Episode 344
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition, like most other editions, he gives all his analysis to baseball.

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 44 min play time.)

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Here is a true sentence about Mariano Rivera. Though, for his career, he’s managed to strike out the same rate of batters as Arthur Rhodes, he’s issued a higher rate of walks than Carl Pavano, and he’s allowed the same BABIP as Armando Galarraga. Based on one’s associations, one might not read that sentence and conclude that Rivera is amazing. But then, who’s familiar with Pavano and Galarraga, and not Rivera? Rivera is amazing, for all of the reasons you know, and for additional reasons we haven’t yet even discovered. Rivera’s going to retire soon, at 43, and his ERA’s under 2. He’s walked as many batters this year as Shawn Tolleson, who has faced two batters.

Though Rivera didn’t invent the cut fastball, he made it a somebody. In Rivera’s hands, the cutter became a pitch with which everyone’s familiar. Rivera knows how to throw lots of other pitches, but he doesn’t take them into games. He just leans on the one pitch, and if another pitcher in baseball leans heavily on one pitch, we say he’s being Rivera-esque, at least in approach. It’s rare that a pitcher can have Rivera’s success, and it’s rarer still to be able to do it with one weapon — the list of such pitchers basically reads “Mariano Rivera.” Clearly, in order to do what he’s done, Rivera’s had to have impeccable command.

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The Major League domestic amateur draft takes place this week, kicking off with the first and second rounds on Thursday night, then continuing on with rounds 3-10 on Friday and rounds 11-40 on Saturday. We haven’t done a ton of draft preview stuff because that’s simply not our strength, and there are a lot of other places — Baseball America, most notably — who specialize in high quality draft coverage, and will give you all the information you need if you want to know who is going to be drafted where.

That doesn’t mean we don’t care about the draft, though. For the basics of the new draft system, you can check out Wendy Thurm’s first and second primers on how the setup works, and then J.D. Sussman asked whether or not we even need a draft to maintain competitive balance earlier this morning. Those pieces are worth reading.

I’m going to throw my hat into the ring of draft related articles, because I want to write about the order of picks in the 2013 first round, and because that selection order highlights the biggest problem with the current draft structure: the penalization of success.

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Sunday afternoon, Domonic Brown did something he’s been doing a lot of lately. Brown faced Mike Fiers in the bottom of the first, with two on and two out. After a first-pitch curveball found the zone, Fiers missed three straight times, with a heater and a couple changeups. Brown scooted up in the box, and Fiers came inside with a cutter, or a slider, as if that detail’s important. Brown saw it, swung at it, and blasted it, way out to right field for a three-run dinger. It was Brown’s 14th home run in 32 starts. It was his 16th home run of the season. Brown is the National League leader in that category, after a spring in which people were concerned he might not find enough playing time.

Sunday afternoon, Domonic Brown did something he hadn’t done for a while. Brown faced Tom Gorzelanny in the bottom of the seventh, with one on and two out. After a first-pitch slider found the zone, Gorzelanny missed three straight times, with a slider and a couple heaters. The 3-and-1 pitch was a fastball that Brown went after and tipped for a strike. The next and final pitch was a slider that just missed, a little low and a little away. Brown watched it, and Brown walked — unintentionally — for the first time since April 30. Brown had just walked the day before, too, but that one was done on purpose.

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The Major League Baseball Rule 4 Draft begins this week. The modern draft was instituted in 1987, but a filtration system for entry-level talent existed before World War II. Today, the draft exists for two purposes — competitive balance and wage suppression, with the former being publicly cited as the reason for its existence but the latter being more of the actual motivation for the league. Let’s put aside the wage suppression issue for a minute, though — noting that nearly every corporation in America is essentially in the business of minimizing their labor costs — and focus on the competitive balance aspect of the draft.

To many, competitive balance is essential to their enjoyment of Major League Baseball. The satisfaction of these observers — fans — is directly related to the profitability of Major League Baseball. In other words, so long as fans are emotionally and economically invested in the sport, Major League Baseball will continue to profit.

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

1. May’s WAR Leaders, Almost Definitively
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

May’s WAR Leaders, Almost Definitively
Introduction
Insofar as (a) it is now June and (b) the most recent weekly UZR update was conducted at the time of day when the present author’s parties most frequently conclude (i.e. around dawn), what follows are the complete WAR leaderboards for May. Insofar, however, as the seasonal baseline for UZR changes by small increments over the course of the season, altering perhaps players’ monthly WAR figures by a tenth of a win here or there, what follows are not the entirely definitive, but just mostly definitive, WAR leaderboards for May.

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Ben and Sam discuss whether the ability to spend big helps teams as much as it once did, then talk about their expectations for Tim Lincecum and Chris Davis.

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Major League Baseball’s amateur draft starts on Thursday. MLB Network and MLB.com will broadcast and stream, respectively, pick-by-pick coverage of the first four rounds: Round One, Competitive Balance Round A, Round Two, and Competitive Balance Round B. In essence, the top 73 spots. The draft will continue untelevised on Friday and Saturday.

We’re getting you ready for the draft with two posts. Last Thursday, in Part 1, I explained the changes to draft selection order brought about by the collective bargaining agreement executed in late 2011. Certain changes didn’t take full effect until this year, so even if you followed last year’s draft, give Part 1 a read as a refresher.

Today, in Part 2, I’ll explain the limits placed on how much each team can spend to sign each draft pick and on all their draft picks combined. The first restriction is known as the draft slot value. The second is known as the draft bonus pools.

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Among famous baseball quotes, perhaps none applies better to Scott Kazmir than “The game is 95 percent mental; the other half is physical.” The Cleveland Indians left-hander has had an enigmatic career. From 2006-2008 he represented Tampa Bay in a pair of All-Star games and once led the American League in strikeouts. In 2009, he began a downward spiral that saw his overpowering stuff become pedestrian, his command abysmal. He passed through Anaheim on his way to oblivion.

In a May, 2010 interview, Kazmir told me, “The past couple years, I felt like I was fighting myself the entire time. Now everything feels on point.“ Looking back, that feeling was fleeting — or perhaps he was in denial — because a year later he logged a 17.02 ERA in five Triple-A appearances and found himself out of affiliated baseball.

Some soul-searching followed. Kazmir wasn’t sure if he was done with the game or not. And if he did return, could he solve the puzzle — equal parts mental and mechanical — that had been his undoing?

Last season he returned to action with the independent league Sugar Land Skeeters, and this spring he overcame long odds by earning a spot in the Indians’ starting rotation. Showing flashes of his old self, he has a 9.1 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 in eight appearances. His velocity is back to where it was five years ago.

Kazmir talked about his struggles and the road back — including the mental challenges — when Cleveland visited Boston in late May.

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