to the top of the rankings through the first month and a half of the season. In fact, none of the top four catchers in wOBA this season (min. 100 PA) had a wOBA above .350 in 2011.
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With 13 home runs and a 1.032 OPS entering today’s action, it’s safe to say Yankees outfield prospect Tyler Austin has officially broken out. Considering the Georgia native opened the season as arguably the eighth best prospect on his own team, the fact his home run output nearly equals the sum total of his teammates has prospect followers and Yankees fans alike excited. Current chatter even includes dreams of Austin, along with top-100 teammate Mason Williams forming two-thirds of the Bronx Bombers’ outfield of the future.

Video after the jump

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

1. Featured Game: Texas at Seattle, 22:10 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Texas at Seattle, 22:10 ET
An Unavoidable Fact Regarding This Game
An unavoidable fact regarding this game is that it features very famous right-handed pitchers Yu Darvish (52.0 IP, 88 xFIP-, 1.2 WAR) of Texas and Felix Hernandez (62.2 IP, 80 xFIP-, 1.7 WAR) of Seattle.

Regarding Where “Of Texas,” Specifically
The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, specifically. The city of Arlington, even more specifically than that.

Regarding Where “Of Seattle,” Specifically
The SoDo neighborhood, specifically. (South of Dome or Downtown, that means.)

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The Phillies knew their slugging first baseman would miss some time when he fell to the ground on the last play of their 2011 Division Series with the Cardinals. Without any setbacks, his ruptured Achilles tendon would keep him sidelined through April. While recovering from surgery, he suffered an infection near the tendon that was serious enough itself to require surgery. The setback made his May return unlikely and gave him another roadblock to clear before being allowed to rehab.

His rehab got underway two weeks ago, and that’s all anyone knows right now.

There haven’t been any updates about his progress or lack thereof. We know that Howard is physically in Clearwater, Florida, working out at the Phillies training facility, but that’s it. Nobody knows what type of work he is putting in, when he might start playing in rehab games, or any sense of when he might return to the major leagues. Apparently, that is by design, since the organization is going to great lengths to prevent reporters from watching or talking to Howard.

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

1. Featured Game: Boston at Philadelphia, 13:35 ET
2. Largely Superfluous Video: Cliff Lee’s May 15th Start
3. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Boston at Philadelphia, 13:35 ET
Cliff Lee Status Update
Here’s a status update for 33-year-old left-hander Cliff Lee, who starts this afternoon for Philadelphia: 37.0 IP, 26.2% K, 3.1% BB, 61.1% GB, 2.09 SIERA, 61 xFIP-, 1.1 WAR.

Regarding Lee’s Strikeout Rate, Where It’d Rank in Terms of His Career
Regarding Lee’s present strikeout rate, it would represent the best mark of his career were the season to end today. (He posted a 25.9% strikeout rate last season.)

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

1. Featured Game: St. Louis at Los Angeles NL, 22:10 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: St. Louis at Los Angeles NL, 22:10 ET
Status Update: St. Louis Offense
As of Friday, St. Louis continued to lead the majors both in batter WAR (13.3) and wRC+ (128).

Other Status Update: St. Louis Offense
On Friday, St. Louis scored four runs through the first three innings* of their game against Ted Lilly and the Dodgers (although, as their .322 wOBA through those first three innings indicates, it wasn’t necessarily a dominant performance early on).

*At which point, the author, who shares a great deal in common with America’s geriatric population, made his way bedward.

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Episode 182
David Laurila (@DavidLaurilaQA), curator of FanGraphs’ Q&A Series, talks both to Mariners catcher John Jaso and Seattle Times beat writer Geoff Baker.

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 28 min. play time.)

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Big news in Los Angeles of Anaheim these past couple days: Albert Pujols has hit home runs in back-to-back games. Just as after Pujols hit his first homer of the season back on May 6th, one question rules Angels-related discourse: is Albert back? Pujols did hit in six of his next eight games following that first home run, but the result was just a .265/.285/.265 line. Is anything different this time around? Can Angels fans finally start to believe? A quick look at where these home runs fell suggests yes, a rebound should be here soon for Pujols.

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Since the start of 2011, the Blue Jays are tied for 26th in WAR among first basemen. Yesterday, the team sought to do something to change that mark when they demoted Adam Lind to Triple-A. The most shocking thing about the demotion may be that it took so long.

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Over the course of this week, we’ve been releasing the results of our radio broadcaster rankings — itself the product of reader crowdsourcing, and a logical companion to the television broadcaster rankings released in March.

Click the relevant links to read about radio broadcast Nos. 30 – 21, Nos. 20 – 11, and Nos. 10 – 1.

Below is a complete (and sortable) table of the radio broadcast rankings, followed by some notes on same.

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