The St. Louis Cardinals won Game Three of their NLD Series against the Washington Nationals on Wednesday, taking a 2-1 lead in said series in the process. Besides Chris Carpenter, who pitched 5.2 scoreless (if not always dominant) innings, the player most directly responsible for the Cardinal victory — by Win Probability Added, I mean — was shortstop Pete Kozma, whose second-inning three-run homer (at .128 WPA) was the game’s single most decisive play and whose 0.11 WPA for the game was tops among Cardinal hitters.

Here’s how you, the reader — provided you’re not a Nationals fan, at least — feel about Pete Kozma, probably: you like him. Here’s why you like him, maybe: because he’s just a little guy. Or here’s why else, maybe: because he was in the minors until the end of August and is now the starting shortstop for a playoff team. Or here’s a third reason, perhaps: because he’s produced better offensively over the last month-plus in the majors than he did at any time, basically, during his previous five months in the very offensive Triple-A Pacific Coast League.

One other possible reason you like Pete Kozma is because you’re his mother — in which case, that’s really great how curious you are about advanced baseball analysis, Mrs. Kozma. Welcome.

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From Yu Darvish’s first start in the major leagues — before, for those who followed his international career — it was clear the 26-year-old phenom had the pure stuff necessary to handle major league hitters, even to thrive against them. The arsenal: a mid-to-high 90s fastball and five other pitches ranging anywhere from cutter to slider to lollipop curve, all with sharp break and solid control.

Darvish had his flashes of brilliance through the first four months of the season, as all with his talent inevitably do, but the results were disappointing: a 4.05 ERA through July with a slightly better FIP. Two issues plagued Darvish: walks, and an inability to retire left-handed hitters. Even as he struggled with his control, righties managed just a .648 OPS off Darvish in his first four months. Lefties — buoyed by 23 extra base hits compared to just 12 for righties — mustered a .721 OPS. With managers playing platoons constantly, Darvish actually faced significantly more left-handers (321) than right-handers (217). This was Darvish’s major trial.

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On September 18th, Max Scherzer was removed from his start after two innings because of shoulder woes. There might not be a more troubling word in the world of pitching than ‘shoulder.’ Once it goes, with it goes your velocity, which is much worse than the risk of temporary loss of playing time and control that the elbow offers. We had so much success predicting a low-scoring game for Anibal Sanchez yesterday, let’s wash off the template and start again. Did something happen in mid-September that fundamentally changed Scherzer’s game?

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Evaluating a pitcher is simpler than evaluating a hitter.  It isn’t easier, due to pitcher attrition, but pitchers show you everything they have to offer—stuff, location, delivery, athleticism, etc.—pitch after pitch and are dictating the action.  Watching a hitter is more complicated since you’re evaluating their ability to react to what the pitcher is doing, along with the physical tools, ability to use them, approach at the plate, etc.  Hitters can go a couple at bats without swinging and full games without having to show their ability in one of these key areas.

The hit tool is the hardest tool to predict and also is the most important.  Imagine the job of a pro scout grading the hit tool for every player on a team from a five game look.  You’ll have notes from batting practice and every at bat of each player, but the information is asymmetrical.  You don’t know how he responds to a fastball on his hands until one is thrown and maybe he never gets one or he doesn’t swing at it.  You pay close attention to his plate discipline but maybe he doesn’t see any borderline pitches for a game or two.  This is multiplied for every player on the team, some of whom play irregularly, so your notes can have some holes. Evaluating a hitter is difficult because it’s a passive act graded off of a short look but also because it’s very complicated by nature with countless components.

While my method for grading hitters isn’t a revelation, it’s helped me organize my thoughts about hitters while taking notes mid-game and while writing the final evaluations.  I separate the hit tool into three components –tools, plate discipline and bat control—and classify any observation into one of the three groups, then use the grades of each of these components to get to the hit tool grade.  If I don’t take this methodical, checklist-type approach, I end up looking at a mess of notes, outcomes, stats and background info and gut-feeling my way to a hit tool grade.

