First there was man, and then there was baseball. Soon after baseball there were baseball statistics, because there’s no sense in male competition if you don’t have a record of who’s good and who’s not. Baseball was played in ballparks, and in time people came to notice that different ballparks affected the game in different ways. Eventually people put numbers to park factors, and after there were park factors, there were park factors broken down by handedness. This is where we are today, with the focus being on how specific environments affect specific players. Later on, we’ll know a lot more than we know today, but today we know plenty, relative to what we knew just a few years ago.

As we’ve come to understand park factors, we’ve come to understand the importance of sample sizes. Many prefer multi-year factors over single-year factors, because single-year factors can be misleading. That’s when you’re dealing with events that happen a lot, like walks or strikeouts or singles. Even with multi-year factors, you can observe wild swings with events that happen more rarely. I’m talking here about park factors for, say, hit batters, or park factors for triples. With that in mind, the updated righty park factor for Progressive Field for triples could end up looking a little silly. Let me explain.

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Episode 249
Native Briton, current resident of Mexico City, and illustrator nonpareil Craig Robinson (famously of the internet’s Flip Flop Fly Ball) is the guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 58 min. play time.)

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The Red Sox currently have a .448 winning percentage, the eighth worst mark in baseball. They haven’t performed this poorly on the field since 1966, when they went 72-90, finishing with a better record than only one other AL team – the New York Yankees. Over the last 35 years, the sport has undergone some pretty significant changes, and neither the Red Sox nor the Yankees are used to having these kinds of seasons anymore. This kind of large scale failure is simply not something that anyone associated with the franchise has had to deal with in the last three decades, and not surprisingly, it has prompted a lot of changes in response.

Gone are many of the most visible faces of the last few years. Kevin Youkilis, Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett were all shipped out mid-season, and it seems like a foregone conclusion that Bobby Valentine will be leaving after the year ends. The Red Sox aren’t just going for a talent adjustment; they’re looking for a culture change.

And that change is apparently going to start with the valuation of talent.

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On August 15, Major League Baseball suspended San Francisco Giants outfielder Melky Cabrera 50 games after Cabrera tested positive for testosterone, a substance banned under MLB’s Joint Drug Policy.  The suspended began immediately. Including the Giants’ game that day against the Washington Nationals, San Francisco would play 45 games from the time of Cabrera’s suspension through the end of the regular season.

Now that the Giants have clinched the National League West title, they are guaranteed to play at least another three, and as many as five, postseason games in the Division Series. These games will count as part of Cabrera’s suspension. Under the Joint Drug Policy (Section 7.H.), a suspension for a certain number of games includes all regular season and post-season games the player would have been eligible to play. “A player shall be deemed to have been eligible for a post-season game if he was on the Club’s active roster  . . . immediately preceeding his suspension.”

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

1. Three Best September Call-Ups So Far: Hitters
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Three Best September Call-Ups So Far: Hitters
Regarding What’s Possible
It’s entirely possible that one might wonder to himself — out of idle curiosity, perhaps, or with a view to improving his keeper-league fantasy team or because he’s the author of a widely-hailed Daily Notes column — it’s entirely possible that such a person might wonder which of the Septebmer call-ups has performed most ably since his promotion earlier this month.

The Results of Such a Consideration, What They’d Look Like
Were one to consider the above consideration for a a medium-length of time, his results would probably look very similar to the ones below.

Three Best September Call-Ups: Hitters
Here are the three best field players among the league’s recently promoted. Each of the following both (a) entered 2012 with rookie eligibility and (b) has recorded plate appearances in September only. Note that “best” is defined not by WAR alone, but also, owing to the paucity of the samples, by regressed offense (represented by SCOUT+, where 100 is average and greater than 100 is above average).

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Ben and Sam revisit their discussion from last week on aces in October, talk about the new old Ichiro, and tell you more than you need to know about Orioles starter Steve Johnson.

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Are you familiar with FanGraphs? If so, hello there, friend! If not, welcome to FanGraphs, future friend! On FanGraphs you can find a wide variety of statistics and statistical leaderboards, and among the selection is plate-discipline data from PITCHf/x. As of a couple years ago, this data started including a Pace column. Pace is a simple statistic to understand: it’s the average number of seconds that pass between pitches, for both pitchers and hitters.

Pace is not a statistic that tells you anything at all about how good or bad a player is. There are relationships between Pace and deep counts or Pace and plate appearances with runners on, but Pace is more of a statistic intended to describe the game. We know that there are fast pitchers and slow pitchers, eager hitters and methodical hitters, and Pace gives us numbers. Pace has zero value when you’re talking about who stands the best chance of winning the next World Series. Pace has plenty of value when you’re talking about the gameplay itself, because it captures and describes a part of the viewing experience. It’s good to have numbers that do that, and the introduction of PITCHf/x-based Pace filled a tiny void.

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Episode 248
FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron, as per usual, makes his weekly appearance on FanGraphs Audio and analyzes all baseball.

Discussed:
• Roster expansion and September hitting — more on that theme.
• Safeco Park’s strange offensive environment — how it might affect the team’s roster construction in the near future. Also: other parks that effect other organizations’ roster construction.
• High-ceiling vs. high-floor prospects, the relative merits of.

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 46 min. play time.)

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This upcoming offseason was poised to be one filled with excitement surrounding the starting pitchers available on the free agent market. Teams were poised to open up their wallets in hopes of signing Zack Greinke, Matt Cain, or Cole Hamels — but the market quickly dried up once Cain and Hamels signed contract extensions with their current teams.

An intriguing name should join the market this winter, however, as CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman reported last week that the Chicago White Sox are not expected to exercise Jake Peavy’s 2013 option worth $22M. Instead, they are expected to pay a $4M buyout and allow Peavy to sign elsewhere.

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