If you are similar to me, then you spend more than a trivial amount of time on the teams leaderboard page. I find myself sorting the wRC+ column for my daily Ottoneu, The Game, and game preview needs. But, like a suspicious man at a bus stop, BABIP lurks just a few columns away. It haunts my well-crafted insults hurtled brazenly towards the Miami Marlins from the comfortable solitude of my home office.

I have spent the past year or two studying BABIP, in part because it has shown the power to unlock a fielding independent hitting metric I so cleverly and regrettably titled ShH or Should Hit. But other than confusing friends during spoken conversation, Should Hit can also regress offensive production based on four simple factors: walks, strikeouts, home runs, and BABIP.

We have previously employed ShH and its stepchild, the De-Lucker X (DLX), to regress players according to their previous performances. But now, let us throw whole teams into the De-Lucker vat. It will be great opportunity to kick the already over-kicked Marlins — as well as offer uncommon accolades for the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres lineups.
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Last week, Mike Trout hit for the cycle. When asked for a comment, coach Mike Scioscia said, “If I’m a betting man, I’ve got to believe there’s another cycle in his career somewhere.” That got me wondering.

Whenever I was in a math class where probability was being discussed, the question often in the back of my mind was, “How can this be applied to baseball?” One of the things I love the most about baseball is how well it lends itself to situations of probability, compared to most sports. I’m not sure what that says about me. Anyway, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to refresh my memory (and hopefully some of yours) on how to crunch the numbers on situations like this. Don’t worry — the principles work on useful things other than just calculating the odds of that gimmicky achievement we call the cycle. Read the rest of this entry »

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

1. Featured Game: Baltimore at Washington, 19:05pm ET
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Baltimore at Washington, 19:05pm ET
Regarding the Purpose of These Notes
This edition of the Daily Notes, broadly speaking, is designed to amuse and/or inform the FanGraphs readership, which readership is generally composed of individuals concerned with thoughtful baseball analysis.

Regarding Another Purpose of These Notes
This edition of the Daily Notes, more particularly, is intended to alert the readership to a mostly compelling debut scheduled to occur Tuesday night in Washington, D.C. — namely, the debut of Nationals right-handed pitching prospect Nate Karns.

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Mark Reynolds knows who he is. The Cleveland Indians corner infielder is a slugger in the three-true-outcomes mode. His walk rate is maybe a little short of a purist’s TTO, but the long balls and strikeouts are certainly there. Reynolds has left the yard 193 times in 3,140 at bats; in three seasons, he has gone down by way of the K over 200 times.

The 29-year-old former Oriole and Diamondback is working to lower his strikeout rate and improve his RBI numbers. He’s making strides in both areas, and is doing so without a loss of power. So far this season he has 12 home runs and a .515 SLG.

Reynolds talked about his evolution as a hitter — and what it feels like to hit a baseball more than 400 feet — when the Indians visited Fenway Park this past weekend.

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Ben and Sam discuss the Phillies, Blue Jays, and being a buyer or seller in the multi-Wild Card era, then talk about the significance of Jose Canseco’s internet notoriety.

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

1. A Brief Introduction to This Edition of the Notes
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Brief Introduction to This Edition of the Notes
Owing to the fact that there are games today, so is there an edition of the Notes. Owing to how it is also a holiday, however, this edition of the Notes is decidedly truncated so that the author might dedicate the largest part of his day to Unbridled Leisure.

Please find below both (a) a brief preview of today’s MLB.TV Free Game and, after that, (b) all of today’s games rated according to NERD, this site’s very proprietary watchability metric.

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

1. Featured Game: Cleveland at Boston, 13:35pm ET
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Cleveland at Boston, 13:35pm ET
Regarding This Game, Who’s Starting It for Cleveland
Starting this game for Cleveland, in terms of a pitcher, is right-hander Corey Kluber.

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

1. Actual Ways in Which Tom Koehler Was the Best
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Actual Ways in Which Tom Koehler Was the Best
Introduction
Miami right-hander Tom Koehler made his second consecutive impressive start on Friday, recording a 2.79 xFIP over six innings of work versus the Chicago White Sox (box). Koehler was not Friday’s best starter in terms of overall run prevention; however, he was Friday’s best in no fewer than three other ways.

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Episode 341
Pittsburgh left-hander Jeff Locke has been worth about 1.3 wins by WAR calculated with runs allowed (as opposed to FIP) — a figure that places him between the very effective Jake Peavy and also very effective Max Scherzer by that measure. Curiously, he’s been more effective by throwing fewer strikes. Locke comments on that, and other matters, in this edition of FanGraphs Audio, live on tape from the visitor’s clubhouse at Miller Park in Milwaukee, WI.

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 12 min play time.)

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Hello there, people who wish their best qualities were more widely appreciated, and welcome to the second part of the seventh edition of The Worst Of The Best. Here is a link to the second part of the sixth edition, from last Friday. You should click on that link for purposes of brushing up. Once it’s open, you should click on all of those links. Every last one of them. You should click on all of my bold text, just to see if it’s a link. Maybe I inserted some jokes in there! Only one way to find out! Probably, there are multiple ways to find out, but this is the easiest. Just get clicking. Click click click. Click on FanGraphs links. You could learn, or something.

So where earlier we looked at wild pitches, like usual, here we’ll look at wild swings, like usual. Specifically, swings at pitches far away from the center of the strike zone, from between May 17 and May 23. Excluded are checked swings, which is always frustrating, because a lot of the crazy swings I see in the data end up being checked. Also excluded are hit-and-run swings, but so far those have just been excluded in theory, since I have yet to encounter one. It’s all based on PITCHf/x, there are .gifs and things to follow, and I hope you have an appetite for misjudged secondary stuff. We move on to the top-five list, and also, we have two bonus .gifs! Free bonus .gifs! It’s your lucky day!

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