Episode 324
Dayn Perry is a contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball, the author of two books (one of them serviceable), and is the guest on this haphazardly organized and ultimately disappointing edition of FanGraphs Audio.

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 1 min play time.)

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Evan Gattis is the Braves’ cleanup hitter, and he has three homers in 25 plate appearances on the young season. He’s also a 26-year old rookie catcher who is relatively inexperienced behind the dish because he took four years off from baseball (a bit like Tom Wilhelmsen, who walked away for even longer).

Old rookies always raise eyebrows, though some have gone on to have fine careers, from Hall of Famer Earl Averill to Brian Daubach. But what about catchers?
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At two different points in yesterday’s Tigers-Blue Jays game in Detroit, it appeared the game could hinge on, of all things, Prince Fielder’s speed. The Tigers scored a run in the bottom of the first after Fielder beat out what looked like a sure double play ball. Later, with a two-run lead in the sixth, Fielder legged out an infield single to give the Tigers two on with two outs and a chance to blow the game open.

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Probably my favorite Petco Park story is everybody’s favorite Petco Park story. Some time ago, when the Padres had Phil Nevin and Phil Nevin was good, and Petco was still pretty new, Nevin drove a ball deep to right field that wound up going for a double instead of a home run. Nevin subsequently slammed down his helmet and pointed at where he figured Kevin Towers was, as if to suggest the park was ridiculous. Indeed, it was ridiculous, for dinger-hitting. My favorite Safeco Field story is Felix Hernandez’s perfect game but that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Basically, as everybody came to know, Petco and Safeco were extreme ballparks. They had areas to which it wasn’t that hard to hit a home run, but by and large, taken overall, home runs were difficult. Too difficult, it was determined.

So this past offseason, Petco and Safeco both brought in the fences. Not everywhere, but in the difficult bits. Here, you can read about the Safeco adjustments, if you’re in the dark. Here, you can read about the Petco adjustments, if the same. Interestingly, the Padres had already moved in the fences at Petco once before, but that was years ago and they didn’t actually change that much. This most recent renovation was far greater in scope, and in intended consequences.

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In yesterday’s post on the early home run trend of 2013, I noted that strikeout rate was up again, as it has been for a while. At this point, the continuing rise of strikeout rate isn’t a new story, and I think most of you are probably aware of the fact that Major League Baseball is essentially setting a new record high for league average K% each season.

One of the main theories that is espoused for why strikeout rate is ever increasing is the simultaneous increase in pitcher velocity. It used to be that Randy Johnson was a freak because he could touch 100 mph with his fastball, but now it seems like every team in baseball has a guy who can hit that mark. While we don’t have historical velocity data, we do have PITCHf/x velocity data since 2007, and BIS velocity data going back to 2002. While there are some differences due to the classifications of pitch types, both support the idea of rising velocity.

The BIS data has the average fastball going from 89.9 in 2002 to a peak of 91.6 last year, a nearly 2 mph rise in the average fastball speed over the last 11 years. We know that velocity and strikeout rate are highly correlated, so a league wide rise in the speed of pitches would explain why strikeout rate keeps going up and up.

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Ah, minor league baseball.  Another season began last week and thousands continued their journeys towards a potential major league career. Today, we discuss the debuts of several high profile National League pitching prospects and then unlikely story of Tommy John survivor attempting to overcome a three year layoff. Of course, .gifs are included for you viewing pleasure. Read the rest of this entry »

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

1. SCOUT Leaderboards for the Pacific Coast League
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Barely Necessary Footage: A.J. Griffin’s Changeup, As Reference
4. Today’s Game Odds, Translated into Winning Percentages

SCOUT Leaderboards for the Pacific Coast League
Considered earlier: International League (April 10).

On Monday, in the Notes, we considered the earliest statistical returns from the majors, according to SCOUT. What follows is a very similar thing to that, except for the Triple-A Pacific Coast League.

“What actually is SCOUT?” a reasonable person might ask — to which question the author has provided a (hopefully) reasonable answer here. In brief, however, it’s this: an attempt to use our knowledge of certain metrics, and at what sample sizes they become reliable, to measure run production/prevention in instances where small samples are all that’s available.

Below are those same leaderboards, as I say, for the Triple-A Pacific Coast League.

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Ben and Sam discuss the situation surrounding Barry Zito’s contract for 2014, and the Royals’ hot, small-sample start.

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The other day, Marty Foster got himself in the headlines when he made a controversial call to end a close game between the Rays and the Rangers. “Controversial” is a more charitable way of saying “bad”. On that night, Foster’s judgment helped the Rangers win. On Wednesday afternoon, Foster’s judgment helped the Rays win instead, but this hasn’t generated nearly the headlines, because it’s hardly controversial. Allow me to briefly set the scene, with Foster umpiring at second base.

The Rays were leading the Rangers 2-0 in the bottom of the sixth, but the Rangers had the bases loaded with only one out. Mitch Moreland subsequently grounded to Kelly Johnson, and Johnson threw to Yunel Escobar at second in an effort to start a double play. Escobar double-pumped while throwing to first, though, and Moreland beat the throw, allowing a run to score. Yet the run was immediately erased and a double play was awarded. The Rangers wound up losing by that same 2-0 score. Foster awarded the double play, and Foster was not wrong to do so.

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