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For fans of Carlos Marmol, it’s been a confusing few days, even beyond the usual confusion baseline. On Tuesday, Marmol was shipped from the Cubs to the Dodgers. On Wednesday, there were initial reports the Dodgers were cutting ties, but now it’s clear they simply intend to send him to the minor leagues for a little while, in theory to get him “straightened out.” Marmol, at some point, should pitch for the Dodgers, and they have more interest in him than they had in the now-departed Matt Guerrier. Cynics will note that the solution to an inconsistent Brandon League isn’t adding another one, but if the odds are X% that League turns it around, the odds are greater that one of League and Marmol turns it around.

Of course, Marmol was just designated for assignment. There’s not a lot there, beyond the strikeouts, the frequency of which is plummeting. Since 2011, among pitchers with at least 150 innings, Marmol ranks 14th-worst in OBP allowed, at .355. He’s hanging around the likes of Dallas Keuchel and Derek Lowe and Edinson Volquez, and though Marmol generally limits batting and slugging, his career isn’t on the way up. Marmol, probably, can be useful, but since 2011 he has a 105 FIP-. Guerrier has a 109 FIP-. Lots of relievers can be useful and Marmol isn’t going to pitch the Dodgers into first place.

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Homer Bailey threw a no-hitter last night, putting him in the same group as a lot of other people. It was actually his second no-hitter, putting him in a much smaller group of guys who have done it twice. This post is not really about Homer Bailey’s no-hitter — I’m working on one of those too, but it’s a little more research intensive — but about the fact that Homer Bailey shouldn’t have needed to throw another no-hitter to get some attention. Because, even before last night, Homer Bailey was pitching like an ace.

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Talk to a few Cubs about advanced stats and you’ll get a mixed bag of responses. Quiet appraisal from Luis Valbuena. Internalization and response from Jeff Samardzija. “NERRRRRRDD” yelled jokingly at the correspondent by Darwin Barney. But one the most remarkable turnaround stories in the clubhouse, Kevin Gregg had an equally nerdy response to the numbers: “Mechanical change.”

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

1. SCOUT Leaderboards for Low-A
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

SCOUT Leaderboards for Low-A
A Brief Introduction
Featured in this edition of the Notes are the SCOUT leaderboards for Low-A. Briefly stated, SCOUT represents 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. Stated less briefly, is the explanation available here.

Other recent editions: Triple-A / Double-A / High-A / Class A.

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Well friends, we are now approaching that time of year where a significant drop in a pitcher’s velocity passes the 50% threshold in terms of signaling that they will finish the year down at least one full mph.

The table above breaks out the percent of pitchers who experience at least a 1 mph drop in their four-seam fastball velocity in a month relative to that same month a year ago and who also went on to finish the season down a full 1 mph. It also shows the relative risk — meaning, the increased likelihood that a pitcher will experience a true velocity loss at season’s end when compared to those pitchers that didn’t lose 1 mph in that month.

For example, pitchers that lost velocity in May finished the season down a full 1 mph 47% of the time, compared to just 6% that didn’t lose 1 mph in May — an increased likelihood of 7.8.

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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 certainly has different connotations to different sorts of readers. For the purposes of this column, however — and for reasons discussed more thoroughly in last week’s 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.

This week, the reader will find that two players retain their place this week among the Five: well-educated Mets pitching prospect Matthew Bowman and young Philadelphia third baseman, the sort of recently promoted Maikel Franco.

Departing from the Five proper — largely because the author is restless and dumb — are diminutive batsman, St. Louis outfield prospect Mike O’Neill, promising Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar; and two-true-outcome shortstop, Washington’s Zach Walters.

Replacing that triumvirate are the rather young, but offensively advanced, Wilmer Flores of the Mets system; Atlanta reliever-turned-quite-effective-starter Cody Martin; and White Sox shortstop or second-base or third-base prospect Marcus Semien.

Now, here are this week’s Fringe Five:

Matthew Bowman, RHP, New York NL (Profile)
After consecutive appearances among the Fringe Five, Bowman produced another excellent start this past week, recording a 7:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 26 batters over 8.0 innings in a Florida State League game versus St. Louis affiliate Palm Beach (box). Those figures should add to the already excellent line he’s produced, which — as of last Wednesday, at least — has placed him third among all High-A starters by SCOUT, the author’s flawed and proprietary metric. Unmentioned in previous editions of the Five is Bowman’s capacity for inducing ground balls, as well: both Minor League Central and StatCorner suggest that’s recorded grounders on more than 60% of batted balls.

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Something you might not have heard from the past few days is that Micah Owings became a free agent. Owings opted out of his contract with the Washington Nationals, and the Nats granted him his release. Something you probably did hear from the last few days is that Casper Wells pitched in relief. Wells wasn’t the only recent-days position player on the mound, but Wells didn’t just pitch — Wells looked good. Or, all right, and good for an outfielder. The standards are quite a bit different, because only pitchers are trained to be pitchers.

In the ninth inning of a blowout between the White Sox and the Indians, Wells retired three of four batters. Mike Aviles popped out, Drew Stubbs walked, Asdrubal Cabrera whiffed and Jason Kipnis lined out to the track. Wells was the only White Sox pitcher who didn’t allow a hit, which isn’t to say he didn’t get a little lucky with the Kipnis drive. Still, what got people talking was Wells’ style. He threw hard, and he also mixed in an offspeed pitch with which Cabrera was neatly put away. Read the rest of this entry »

According to PITCH/fx, umpires weren’t giving Josh Outman the benefit of a doubt in 2011. If their called-strike data is accurate, only 65.3% of pitches the lefthander threw in the strike zone went in his favor. A remarkable 34.7% of would-be-strikes were called balls. He was among the most-squeezed pitchers in baseball that season.

Outman holds no grudges against umpires’ judgment. The 28-year-old recognizes they have a difficult job, and not all of them will interpret the strike zone in exactly the same way. Umpires aren’t machines, and in Outman’s opinion, that’s just the way it should be.

Outman — currently pitching out of the bullpen for the Colorado Rockies — discussed the strike zone, and its interpretation, on a recent visit to Fenway Park. Read the rest of this entry »