This is the Third World Baseball Classic, after the 2006 and 2009 Classics, both of which were won by Japan. In America, it’s a bit of a curiosity on the schedule, a distraction from spring training that’s fun for fans but nervewracking for teams whose stars are playing at max effort far earlier than they otherwise would be. In other countries, like Venezuela, it’s a serious matter of national pride, especially because since the elimination of Olympic baseball, the Classic is the only chance for a country to show its quality on an international stage.

In the eight-year history of the Classic, there have been 102 games played. Twenty-eight countries have competed: eighteen have played in the Classic proper, and another ten competed in the qualifying matches in September and November 2012. One hundred ninety-two players have accumulated enough plate appearances to qualify for the leaderboards. (The requirement is 2.7 plate appearances per game.) Carson Cistulli is doing yeoman’s work in covering the WBC. But I haven’t seen any all-time leaderboards. So here are some all-time leaderboards! Spoiler alert: Frederich Cepeda is the greatest player in the history of the tournament.
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Due to an unfortunate data error, the numbers in this story did not include park factors upon publication. We have updated the data to include the park factors, and the data you see below is now correct. We apologize for the mistake.

What’s all this, then? For an explanation of this series, please read the introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position.

Is it me, or are there fewer superstar first basemen than there used to be? I did these same rankings last year, and the answer seems to be yes. I’m not sure why that is, though. Part of it is that Detroit is playing one of them at third base now, but that was true last year as well. I would also guess it is simply the current place of positional demographics: A lot of first basemen who were at the top of the rankings a couple of years ago are still primary starters, but they are in their decline phases. Some of the same names are on the top of the rankings, but not all are on the level they used to be. There are some younger players on the list who might have some potential for big leaps, though, and this list could look very different next year. So which teams project to have the biggest advantage at first base right now?

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Prospect lists are one of the best parts of the off-season. Marc Hulet published his top 100 yesterday as the culmination of several months of work, and Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, Keith Law, John Sickels and a plethora of websites have published others. Each group puts myriad hours into analyzing, calling, writing, editing, re-analyzing and finally publishing their work. But even after all that, they usually come to several different conclusions. I decided — instead of focusing on a specific list — to generate a list that combined each of these lists into one.

The idea of community or consensus lists isn’t new. Sites have done it before, but I’ve added some wrinkles:

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

1. Informative Preamble to the Observations
2. Multiple Observations from an Arizona State Game
3. Barely Useful Video: New Mexico’s Josh Walker

Informative Preamble to the Observations
For the fourth consecutive March, a not insubstantial portion of Team FanGraphs descends upon Phoenix, Arizona, this weekend with a view towards (a) attending spring-training baseball games, (b) forging camaraderie nonpareil, and (c) tippling nonpareil.

The present author arrived in Phoenix yesterday (Wednesday) and immmediately set about doing the sorts of things an incompetent person typically does while traveling — i.e. wait impatiently beside the wrong baggage carousel for longer than is decent, misunderstand the procedure for utilizing his hotel’s shuttle service, and arrive at the rental car office a full day before the reservation actually begins.

Another thing the author did was to attend Wednesday’s Arizona State game against New Mexico with important SABR award-winner Jeff Zimmerman and frequently competent Jeff Sullivan.

What follows is a series of observations from the game in question.

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Carlos Gomez will be a Brewer for another four years, it looks like.

With 3 year $24 million extension thru 2016 #Brewers have committed 4 years and $28.3 million to Carlos Gomez over next 4 seasons.

— Tom (@Haudricourt) March 13, 2013

There aren’t many players that fit his contract situation perfectly — Gomez is being extended for three years with one year of arbitration left, and not at a superstar rate — but we can talk about him as a player and whether or not the Brewers will remember this deal fondly anyway.

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Due to an unfortunate data error, the numbers in this story did not include park factors upon publication. We have updated the data to include the park factors, and the data you see below is now correct. We apologize for the mistake.

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What’s all this, then? For an explanation of this series, please read the introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position.

With the intro out of the way, we have to start this series somewhere, and I can’t think of a compelling reason not to start with the catchers. So, we’re going to start with the catchers, and yes, since the rankings are based on imperfect projections and subjective depth chart determinations, there are quibbles to be had here if you’re the type who enjoys quibbling.

Especially because catchers occupy the position about which we probably know the least. Oh, we know a lot about how catchers run and hit, and we know something about how they throw, but we’re still in the beginning stages of understanding the importance of handling a pitching staff. There’s been some groundbreaking research in the study of pitch-framing, but those numbers aren’t included here. There’s a lot more than pitch-framing, too, which also isn’t included here. So while, below, you’ll find rankings based on what we can measure, I’ll take care to note when I think a ranking might be off for other reasons. With that all expressed, let’s start from the top.

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Last year, we decided to do season previews a little bit differently, and instead of running down each individual team, we previewed the league by position. We liked the format, so we’re doing it again this year. For those who didn’t see the series the first time around, let me borrow from last year’s introduction:

This is only looking at the upcoming season and doesn’t account for potential long term value – we’re just concerned with what each team may get from a given spot on the field this year…

The fun part of comparing teams at a given position is that we’re not limited to just looking at one player, but can compare the expected production of an everyday guy against a left/right platoon, or we can note what a team should expect from giving a stop-gap two months of playing time before they call up their top prospect in the early summer. Few teams get an entire season’s worth of playing time at a position from one guy, so by using depth charts to create an expected playing time matrix, we can give a more thorough evaluation of what kind of strength an organization has at a given spot.

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Ben and Sam discuss the Brewers’ Carlos Gomez extension and the increasing scarcity of impact free agents.

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At the MIT Sloan Analytics Conference, Dan Rosenheck offered a presentation on the effects of infield fly rate and in-zone contact rate on predicting BABIP. He has generously let us republish his talk here. The full text of his presentation is published below. You can find more of Dan’s work at The Economist and The New York Times, or check out his previous project on Wins Above Replacement.

Long before baseball’s statistical revolution entered the mainstream, Hollywood writers showed an impressive grasp of one of the game’s most confounding nuances. In the 1988 movie “Bull Durham,” Kevin Costner plays Crash Davis, a career minor league catcher tasked with tutoring the pitching prospect Nuke LaLoosh. Explaining the cruel randomness that determines the fates of so many aspiring major leaguers, Crash gives Nuke a brief math lesson at a bar.

Crash’s speech actually contradicted much of conventional wisdom about baseball at the time. Ever since the Hall of Famer Wee Willie Keeler explained the secret to his success as “hit ‘em where they ain’t,” fans and sportswriters have generally given hitters credit for expertly placing their seeing-eye grounders and Texas Leaguers into the gaps between opposing fielders. Similarly, they have praised pitchers who seem to induce opposing hitters into serving up a steady stream of routine plays for the defense. At one point, even Crash himself preaches the value of pitching to contact. “Don’t try to strike everybody out,” he advises Nuke. “Strikeouts are boring. Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls. It’s more democratic.”

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