Archive for August, 2012

The Red Sox entered this season with high hopes. Fast-forward 122 games and they’re a disappointing 59-63 with just 4% odds of making the playoffs. The front of the rotation has had issues preventing runs. Several members of the lineup have performed below their established level of production. Plenty of key contributors have spent time on the disabled list, and recent reports suggest players have a mutinous relationship with their manager.

Plenty has gone wrong for the 2012 Red Sox, but one of the bright spots has been Cody Ross. The 31-year-old outfielder, who signed for just one year and $3 million, has a .359 wOBA, 122 wRC+ and 2.4 WAR. His strong production has many wondering about his next contract. Ross has said that he’d like to return to Boston, and all signs point to the team having mutual interest. Ross may have put himself in line for a multi-year deal similar to Josh Willingham’s most recent contract — three years and $21 million — despite being less consistent and not as talented. Willingham has produced in the 3 WAR to 4 WAR range during the past several seasons while Ross has been in the 2 WAR to 3 WAR range.

And then there’s this: the main area in which Ross excels — crushing lefties — can be replicated fairly easily. Interested teams may be able to acquire cheaper Ross-like production by considering a few players with similar skill-sets.

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The Rays demolished the Angels in a four-game weekend sweep, which gives Ben and Sam the idea to discuss the two teams’ divergent directions since the deadline and reevaluate Anaheim’s offseason approach.

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

1. Today’s Two Featured Games
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Two Featured Games
Regarding a Thing That Happens
It is not uncommon, during a late-season game of some consequence, it’s not uncommon for an announcer to suggest that there is a “playoff-like atmosphere” within the relevant ballpark.

A Note on Two Games This Afternoon
Two games this afternoon, while unlikely to possess a “playoff-like atmosphere,” might at least offer a “playoff-ish-esque-like atmosphere” — which is to say, similar to playoff-like, just not as dramatic.

What One of Those Games Is
One of the games of note today is the Pittsburgh-St. Louis one at 2:15pm ET.

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

1. Featured Game: Chicago (NL) at Cincinnati, 19:10 ET
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Chicago (NL) at Cincinnati, 19:10 ET
Regarding This Game, Why It’s Notable
This game is notable on account of it features the major-league debut of Todd Redmond, who starts for the Reds.

Regarding Todd Redmond, Who That Even Is
Todd Redmond is a 27-year-old right-hander drafted originally by Pittsburgh in the 39th round of the 2004 draft out of St. Petersburg College. He was traded to Atlanta in 2008 and then again, about a month ago, to Cincinnati in exchange for Paul Janish.

Regarding Todd Redmond, His Numbers at Triple-A This Season
Here’s Todd Redmond’s Triple-A line at Triple-A this season: 134.2 IP, 8.4 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 1.1 HR/9, 3.62 FIP.

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Episode 228
RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris is the guest on this Fantasy Friday edition of FanGraphs Audio.

Discussed:
• Dan Haren, how his back injury is of no little concern.
• Brandon Morrow — specifically, as a potential Haren replacement.
• Boston and Houston and San Diego, who’s closing in those places.

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 29 min. play time.)

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Other Lists
Cape Cod League
Northwoods League
Coastal Plain League
New England Collegiate League

The people have spoken and “We don’t care that much about these collegeiate-summer-league posts,” is mostly what they’ve said.

In the tradition both of Seneca and post-Deconstructing Harry Woody Allen, however, the present author has decided to ignore entirely the thronging, vulgar masses and write about collegiate summer leagues harder than ever before.

Below are the players to have performed most ably in this year’s edition of both the Alaska Baseball and the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball Leagues. Offensive production (represented as the totally made-up SCOUT+, where 100 is league average and above 100 is above average) is essentially a version of wRC+, except using the three main defense-independent inputs (home-run, walk, and strikeout rate), all regressed duly*. Pitching performance (represented by the also entirely made-up SCOUT-, where 100 is league average and below 100 represents above-average run prevention) is calculated using a version of kwERA, with regressed strikeout and walk rates as the relevant inputs.

*By the method outlined here.

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New York Mets pitching prospect Domingo Tapia is in the midst of a breakout season for Savannah of the South Atlantic League. With nearly eight strikeouts per nine innings and a ground ball rate of 65%, his 2.65 FIP is good for second best in the league behind San Francisco Giants 2011 supplemental first round pick Kyle Crick. So what’s driving his success? A mid-to-upper 90’s fastball with heavy sink which rates as one of the single best pitches I’ve scouted in person. But what about the rest of his arsenal? It lags significantly behind, but Tapia may be taking a rather unique approach to to starting as an attempt to maximize what the young right-hander does well.

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Paul just put up his early look at the Comeback Player of the Year, but while this headline is similar, I’m going to talk about something quite different. A couple of days ago, Keith Law was being asked about comeback players on Twitter, and I jokingly suggested that perhaps the award should go to the guy who hit the most ground balls to the pitcher, sometimes referred to “comebackers”, at least by me anyway. Based on his terrible results and lack of power, I guessed that Yunel Escobar might rank pretty highly on the list.

In fairly quick order, several people started requesting just such a list, and so I hit up query-master Jeff Zimmerman, who came through as always, presenting me with a list of batters who had hit into the most groundouts where the pitcher got an assist. We are not giving any extra credit for hitting into double or triple plays – this is simply a straight count of balls hit back to the pitcher that resulted in an out.

The long awaited results for Comebacker Of The Year (So Far) after the jump.

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Subjective questions swirl around most awards discussions — should a pitcher win MVP, should the Rookie of the Year be the best player that season or the one with the brightest future, does the Manager of the Year and/or MVP need to come from a playoff team, etc. But Comeback Player of the Year may be the most loosely defined award. As I detailed in this exercise last season, the only criteria is that a player “re-emerged,” which is very much open to interpretation. So, let’s try to take an objective look.

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Huzzah.

Major League Baseball owners have agreed to test two different advanced replay systems live during games starting next week, and if they prove accurate they could precede an overhaul of the system for the 2013 season, sources told Yahoo! Sports.

MLB will analyze a radar-based system and a camera-based system, both similar to the one used in tennis for down-the-line fair-or-foul calls. Yankee Stadium and Citi Field will be the guinea-pig parks for the systems, which have been installed recently.

The use of the systems will be strictly in the background and for analysis. Because the number of questionable plays during games is likely to be limited, MLB plans to do extra testing on non-game days. Before implementing the technology in its 30 ballparks, the league wants to ensure its accuracy is up to standard.

As Jeff Passan notes in the article, this is essentially an accuracy gauge test, and the system has to show MLB officials that it can provide a definitive improvement on things like fair/foul calls. The fact that they’re testing it does not mean that they’re going to decide to use it, or that it could be implemented quickly, or that Bud Selig is aware that a lot of fans of his sport are in favor of expanded replay.

However, trying it out is better than continuing to proclaim that there aren’t enough people writing letters decrying the lack of technology used to help umpires get as many calls correct as possible. At least this gives us some hope that the test may go well, that MLB officials may see the value in expanded replay, and that we may be headed towards a day when the officials on the field have access to the same (or better!) information that everyone watching on TV has.

It’s a small step, but it’s a step in the right direction.