Shortly after the Mariners made the mistake of trading Brandon Morrow for Brandon League and another guy, it was noted by the Mariners’ front office that, the season before, League had thrown baseball’s most unhittable pitch. No pitch in baseball, apparently, generated a lower contact rate against than Brandon League’s splitter, and that gave us Mariners fans something to look forward to. What it actually wound up doing was give us something to complain about all the time, but no matter. That was the first I’d personally heard of a most unhittable pitch, and I fell in love with the concept. What better measure of dominance than whiffs over swings?

Of course, we all understand that pitches don’t exist in isolation. That year, League’s splitter was baseball’s most unhittable pitch, but it wouldn’t have been so if League only ever threw his splitter and never threw his fastball. There’s a lot of game theory stuff at play, so isolating individual pitch types is a little improper and misleading. Still, it’s a fun exercise, and I’m about to indulge. So we’re all about to indulge.

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Yes, we collapsed in the second half, but if we get some pitching help in the offseason, we could contend next year. #talklikeapirateday

— Ruben Bolling (@RubenBolling) September 19, 2012

We can fairly well predict that the Pirates are not going to make the playoffs this year, for the 20th straight season. They still have a fighting chance at their first winning record in two decades, as they stand at 74-74 after Game 148, but that looked almost like a lock before their 11-17 August and their 4-13 September.

So why do the Pirates always suck in September? If you look at the team’s win totals, month by month, from 1993-2011 — their record 19 straight losing seasons, you see a remarkable pattern emerge:

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See bottom of post for note on what is likely not an abandoned — but, rather, a distinctly harder — changeup.

Here’s an exchange that could very well occur between two mostly knowledgeable baseball fans:

Person No. 1: “A young pitcher whose fastball sits at 92 to 93 mph — and touches around 97 or 98 — struck out seven batters in as many innings yesterday.”

Person No. 2: “I have no reason to doubt it.”

And here’s another, also entirely possible, exchange on a similar theme:

Person No. 1: “Toronto right-hander Henderson Alvarez struck out seven batters in as many innings yesterday.”

Person No. 2: “Remove yourself from my sight, you gutless liar!”

One reason why that first conversation might exist is because many pitchers — like, Aaron Harang, to name one — have struck out seven batters in as many (or fewer) innings this season. Another reason is because pitchers who throw harder also tend to post both more strikeouts and lower xFIPs (a metric informed in no small part by strikeout rate).

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There’s a sentiment that the players for the Miami Marlins have more or less given up. Not too long ago, Buster Olney wrote about it, and Ozzie Guillen fired back in fairly colorful fashion. On one hand, since June 5, the Marlins have gone 35-61, better only than the Astros in the National League. On the other hand, since the start of August the Marlins’ run differential is essentially even. There’s some evidence pointing both ways, and when uncertain, it’s probably wisest to err on the side of professionals behaving like professionals.

Wednesday, it might not have mattered whether the Marlins have given up or not, because Wednesday the Marlins went up against Kris Medlen. The Marlins beat the Braves in ten innings on Tuesday, but Wednesday they were left as Medlen’s latest victims. The Braves scored three times, which was two more times than they needed to, as Medlen worked eight scoreless before handing the ball off.

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I thought about leading off this post with one of those “Guess who leads the Majors in WAR among shortstops” questions, but then realized that I put Jimmy Rollins name was in the headline, so that seemed to not be much of a challenge. But, yes, Jimmy Rollins currently leads all MLB shortstops in WAR, checking in at +4.9 for the season. He’s been the lynchpin to the Phillies second half comeback, but on the other hand, he was also one of the reasons that they had a big hole to dig out of to begin with, because Rollins is having one of the weirdest good seasons in recent history.

Here are his monthly splits:

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MLB announced its 2013 schedule last week. On Monday, we looked at the mileage each American League team will log next season traveling from city to city. The Chicago White Sox will have an advantage, as the schedule will require less than 23,000 miles in travel. The Seattle Mariners will be at a disadvantage, as the schedule calls for them to log more than 52,000 miles next season.

In the National League, the disparity between the most and least-traveled teams in 2013 isn’t quite as large as in the American League, but it’s close. Again, the compact geography of the Midwest gives a distinct advantage to teams in the NL Central. The Cincinnati Reds will log only 22, 505 miles next season, while the St. Louis Cardinals will go only 500 more. The San Francisco Giants, on the other hand, will travel just over 45,000 miles, more than double the Reds’ total. The teams in the NL East fall somewhere in between.

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In 2011, White Sox reliever Addison Reed faced 293 minor league hitters and struck out 111 while walking only 14 of them. It was a good year for Reed. He went from A-Ball, to High-A, to Double-A, to Triple-A in 3 months and 15 days.

In 2012, Reed has faced 229 major league hitters and struck out 52 while walking 18. He has also allowed two more home runs than in his time in the minors while facing 64 fewer hitters.

Despite all this, the AL Central-leading, supposedly rebuilding Chicago White Sox have called on the rookie Reed to perform as the team’s closer. And even with his his 4.82 ERA, the White Sox have stuck with him and have been rewarded with the 9th most net shutdowns in the American League (28 shutdowns, 9 meltdowns, 19 net SD) and a total of 28 saves.

So have the White Sox done it? Have they finally found the heir to the ghost of Bobby Jenks? Or have his recent struggles been a portent of pending trouble?

Well, Reed has a few oddities on his stats sheet, and depending on which items we consider aberration and which we consider omens, it can alter the way we see the 23-year-old relief ace.
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As I wrote yesterday when I took a look at the Blue Jays prospects, I took in the Northwest League championship finals between the Vancouver Canadians (Toronto Blue Jays) and Boise Hawks (Cubs). You can read the report on the Jays prospects here.

The Boise Hawks are an exciting team with numerous A-, B- and C-level prospects worth knowing. I’ll be writing about a few of these prospects in more depth when I roll out the FanGraphs Top 15 prospects lists in November but this post will give you a brief, first-person snapshot on some of the players.

Albert Almora, CF: Known for being a very good defensive player as an amateur, the lanky Almora showed easy skills in center field and made a nice over-the-shoulder catch. It was made all the more impressive considering the fact he had a nasty collision with the outfield wall in the previous game, was helped off the field and was not expected to play again. At the plate, Almora – the Cubs 2012 first round pick – showed an open stance. His bat was very flat, almost parallel to the ground when the pitcher was delivering the ball and I’d like to see the young hitter start his bat in a better position, allowing him to attack the ball.

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

1. SCOUT Leaderboards for All the Rookie-Level Leagues
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

SCOUT Leaderboards for All the Rookie-Level Leagues
Regarding What This Is, First of All
What follows are the SCOUT Leaderboards for all four of the domestic rookie-level minor leagues (the Appalachian, Arizona, Gulf Coast, and Pioneer ones) combined.

Regarding a “SCOUT Leaderboard,” What That Is
SCOUT is metric designed to assess performance in those instances — like in a minor league, for example — where small samples are ubiquitous. A high SCOUT+ is good for a hitter; a low SCOUT- is good for a pitcher.

More on SCOUT, How It’s Calculated
SCOUT uses regressed, defense-independent inputs to calculate FIP-like stats for both pitchers and hitters. Click here to learn more about it.

Regarding SCOUT, One of Its Benefits
A benefit of SCOUT is, because both SCOUT+ and SCOUT- are presented relative to league, it allows one to compare the relative performances of players across multiple leagues — like in what follows, for example.

Regarding These Numbers
All the following numbers are final for 2012.

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