The Pirates are (probably) going to the playoffs for the first time since 1992. According to the various versions of playoff odds now available at FanGraphs, Pittsburgh currently has at least a 95 percent change of making the playoffs. Their chances of winning the National League Central are much lower, so that throws them into the single-game playoff mix, but getting in is getting in.

The team is not resting on their laurels, though. Having already acquired Marlon Byrd and John Buck from the Mets, the Pirates are now rumored to be trying to get Justin Morneau from the Twins. The Pirates have mostly utilized a first base platoon with Garrett Jones and Gaby Sanchez and are still positioned to reach the postseason. So, how much of an improvement would the ghost of Morneau provide?

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This morning, David Appelman announced our new Playoff Odds section on FanGraphs, which provides forecasts for the rest of the season and turns those into the chances of each team advancing to each level of the postseason, whether it be capturing the wild card, advancing to the division series, or winning each round of the playoffs. It’s a pretty nifty tool, and there’s a lot to be gleaned from the data, so I wanted to use a few examples from the current playoff odds page to illustrate some of the features now included on the site.

The Importance of Remaining Schedules

Since we rolled out our new Standings page earlier this year, we’ve had expected rest-of-season winning percentage for each team all season long, which is a nice way to look at the relative strength of each team. And since we had a rest-of-season forecast and we already knew what teams had done in the past, it wasn’t that difficult to combine them into an updated final win total. However, there was a piece missing; the actual schedules each team would play over the rest of the year.

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

1. The League’s Most Valuable Pitches So Far
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

The Best Pitches in the Majors So Far This Season
Introduction
It’s a fact as old as the sands of the deserts — or at least as old as the expensive laptops which utilize semiconductors fashioned from the silicon extracted from those sands — that, within the electronic pages of FanGraphs, one can find the run values relative to league average for every pitcher’s respective pitch types. The point is self-evident.

The bright idea which has stopped the reader in his tracks this morning, however — not unlike Paul on the Damascus Road, really — is to combine all the respective pitch-type run values into a single leaderboard, such that the public might better discern which pitches have been most valuable this season.

This step having been taken by the author during his breakfast, the reader is invited to find the results of same reproduced in the table below.

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I’m pleased to announce that earlier this year, coolstandings.com joined the FanGraphs family and we’ve now integrated their playoff odds into FanGraphs, with some additional features available here on our site as well.

I’ve always been an admirer of the work Greg Agami and Sean Walsh did at coolstandings.com, and we couldn’t be more pleased to have their product as a part of FanGraphs. And we’re excited about using some of the data available on FanGraphs to make the forecasts even better.

There are currently three different ways we simulate the season to generate the playoff odds:

FanGraphs Projections Mode – This mode uses the combination of Steamer and ZiPS projections, along with the updated FanGraphs Depth Charts, to calculate the expected winning percentage of each remaining game in the major league season. This model incorporates the latest updates to each team’s roster, including injuries, acquisitions, and adjusted playing time allocations.

Season to Date Stats Mode – This mode uses current season to date statistics, weighted more heavily towards the most recent games, to calculate the expected winning percentage of each remaining game in the major league season. (This is the old “Smart” mode on coolstandings.com)

Coin Flip Mode – This mode uses a coin flip to determine the winner of each game, giving each matchup 50/50 odds. (This is the old “Dumb” mode on coolstandings.com)

The coolstandings models incorporate actual remaining schedules into their forecasts, so in addition to the estimates of each team’s talent, the strength of their upcoming opponents is also included, and the simulations are run 10,000 times hourly.

In addition to the standard odds of winning the division or earning a place in the wild card play-in game, we also have the odds of each team winning each level of the playoffs all the way up to odds of winning the World Series.

Right now we’re showing the current playoff odds, but you can visit coolstandings.com for all the historical playoff odds. We’ll also be adding these to FanGraphs in short time. You can find a permanent link to the Playoff Odds from the Standings drop down in the toolbar at the top of the site.

The Fringe Five is a weekly exercise (introduced in April) wherein the author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own heart to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to this exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe. The author recognizes that the word has different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of this column, however — and for reasons discussed more thoroughly in a previous edition of the Five — the author has considered eligible for the Five any prospect who was absent from all of three notable preseason top-100 prospect lists.

That said, it should also be noted that in cases where the collective enthusiasm regarding a player’s talent becomes very fevered — like how the enthusiasm collectively right now for Philadelphia third-base prospect Maikel Franco has become very fevered, for example — that will likely affect said player’s likelihood of appearing among the Five, given that the purpose of the series, at some level, is to identify prospects who are demonstrating promise above what one might expect given their current reputations within the prospect community.

With that said, here are this week’s Fringe Five:

Mookie Betts, 2B, Boston (Profile)
This marks the sixth consecutive week in which Betts’ name has appeared within this column. During that interval, the author has considered often the second baseman’s various strengths, which include (a) excellent command of the strike zone, (b) more power than one might otherwise expect from a player listed at 5-foot-10 and 165 pounds, and (c) baserunning numbers which almost certainly suggest future above-average production in that regard. Despite having gone 0-for-2 on stolen-base attempts this past week, Betts more than compensated for it by his demonstration of the first two skills. Indeed, over his last 32 plate appearances, the 20-year-old has recorded three home runs and a 3:1 walk-to-strikeout ratio. Overall now, he’s posted walk and strikeout rates of 10.0% and 8.9%, respectively, in 190 plate appearances at High-A Salem, while also hitting seven home runs and succeeding on 17 of 19 stolen-base attempts. One is compelled to note, as well, his excellent slash-line at that level, as follows: .315/.386/.530 (.317 BABIP).

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Allen Craig, so far, has been one of baseball’s all-time best hitters with runners in scoring position. Yes, as in ever. This year, he’s leading the league in batting average in that split. Last year, he led the league in batting average in that split. He is the leader, all-time, in such situational batting average, and his lead isn’t small. If you sort by OPS, Craig’s near the top of the historical leaderboard — between Albert Pujols and Joey Votto. Either the man has a knack for delivering important hits, or he just makes people feel that way.

The other night, Craig batted in the bottom of the seventh in a game between the St.Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds were leading 5-4, but the Cardinals had the bases loaded with two outs. J.J. Hoover threw Craig a first-pitch fastball, up and away, and Craig swung and took it up and away for a deciding grand slam. For the Cardinals, it’s been a magical season when it comes to runners in scoring position, and no one’s had more magic than Craig. And for him, this is just more of the same. Which leads one to wonder: What’s going on with Allen Craig, anyway?

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When Bo Porter was hired to lead the Houston Astros, one of his first moves was to add Dave Trembley to his coaching staff. The hiring was more than a young, first-year manager bringing on board a mentor. It was a case of loyalty rewarded.

The 61-year-old Trembley and 41-year-old Porter go way back. And despite the difference in age and backgrounds, they share important things in common. Each is hard-nosed: Porter played football at the University of Iowa; Trembley has spent three decades in the baseball trenches. Both are good communicators, well-versed in sabermetric concepts.

They also remember where they came from. Porter, who played parts of three big-league seasons, was the Nationals third base coach before coming to Houston. Trembley, who skippered the Orioles from 2007-2010 after 20 seasons as a minor-league manager, came over from the Braves organization. Along the way, they forged a relationship that led to a late-night phone call neither will soon forget. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam answer listener emails about rare plays they wish they would see, players wearing heart rate monitors, and more.

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