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The Marlins and the Twins are playing a doubleheader on Tuesday. In the first inning of the first game, Giancarlo Stanton faced Kevin Correia with a man on, and Correia threw a first-pitch fastball at 89 miles per hour down the heart. Stanton swung and grounded into a double play, and one of the Marlins’ broadcasters remarked that it was probably Stanton’s best swing in a week, since returning from injury. Stanton finished the first game 0-for-3, dropping his average to .176. He has the worst average in the Marlins’ lineup, and the Marlins’ lineup sucks.

Let’s now go back a few months. Several months, I guess, depending on where you draw the line between “few” and “several”. After the Marlins swung the big trade with the Blue Jays, Stanton tweeted that he was pissed off. Now, I’ve been pissed off at lots of things I love and am loyal to to this day. I do, after all, still watch the Mariners. But that was a tweet of particular interest, because it helped to fan the trade-rumor flames. Already, the Marlins were probably eventually going to have to trade Stanton. Then the Marlins made Stanton upset, and who wants a surly ballplayer?

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When we, as fans, use anecdotal evidence in our quest for baseball truths, we often over-emphasize iconic moments. Our sample degrades into big moments we can remember. So we turn to data to give us an unbiased look at the facts. But when a hitter evaluates himself and his swing, he usually turns to his memory for help. And though that evidence is anecdotal as well, the sample is huge — that hitter spends most of his time thinking about hitting, and all of his time being himself.

So it’s no surprise that Chase Headley knows best why Chase Headley showed more power in 2012. And that the slugger has had a complicated history when it comes to using data.

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Back in November, Jack Moore wrote about the return of the stolen base as a valuable offensive weapon. As offensive levels have decreased in MLB over the last few years, the value of taking an additional base has gone up, and the cost associated with giving up an out has gone down, so we’ve seen teams running more often now than they did back when runs were plentiful.

It’s a perfectly logical construct. As hitting is more frequent, running becomes less necessary. When hitting suffers, teams try to find runs other ways to score, and one of the primary ways a team can create additional runs is through efficient base stealing. Base stealing is essentially a substitute good for power, and so SB rates follow a fairly predictable pattern of rising and falling depending on the offensive environment.

Except, that predictable pattern has gone off the rails so far in 2013.

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Earlier this month I wrote about whether we should be concerned with when we see pitchers throwing slower in April, particularly with regards to CC Sabathia.

If we are trying to predict whether the pitcher has truly lost some zip on their fastball, the answer is somewhat. Pitchers who are down at least 1 mph compared to April of the previous year will go on to finish the season down at least 1 mph about 38% of the time. Essentially, they are over four times as likely to be truly losing velocity compared to those that are not down in April. However, the signal gains in strength as the season goes on. So, if a pitcher is down at least 1 mph in July compared to July of the previous year their likelihood of being down at season’s end jumps to 14 times more than pitchers that are not down in July.

But does being down in April predict an injury? This is something I had not yet investigated. Given the increased discussion about April velocity declines I thought I should take a quick look.

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

1. Three Notable California League Peformances
2. SCOUT Leaderboards: High-A California League
3. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
4. Today’s Game Odds, Translated into Winning Percentages

Three Notable California League Peformances
The leaderboards for the High-A California League are below. Here are brief notes on three players from those leaderboards — like who they are mostly, for example.

• “But that was in the California League” is a reasonable comment to append to any statement one might make with regard to a particularly promising line from a hitting prospect. It’s a comment one might reasonably append, as well, to the observation that Oakland first-base prospect Max Muncy’s has eight home runs in his first 85 plate appearances this season — especially in light of how Muncy hit only four of them in 274 plate appearances last season in the Midwest League. One might say all of this with one caveat: Muncy’s raw numbers are excellent so far, but so are his numbers/rates relative to league average. He’s both hitting home runs and controlling the strike zone better than his peers in the California League.

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When Major League Baseball renewed its partnership with StubHub last winter, the Yankees and Angels opted out. Instead, each of those teams created its own ticket resale marketplace in partnership with TicketMaster. Like many teams, the Yankees and Angels were unhappy about the MLB/StubHub arrangement, which often results in tickets selling on StubHub for prices well below face value. Those secondary-market sales then undercut a team’s ability to sell additional tickets at face value. The Yankees asked MLB to negotiate a price floor in the new MLB/StubHub contract. When that didn’t happen, the Yankees and Angels went their own way with the TicketMaster Ticket Exchange.

What has that meant for fans holding Yankees and Angels tickets?

If you purchase Yankees tickets and you want to sell your tickets and transfer them electronically, you must do so using the team’s Ticket Exchange. StubHub isn’t authorized by the Yankees to allow the print-at-home option for ticket buyers.

If you purchase Angels tickets and want to to sell your tickets and transfer them in any manner, you must do so using the team’s Ticket Exchange. According to the Angels, the team can void any ticket “should any person sell or offer this ticket for resale,” and resale in any forum other than on the team-authorized Ticketmaster site “is prohibited.”

Note: As several readers have noted, it appears you can download and print tickets from StubHub for Yankees and Angels games within 48 hours of the game’s start time. Beyond 48 hours, StubHub lists UPS as the only delivery option.

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Ben and Sam discuss the velocity losses of some of baseball’s best starters, then talk about whether players should have prophylactic appendectomies.

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Bryan Price doesn’t have the blueprint for keeping pitchers healthy and maximizing their talent. The Cincinnati Reds pitching coach admits as much. What he has is a recent track record that suggests he’s good at both.

Reds pitchers led the National League in ERA last year and ranked second in strikeouts-to-walk ratio. They also avoided the disabled list, with five pitchers combining to make all but one start. This year’s staff is also performing at a high level, with Johnny Cueto’s triceps injury being the only notable chink in the armor.

Price joined the Reds prior to the 2010 season following stints with the Mariners [2001-2006] and Diamondbacks [2007-2009]. He talked about his approach prior to the conclusion of spring training.

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Price on his pitching philosophy: “As far as philosophy, you have to understand that one size doesn’t fit all. I don’t think I approach things a great deal differently than most. We’re all trying to get our guys to pitch ahead in the count, command the fastball, be attentive and involved in their preparation, and to command a presence out on the field. We want them to maintain focus and composure in difficult times.

“When you look at our success last year, we had one of the lowest walks-per-nine-innings in baseball. We had one of the highest percentage of first-batter efficiency — getting the first batter of an inning out. Those are things we encourage, but having a philosophy doesn’t mean you’re going to execute something. What it comes down to is having good athletes who are good competitors.”

On changing a pitcher’s arm angle: “Inefficiency is inefficiency. If you’ve got a big-league guy, and he can help a good team win games, I’m going to leave him alone. If you’ve got a guy in your system who has potential and isn’t reaching it, then I think you have to do certain things to extract that talent. It can be a defining moment.

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