If pressed to name which year featured the best amateur draft class in recent baseball history, the vast majority would immediately gravitate toward the 2005 Draft.

(Side Note: In fact, I originally began researching this article in an attempt to prove just how good the 2005 Draft was in comparison to other recent drafts.)

It’s certainly not an unreasonable position to take. The 2005 Draft enjoyed copious amounts of hype prior to draft day, and the star power atop the draft is mind-blowing. Players such as Justin Upton, Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, Andrew McCutchen, and Alex Gordon were all drafted in the first twelve selections. Those six players combined for an impressive +35.6 WAR last season.

The 2005 Draft has the big names early in the first round, to be sure, but the 2002 Draft could actually be the better all-around draft. The reason the 2002 Draft doesn’t make headlines is that the early picks did not produce All-Star caliber players.

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

1. Table: Average Per-Game Attendance Relative to Capacity
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Table: Average Per-Game Attendance Relative to Capacity
Note: it has come to the attention of the author, who is an avowed moron, not only that (a) average attendance as a percentage of capacity is available all day and all night at ESPN, but also that (b) Wendy Thurm discussed the concept last week in these very effing pages.

Regarding an Observation the Author Has Made
The author has observed that, while the absolute attendance — which is to say, the raw total — of fans at a baseball game exerts some influence over one’s experience of same, that, just as important to that experience, is the total attendance of a game relative to stadium capacity.

An Example Concerning Attendance Relative to Capacity
For some time, between 2008 and -10, the author attended a number of Portland Beavers games, then the Triple-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. While the Beavers’ home field, PGE park, had a capacity of something like 18,000, the Beavers — especially during Portland’s generally unpleasant spring nights — frequently only had attendance totals of two or three thousand. The effect was to make the games seem less urgent or immediate somehow.

A Second Example Concerning Attendance Relative to Capacity
More recently, the author has attended a number of games at Madison’s Warner Park, home of the Northwoods League’s Madison Mallards. The park has a listed capacity of ca. 7,500 and averages over 6,000 fans a per game. More than the overall attendance it is the absence of empty seats at Mallards game that compels the author to feel as though he’s at a proper event.

A Question the Author Asked
The author asked himself a question very similar to this one — namely, “Which major-league clubs feature the greatest average attendance as measured by a percentage of stadium capacity?”

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Ben and Sam consider whether the ballpark might be to blame for the Rockies’ lackluster first two decades, then discuss the annual phenomenon of attendance shaming.

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When Baseball America named Wil Myers their Minor League Player of the Year yesterday, it came as little surprise. The 21-year-old Kansas City Royals outfield prospect hit .313/.387/.600, with 37 home runs, between Double-A Northwest Arkansas and Triple-A Omaha. He came into the season rated as one of the top players in the KC system, and ended it as one of the most promising hitters in the game.

Myers, who was drafted by the Royals in 2009, talked about his development — including the emergence of his light-tower power — on the final day of the minor-league regular season.

——

David Laurila: Is hitting simple or is it complicated?

Wil Myers: It can be both. Hitting is very simple, but it’s complicated at the same time. If I have a good approach and stay up the middle, it’s pretty simple. I can get a hit, or at least hit something hard. But a lot of times, hitters will get out of their approach and that makes it very complicated and harder to have success.

DL: Do you consider yourself a power hitter?

WM: Yeah, I think so. There are a lot of times, especially early in the count and when I’m ahead, that I’ll look in, to pull something. If I’m in a good hitter’s count, I’m looking to hit to left-center and trying to drive it over the wall. Other than that, staying to the middle is what really keeps me inside the ball and not wrapping around it.

Last year I had a lot of trouble with the outside pitch. They really beat me with that, but I’m learning to hit it. I’m learning to hit the ball the other way with some power. Once you do that, you get more balls on the inner half. They want you to prove that you can get that ball away before you start getting balls in.

DL: Are you generally looking middle-away and reacting to balls inside?

WM: No, I’m looking in, basically all the time. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m pleased to introduce FanGraphs: The Game, Football Edition!!

“What?! A football game at FanGraphs?!” you say?

Yes! Given the nature of FanGraphs: The Game, it seemed like a natural fit for football, so we decided to give it a try!

FanGraphs: The Game for football is just like it is for baseball. You create a player and make picks each week to build your player’s stats over the course of the season. Whatever statistics your pick of the week accumulates are added to your player’s totals.