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So far, the San Francisco Giants and the Cincinnati Reds have played three games in their Division Series, with the Reds winning two of them. In one game, the Giants’ offense finished with seven hits and six walks in nine innings. In another game, the Giants’ offense finished with two hits and three walks in nine innings. In the last game, the Giants’ offense finished with three hits, a walk, and a hit batter in ten innings. From that information, spot the Giants’ lone victory.

It was the last one, by the way. In Tuesday’s must-win Game 3, the Giants racked up all of three singles in an extra-innings contest, but good pitching and a timely or untimely error by Scott Rolen allowed the Giants’ postseason dreams to stay alive. They might not survive through Wednesday, but given Tuesday’s offense, it’s a minor miracle they’ve gotten this far.

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

1. Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Indepedent Atlantic League
2. Video: Atlantic League Excellent Pitcher Matthew Way
3. Today’s Playoff Games

Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Indepedent Atlantic League
Regarding What Happened Recently
What happened recently is the independent Atlantic League’s 2012 season ended, with Long Island defeating Lancaster on Sunday in the fifth game of a five-game championship series (box).

Regarding What Else Happened Recently
What happened even more recently is, is the author prepared hitting and pitching SCOUT leaderboards for the now completed and very independent Atlantic League.

Regarding What Is SCOUT
SCOUT is a metric calculated using regressed defense-indepedent numbers (walks, strikeouts, and — for hitters — home runs). The offensive version is SCOUT+, where 100 is league average and above 100 is above average. Its pitching counterpart is SCOUT-, where 100 is league average and below 100 represents above-average run prevention. (Read more here, if you’re even interested.)

Regarding SCOUT, One of Its Benefits
A benefit of SCOUT is it allows one to compare the relative performances of players with markedly different sample sizes and/or batted-ball luck.

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When Dave Cameron recently wrote about Yadier Molina’s MVP-quality season, he included a chart that listed the best catcher seasons in baseball history. It was based on wRC+ and the name on the top of the list probably came as a surprise to many. It was Joe Torre.

The legendary manager, and current MLB executive, was an outstanding player from 1960 to 1977. Spending the bulk of his career with the Braves and Cardinals, he hit .297/.365/.452, with 252 home runs and was a perennial All-Star. He won a batting title, an MVP award and a Gold Glove. None of them came in the season he posted the record wRC+.

Torre was at Comerica Park for last weekend’s Tigers-A’s series. Prior to Game One, he took a few minutes to talk about Molina and his own days behind the dish.

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Joe Torre: “I’m a little biased, but catchers get overlooked a lot. I know, from having been a manager, how much we rely on a catcher. There is so much more responsibility associated with what he does. When I played, if I went hitless in a game that I caught, and we won, I felt that I was useful. I also played a lot of first base. [In St. Louis] we had Tim McCarver and Ted Simmons, so they played me there to keep me in the lineup.

“I felt that I was a solid catcher. I had good hands; I could catch the ball and get rid of it. Del Crandall taught me how to get rid of it quickly. I didn’t have a Johnny Bench arm. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam bring on Jason Wojciechowski to discuss whether the 2-3 playoff format is the abomination he makes it out to be, then talk about how the A’s Game Three victory changes (or doesn’t change) their odds of beating the Tigers.

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All the way back in May, I came up with a pretty simple way to calculate “expected strikes” based on data available at FanGraphs. I don’t know if I was the first person to do this, and it’s so simple I’d be surprised if I were, but I remember me so I’m linking to me. Once you have expected strikes, you can compare that total to actual strikes, and maybe then you can learn something about the pitcher(s) or the catcher(s) or about something else. I”ll explain further!

FanGraphs provides for you total pitches, total strikes, and plate-discipline data based on PITCHf/x data. By using zone rate, you can come up with pitches in the zone, which leads to knowing pitches out of the zone, which leads to knowing swings at pitches out of the zone. Based on those numbers, you can end up with an expected strikes total. You’re way ahead of me — I probably don’t need to explain this in great detail.

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