Ben and Sam discuss the deeper significance, if any, of the Yankees getting swept.

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Max Scherzer hit a bump in the sixth inning, allowing a hit and a walk. Jim Leyland pulled him for Drew Smyly. It was about the only bad thing to happen to the Tigers all day.

Through the fifth inning, Scherzer was engaged in one of the most dominant starts in playoff history. He carried a no-hitter into the sixth, the only two runners coming via an error and a walk. He struck out nine of the first 18 hitters he faced.

It was dominance, and had the game not been firmly in hand by the sixth we may have seen more. There was no reason to force Scherzer to throw any mildly taxing pitch and risk even the slightest heading into the World Series, and so the fireballer was removed after just 5.2 innings. The Yankees mustered just two hits and one walk overall as Scherzer finished with 10 strikeouts.

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Some are certain Alex Rodriguez has played his last game as a Yankee. You’ll find no such certainty here. There’s all that money left on his contract, and though it’s a sunk cost, the 37-year-old can still provide non-zero value in the Bronx over the next five years. In other words, there’s no way it makes sense for the Yankees to swallow the entire remaining $119 million on his contract for him to play somewhere else.

But would it make sense for the team to eat some of the contract? It would, but only if the front office believes they can get Rodriguez-like production for less than they would save by jettisoning him. Then the non-on-the-field value of trading him away —- call it chemistry concerns, if you have to —- can tip the balance.

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

1. Contract Crowdsourcing: Shortstops
2. Three Notes Regarding the Other Alex Gonzalez
3. Today’s One Playoff Game

Contract Crowdsourcing: Shortstops
Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. FanGraphs is asking readers to estimate the years and average annual dollar values likely to be received by certain notable free agents. We continue today with shortstops. (Click here for more on the contract crowdsourcing project.)

Other positions: Catchers / First Basemen / Second Basemen / Third Basemen.

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When I walked into the Comerica Park press box this morning, the first person I encountered was longtime Detroit Free Press baseball scribe John Lowe. I asked him who the series MVP has been thus far. His response was, “How about Phil Coke?”

Lowe went on to note that Delmon Young had driven in the go-ahead run in all three contests [which he proceeded to do again in Game 4], but his initial suggestion is in accord with my opinion. The Detroit bullpen has been in disarray, and Coke stepped up to save the day. Following a Game 1 hold that preceded Jose Valverde’s implosion, he shut the door in the next two and was on the mound for the final six outs of Game 4. The slider he threw to Raul Ibanez on Tuesday night may be the most important pitch of the Tigers season.

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With their victory tonight, the St. Louis Cardinals are up 2-1 in the NLCS and in good position to defend their National League title from 2011. They are also, by far, the most farm-developed team in the hunt for the World Series. As John Sickels recently wrote, 64 percent of their roster was developed by their farm system, compared to 40 percent for the Giants and 32 percent each for the Tigers and Yankees. The Cardinals famously developed the first modern farm system, under Branch Rickey. They are still, clearly, ahead of the curve.
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It began when Alex Rodriguez was pinch-hit for by Raul Ibanez, with Ibanez instantly turning into a hero. Then Rodriguez was left out of the lineup. Then Rodriguez allegedly flirted with female fans in the middle of a game, then Rodriguez was left out of the lineup again. Then people started talking about Alex Rodriguez getting traded to the Marlins and Bob Nightengale went so far as to say:

This will be the last time you’ll ever see Alex Rodriguez in a New York Yankees uniform.

In a series in which the Yankees trail the Tigers three games to zero, somehow it’s still Rodriguez who’s the story, it’s Rodriguez who seems to be getting the lion’s share of the blame. It was a big deal when Rodriguez was benched for Wednesday’s Game 4 against Max Scherzer. After the game was rained out, it was again a big deal when Rodriguez was benched for Thursday’s Game 4 against Max Scherzer, as if anything had changed, or ought to have changed. It is, without question, an unusual thing to see a player like Alex Rodriguez on the bench.

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With two playoff games scheduled for today and considerable intrigue concerning the future of a certain well-compensated Yankees third baseman abounding on the internet, there’s obviously one thing on the minds of baseball fans everywhere — namely, the early offensive performances of certain, likely obscure, participants in this year’s winter leagues.

Here’s why I, personally, like winter-league leaderboards: because, in almost every case, they represent an opportunity to learn something. While the playoffs generate narratives consumed en masse by the sporting public, the winter leagues begin quietly in mostly distant and certainly Spanish-speaking lands. And while the postseason plays host to, and showcases, a number of the game’s legitimate superstars, the winter leagues in the Dominican and Mexico and Venezuela (and, soon, Puerto Rico) feature what I, at least, consider to be a charming combination of actual prospects, minor-league filler, and aged and aging journeymen.

What follows represents, then, not only a series of three batting leaderboards, but also an opportunity to become acquainted with some new names — names which, in some cases, the reader might see on the backs of a major-league uniform within the next couple years, and which, in other cases, will never bother the reader again.

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I have finally had enough time to muddle through the 2012 MLB transaction data and have compiled a complete disabled list (DL) data set for the year(second link). Let’s get right to the data.

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