The New York Yankees find themselves in the unenviable position of trailing the Detroit Tigers two games to zero in the ALCS, having given away home-field advantage. The Yankees do have the consolation of not yet having lost with ace CC Sabathia, who could still make two starts. But then, the Yankees have the anti-consolation of not yet having lost to Justin Verlander, who could still make two starts. It’s Verlander who’s taking the hill Tuesday night, as the Tigers look to take a truly commanding lead in the best-of-seven.

The Yankees have struggled to hit in the playoffs so far, and they’ve struggled to hit against a bunch of pitchers who aren’t the best starting pitcher in the world. I don’t need to tell you that Justin Verlander is a little excellent. On top of that, he’ll be pitching Tuesday night at home, against a struggling lineup, on a cool October evening that should only depress offense even further. Tigers fans couldn’t possibly be happier with the way things are set up. Yankees fans, therefore, couldn’t possibly be less happy.

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Episode 260
Prospect analyst Mike Newman discusses players he’s seen — including, in this case, catcher Hector Sanchez (Giants), first baseman D.J. Hicks (Twins), and shortstop/second baseman Nick Franklin (Mariners) — and the larger concerns each raises with regard to prospect analysis generally.

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 52 min. play time.)

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The playoff version of Matt Cain hasn’t much resembled the regular season Matt Cain.

For the fourth straight season, Cain browbeat opposing National League batters and is a very big reason why the San Francisco Giants are back in the playoffs. In fact, you could argue that 2012 was his very best performance of his eight year career.

Cain posted a career low ERA and WHIP at 2.79 and 1.04, respectively. His 22% strikeout rate was the highest of his career and his 5.8% walk rate the lowest of his career. Despite Cain continuing to be the poster boy for pitchers that confound FIP (highest NL FDP, in fact), it appeared that he had taken a measurable step forward in a number of critical areas and at least made a questionable off-season contract extension not look so bad.

But so far in the postseason, Cain has had underwhelming results. It might have a lot to do with his slider.

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Chris Carpenter did not have a good game on Monday. He only struck out one batter in four innings, and though he only allowed two earned runs in his four innings, he did surrender eight baserunners and five runs in the loss that evened the National League Championship Series. By the time it was done, the announcers had his fastball diving three-plus miles per hour off its normal pace, and the twittersphere was contemplating which delicious young prospect should come out of the St. Louis pen to start over Carpenter the next time he was due on the hill.

Maybe the eulogies came a little early?

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Last night, Matt Holliday slid into second base to break up a potential double play. It looked like this:

I’m not here to crucify Matt Holliday. By the letter of the law, the play was legal, and we see more egregious examples of take-out slides where the runner is actually nowhere near the base every year. Holliday went right through the bag, but because he began the slide so late, he created a pretty violent collision that eventually forced Scutaro from the game. For his part, he seems remorseful, noting after the game that he wishes he had slid sooner, and his actions don’t suggest an intent to injure. Holliday did what the rulebook allows in order to help his team avoid an out in playoff game. But that’s the problem.

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Seeing prospects in person is my passion. In 2012, I was fortunate enough to visit parks in five different leagues — collecting information and video on 200 legitimate prospects or more. The lists released over the next few weeks will highlight the best prospects I’ve seen in person at each position during the 2012 season. The rankings will be adjusted based on projected position at the major league level, not present position (in italics if ranking includes position shift). After writing the first three lists, I realized there’s really no way to keep statistical information out of the equation completely and focus on scouting/projection alone. This has caused me to hedge my bets a bit on high ceiling talents and focus more on the complete player. Additionally, understand this is not meant to be a complete list of the best prospects at each position across all of Minor League Baseball, but the best of what I’ve seen.

Previous Rankings:
The Catchers
The First Basemen
The Second Baseman

1. Mike Olt, Texas Rangers

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Ben and Sam discuss whether Matt Holliday’s takeout slide at second was against the rules and why the Cardinals are so widely disliked, then talk about how Ryan Vogelsong has rewarded the Giants for their faith during a string of bad starts.

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Prior to playing on the biggest stage in professional baseball almost all ball players must take the long bus rides, live off late-night fast food runs and toil in the near obscurity that can be minor league baseball. For some players on the 2012 playoff clubs those memories are a little fresher than for others. With work well under way on the 2012-13 Top 15 Prospects lists at FanGraphs – due to begin in early November – I thought it might be fun to look back and see what I wrote about those players during the previous three annual prospect reviews. Below are excerpts from what was originally written.

The Yankees organization seemingly hasn’t had as much focus on the draft and international market as it has in the past. The club was never one to heavily lean on its own development system – instead preferring to dabble in the free agent and trade markets – but it always seemed to stumble upon some key, home-grown talents such as Robinson Cano and Brett Gardner. That change in focus has resulted in a lack of impact, home-grown players over the past few seasons.

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

1. Contract Crowdsourcing: First Basemen
2. Photo: Carlos Lee Looking Handsome
3. Today’s One Playoff Game

Contract Crowdsourcing: First Basemen
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 first basemen. (Click here for more on the contract crowdsourcing project.)

Other positions: Catcher.

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