At the beginning of March, we released the results of our television broadcaster rankings — itself the product of reader crowdsourcing that had started in late November. Since then, FanGraphs has asked readers to rate the radio 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.

Below are the 30th- through 21st-ranked radio broadcast teams, per the FanGraphs readership.

But first, three notes:
• Teams are ranked in ascending order of Overall rating. Overall ratings are not merely averages of Charisma and Analysis.
• I’ve attempted to choose reader comments that are either (a) illustrative of the team’s place in the rankings or (b) conspicuously amusing.
• A complete table of ratings and ballots cast will appear in these pages Friday.

30. New York Yankees
Broadcasters: John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman
Ratings (Charisma/Analysis/Overall): 2.3, 2.0, 2.1

Three Reader Comments
• “What can I say about John Sterling that hasn’t already been said about any of history’s greatest monsters?”
• “Ask John Sterling if you can predict baseball.”
• “My mother would never let us say anything bad about Suzyn Waldman because she is a cancer survivor. That said, her most memorable contribution to the broadcast, in my memory, was when she declared that she was going to challenge Kyle Farnsworth to a cookie baking contest. The results were not reported to my knowledge.”

Notes
When there’s praise among reader, it’s generally for what I’d guess you’d call the “timbre” of Sterling’s voice and for Waldman’s clubhouse reports. Such comments, however, are greatly outnumbered by criticisms — largely concerning Sterling’s belabored trademark calls and poor eyesight and the pitch of Waldman’s own voice.

Read the rest of this entry »

On March 5th, Christian Friedrich was inducted into the annual Best Shape Of His Life club thanks to this MLB.com article from Thomas Harding:

Even worse, he had bulked up to 240 pounds by the latter part of the season, partly because of his off-base workouts and partly because he had fallen into the habit of late-night meals.

But this winter, Friedrich spent a week and a half training with Phillies standout Cliff Lee. Friedrich, who said he was floored by Lee’s physical conditioning, dropped to 205 pounds, and he hopes to be in that vicinity during the season.

A 35 pound weight loss is certainly a drastic change, but as has been often chronicled, many of these off-season workout stories turn out to have little to no impact on a player’s performance on the field. In fact, so many players are noted to report to camp in the “Best Shape Of Their Life”, the story has become something of a running joke. However, getting in better physical condition can occasionally lead to significant changes, and it’s looking like Friedrich might just be an example of why these stories keep getting written.

Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Grimm, RHP, Texas Rangers
Current Level: AA
2012 Top 15 Prospects Ranking: NR
Current Value: On the Rise

A former top prep pitcher, Grimm’s inconsistency in college slid him down the 2010 draft’s depth chart and he landed in Texas’ lap in the fifth round. The right-hander has been on cruise control since turning pro and reached double-A in just his second season (He signed too late to play in ’10). Grimm has shown above-average control and has walked just eight batters in 45.1 innings this season. He does a nice job of commanding the ball down in the zone and he has produced solid ground-ball rates. The 23-year-old prospect is not far from being MLB-ready and he could eventually settle in as a No. 3 starter. With some other higher ceiling arms in the system Grimm could eventually be trade fodder.

Read the rest of this entry »

Our game logs have been updated to include all the stats sections available on FanGraphs!

Here’s the full rundown of the new features:

– Includes the majority of our stats sections including the Dashboard, Standard, Advanced, Batted Ball, More Batted Ball, Win Probability, Pitch Type, Pitch Value, Plate Discipline and all PITCHf/x sections.

– Date filtering allows you to select the exact time range of a player’s career (dating back to 1974) that you want to see, even spanning multiple seasons.

– Minor League game logs are available for all players dating back to 2006.

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

1. Featured Game: Milwaukee at New York NL, 19:10 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Largely Superfluous Video: Stephen Strasburg’s Last Start
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Milwaukee at New York NL, 19:10 ET
On What the Reader Might Be Wondering
The reader might be wondering why a contest involving Dillon Gee is this evening’s featured game — in particular, that is, because Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia and Stephen Strasburg are all pitching in other, not featured games.