All of your totals will be tracked on your very own FanGraphs football player page and your player will show up on the football leaderboards, so you can see how well you’ve performed compared to others throughout the season. (These will be available later in the week after some stats have been accumulated.)

Because each player you create is assigned a position and is affiliated with a specific team, you have the chance to be atop the depth charts and hold bragging rights over your friends and others who are gunning for that same spot. You can also win awards (weekly, monthly, half-season, and full-season), and achievements.

At the end of the season, the player with the highest points total at each position will win $100, and the player with the second highest total at each position will each win a FanGraphs T-Shirt. Please see the full game rules for further details.

Click here to create a player and make your first pick. You can create as many as six players or as few as one – it’s all up to you. And, since you’re only going to be making one pick per week for each player you create, this is the fastest and easiest way to enjoy fantasy football. And best of all, it’s entirely free.

Since this is our first foray into anything football, please bear with us and let us know if you have any issues!

Episode 236
FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron, as per usual, makes his weekly appearance on FanGraphs Audio and analyzes all baseball.

Discussed:
• The decline of Dan Uggla, elaborated upon.
• Jurickson Profar and Shelby Miller, two top — and recently promoted — prospects.
• Kris Medlen, majors’ best pitcher (for a month, at least).

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 34 min. play time.)

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Monday was an important day for the Chicago White Sox. After a weekend sweep at the hands of the Detroit Tigers left them in a tie atop the AL Central, they rebounded with a 4-2 win over the Minnesota Twins. Come nightfall, the White Sox once again had sole possession of first. Monday was a less important day for the Twins. The Twins are a bad team just trying not to finish last in the league. On any given day, they don’t have a whole lot at stake.

But Monday was an important day for one Twins player in particular. With one out in the top of the fifth, Jamey Carroll batted against Hector Santiago. Carroll worked a trademark long, annoying at-bat, and then he lined a 2-and-2 fastball just over the fence in left field. It wasn’t the first home run of Carroll’s career — in fact, it was the 13th — but it did snap the longest homerless drought in major-league baseball. Carroll hadn’t homered since August 2009, and while home runs in Chicago aren’t quite like home runs in Seattle or home runs in Oakland, we don’t award fractional homers. You either hit a home run or you didn’t, and Monday, Jamey Carroll hit a home run.

There to greet him in front of the dugout, appropriately enough, was Ben Revere.

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Anyone who’s made his way to these electronic pages is likely well-aware that Kris Medlen has been excellent of late — is, in fact, the majors’ best pitcher over the last month by most relevant measures. Nor, really, has Medlen been more excellent of late than he was on Monday afternoon against the Colorado Rockies (box), during which game he recorded 12 strikeouts and zero walks en route to conceding just a lone, unearned run in nine innings.

While our Ben Duronio provided entirely able analysis in re Medlen just last week, it occurs to the present author that the People could tolerate more in the way of Medlen-related analysis.

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Last week, Joel Sherman made it very clear that he was not a fan of the September roster expansion rules in a column for the New York Post.

Tomorrow, Sept. 1, rosters will be allowed to expand in the major leagues all the way up to 40 men.

In a sport with plenty of dumb rules and traditions, this one seems created by Larry as told to Moe and implemented by Curly.

Here is how you know it is stupid: If the rule didn’t exist and you proposed it today, the 30 general managers would laugh you out of the room. Yet a mechanism that trashes logic, strategy, fairness and integrity remains because of a toxic brew of tradition, laziness and partisanship. In interviews this week — in a sport in which it is hard to find consensus on anything — I heard pretty much unanimity that the rule is archaic and needs to be fixed.

Sherman has a point, and of course it’s one that has been made before, because it is kind of silly that the season finishes with rules that are quite a bit different than the ones that have been in place for the first 80% of the season. And, while I don’t know that it ruins baseball or any of the other hyperbole that goes along with these discussions, I do think that there may be an alternative that actually puts the shorter minor league season to use in a way that makes a bit more sense.

Right now, rosters expand in September because the minor league season ends on Labor Day weekend and the kids who were playing down there don’t have anything else to do. The Fall Leagues don’t start for another month, and for teams who want their better prospects to continue working and gaining experience, adding them to the big league roster is the only way to achieve that goal.

If the minor leagues continued on through September, teams wouldn’t have any need for roster expansion, as their prospects would still be getting regular work in the minors, just as they had all year. Rather than advocating for a longer minor league season, however, why don’t we just start the minors a month later, and let teams begin the year with expanded rosters rather than ending them?

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