On Friday, ESPN.com’s lead baseball story was title “Let’s Corral the WAR Horse,” and the image used in the rotation feature box was simply a white sign with the words “NO WAR” attached to a stick, presumably a stock image of a sign from an anti-violence protest. In the piece, Jim Caple — a writer I like, have spent a little bit of time with, and who is a pretty good advocate for logical thinking, by the way — explained why he’s a little frustrated with what he perceives as an over reliance on WAR as the stat’s popularity grows.

Quoting Caple:

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the New York Yankees. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cardinals / Cubs / Diamondbacks / Dodgers / Giants / Mariners / Marlins / Mets / Nationals / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Rays / Reds / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / White Sox.

Batters
It’s probably not entirely correct to say that Robinson Cano is twice as good as any of his field-playing teammates. What does appear to be the case, however, is that — owing to a combination of offensive production, positional adjustment, and durability — Robinson Cano is likely to be twice as valuable in 2013 as any of those same teammates.

Elsewhere, there are a lot of rather low plate-appearance projections among the Yankees batting corps. Brett Gardner, Travis Hafner, Alex Rodriguez, and Kevin Youkilis: none is forecast to make even as many as 500 plate appearances. Of course, A-Rod’s mean projection by that account is already appearing to be rather an optimistic one: according to general manager Brian Cashman, the nominal starting third baseman is expected back from hip surgery in July, but could potentially miss the entire season.

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Ben and Sam preview the Tigers’ season with Paul Sporer, and Pete talks to MLB.com Tigers beat writer Jason Beck (at 17:49).

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Episode 301
Dayn Perry, contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and author of two books (one of them serviceable), aids in producing — if not what’s known as Radio Gold — then at least Radio Manganese.

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 1 hr 0 min play time.)

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You’re familiar with the story of Adam Greenberg, even if you’d completely forgotten about it until just now. Greenberg made his major-league debut in 2005, and he was hit in the head by the very first pitch that he saw. Greenberg sustained a concussion, and until 2012, that represented the entirety of his big-league career. Eventually, there was a petition to get Greenberg another major-league at bat. The Marlins signed Greenberg to a contract toward the end of 2012, because if there’s one baseball organization that badly wants people to like it, it’s the Miami Marlins. The friendly, lovable, PR-conscious Miami Marlins.

With the Marlins, Greenberg doubled his career playing time. On the one hand, it was a great gesture on the Marlins’ part, as they signed Greenberg and allowed him to pinch-hit in a home game on October 2. On the other hand, it was an awful gesture on the Marlins’ part, as they forced a cold and unprepared Greenberg to pinch-hit against the eventual NL Cy Young winner before thousands upon thousands of viewers in person and on TV. In his second big-league plate appearance, Adam Greenberg faced one of baseball’s best-ever knuckleballs. The results were predictable.

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Every year, around this time, players advertise themselves as being in the best shape of their lives, either because their offseason conditioning regimens improved, or because previously they were lazy. I think the players are almost always being sincere — they probably, genuinely, feel great — but as fans, we identify this as a cliche, and we generally dismiss it. For one thing, we hear this claim entirely too often. For another, it’s never been demonstrated that there’s a relationship between best shape and on-field success. Or, if you prefer, on-field improvement. It’s been studied, albeit not exhaustively so.

There’s something particular I want to examine, though, and it has to do with Jhonny Peralta. This is an article about Peralta from Friday morning. Within:

Fewer pounds would be preferable, they told him, as he headed home for the winter. He got the message and lost 18.

“It’s good,” Peralta said. “I’ve never been at this weight since I’ve been with Detroit. I finished last season at 236. I’m at 218 now.”

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When MLB.com released its top-100 prospect list, I was excited to see shortstop Luis Sardinas included at number 84. As my eyes scrolled from left-to-right across the page, a second Hickory Crawdads player ranked 88th. His name? Jorge Alfaro. The 19-year old ranked fifth on my list of best catchers scouted in 2012 behind a quartet of current and former top-100 players.

Video after the jump

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As of this writing, it sounds like Travis Hafner is going to sign a contract with the Yankees, after (surprise!) Cleveland turned down his $13 million club option for 2013. Pronk Bars are a distant memory, but Hafner still has his uses. For all of criticism he has received because of his play (or lack thereof) relative to his contract in Cleveland, Hafner has actually been a pretty good hitter the last few years. Over the last three seasons, he has had a higher wRC+ than the departed Raul Ibanez. When healthy (a big question), Hafner projects to be a better hitter than Ibanez. With Alex Rodriguez out for who knows how long, Kevin Youkilis will be needed at third, so signing a full-time designated hitter to a low-risk deal is something the Yankees needed to do. One might question the Yankees’ off-season strategy as a whole, but at this point, Hafner makes sense. But what are the Yankees getting with Hafner at this point?

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Instructs is a great place to find prospects you weren’t able to see during the season whether they were injured, hidden on backfields, or recent draftees. Rays righty reliever Nick Sawyer fits into the last two buckets as the 1232nd pick out of 1238 picks in the draft and a late-rising arm that signed for only $50,000 out of a Texas junior college.

Sawyer is only 5’11, 175 and during draft season, the rap on him was a smallish righty with some arm speed and command issues. While his command isn’t great, it’s fine and his delivery is cleaner than I anticipated. Sawyer sat at 93-96 mph for a few innings with his four-seamer, often spotting it up in the zone but with enough juice that hitters had trouble doing anything with the pitch.

Sawyer’s curveball was 79-83 mph and was very effective, buckling the knees of Bill Hall twice. The break would vary from three-quarters to more of a downer pitch with slight tilt but have very tight rotation and bite, flashing plus potential when it’s right. The thing to follow with Sawyer is his changeup, as the 86-87 mph was bad the first few times he threw it, improving throughout his outing. Eventually, he flashed a couple average pitches with some sink, fade and solid arm speed.

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A Major League team is seeking a full-time intern for the 2013 season with a focus on analytics. The position is a paid internship and runs from the middle of February through the end of November.  It requires relocation and candidates must be prepared to work long hours as well as nights and weekends.

The internship will provide exposure to all departments within baseball operations. Responsibilities include overseeing updates to our baseball databases, monitoring the import of data feeds, assisting with general baseball ops related administrative tasks, maintaining databases and spreadsheets, staying current on external research, as well as supporting the department in other ways as directed.

Candidates must be passionate about baseball and be able to communicate effectively in an office environment.  A familiarity with current baseball research and analytics is required and experience with Microsoft SQL Server is preferred.  Demonstrated analytic skills, experience in statistical analysis software packages and knowledge of a scripting language are all pluses.

If you are interested, please forward your resume and cover letter to baseballintern2013@gmail.com.