On What the Author Is Responding
The author is responding, first of all, that Gee opposes Brewers right-hander Zack Greinke, who has been excellent this season (43.0 IP, 67 xFIP-, 1.7 WAR).

On What the Author Is Also Responding
The author is also responding that Gee himself has been quite good. Consider, if you have a moment, staring deep into his season line to date: 37.2 IP, 20.0% K, 4.9% BB, 52.2% GB, 3.15 SIERA, 83 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR.

Of Particular Note Regarding Dillon Gee
Of particular note regarding Dillon Gee is that he’s currently 11th (among 116 qualified starters) with an 11.0% swinging-strike rate — and, on a likely related note, is first in opponent O-Swing%, at 36.8%.

Read the rest of this entry »

Danny Duffy is headed for surgery. After an MRI revealed a torn ulnar collateral ligament in Duffy’s left elbow, it looks like Tommy John surgery will sideline the left-hander until next season. A former top prospect in the Kansas City Royals’ farm system, Duffy reached the majors last season. And even though he struggled initially, the 23-year-old seemed to be making progress this year. And now that he’s out for the season, the Royals’ rise to prominence may be put on hold even longer.

Read the rest of this entry »

UZR is catching up to Adam Jones, or maybe it‘s the other way around. Either way, the Orioles centerfielder is finally receiving some love from defensive metrics — his league-leading 5.9 UZR is by far the best of his career. He already had a Gold Glove, as well as both appreciation and skepticism for the numbers that assess his play. The 26-year-old Jones discussed his defensive game — and those numbers — during a recent visit to Fenway Park.

——

Jones on defense and data: “Defense adds to your overall value. Teams look at what you bring to the table both offensively and defensively. In this division, along with myself you have [Jacoby] Ellsbury — who is on the shelf right now and I wish him a speedy recovery — [Curtis] Granderson and [B.J.] Upton. You also have [Colby] Rasmus. I can’t forget my man Rasmus. I think we’re all plus defenders. We’re also plus offensive players, which is why most of us are hitting in the middle of the lineup for our teams. We bring both to the table.

“There are stats now like defensive UZR, and all that, but they don’t show the placement of the player. Everything nowadays is so statistical. Like wOBA. We have a wOBA this year –weighted on-base average. It’s pretty cool to look at that, even though we joke about it. There are so many statistical-analysis ways to look at the game now that it’s crazy.”

On Gold Glove voting: “Gold Glove winners usually deserve a Gold Glove. Read the rest of this entry »

2 homers and a triple for Carlos Beltran tonight.Basically matching Matt Kemp’s season production, just without any of the hype.

— David Cameron (@DCameronFG) May 12, 2012

Part One: Idle Thoughts
It has recently been discovered by, like, top-top literary critics that, when T.S. Eliot writes — in his long poem “The Waste Land” — when Eliot writes that “April is the cruellest month,” he’s referring not to the tumult and angst of spring that is also the tumult and angst of the human condition, but to an entirely different phenomenon altogether.

In fact, the thing to which Eliot is actually referring is the inordinate power and influence of April numbers over the minds of even those of us who attempt to actively avoid such biases.

The reader is surely able to remember examples from past seasons when a hitter or pitcher’s hot start led to an almost season-long narrative that portrayed said player in an unduly flattering light — or, conversely, those other situations in which a player, after a very poor start, slowly hit his way back to respectability without much in the way fanfare.

The pull of these April narratives is strong. It was not, for example, until I saw the above tweet from managing editor Dave Cameron regarding Carlos Beltran and Matt Kemp that I seriously entertained the notion that the former (i.e. Beltran) had approached the latter (i.e. Kemp) in terms of production on the young season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Hamilton just had himself quite a week. The Rangers’ slugger clubbed nine homers in one week, including four in one game. He hit .467/.529/1.433, for a ridiculous 1.963 OPS, and piled up 1.5 WAR, which was 0.6 more than any player in the game. As Mark Simon at ESPN showed with this heat map, Hamilton destroyed just about everything thrown his way. But just how hot was he, in a historical sense?

Read the rest of this entry »