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

1. Five Notable College Weekend Series
2. Action Footage: Sophomore Left-Hander Carlos Rodon’s Slider

Five Notable College Weekend Series
The college baseball season begins today (Friday) and continues with games through the weekend. While some — like the author’s jerky editor Dave Cameron — are impervious to the charms of the collegiate game, it’s demonstrably a fact that the best NCAA players of 2013 will become relevant major leaguers in the not very distant future. Also, in the absence of the professional game, the college one has merits as a substitute.

With that in mind, the author has provided below a collection of five series this weekend that both (a) are likely to feature actual amateur prospects and (b) are available for consumption, via streaming video, through CBS Sports’ ULive service.

The author has benefited considerably from Aaron Fitt’s top-25 college preview at Baseball America — and also Fitt’s recent weekend preview at that same site.

As noted, all games are available streaming on ULive. All times are Eastern.

Teams: Appalachian State at (8) North Carolina State
Times (Fri/Sat/Sun): 3:00 PM / 1:00 PM / 1:00 PM
Notes: NC State left-hander Carlos Rodon might actually be the best of the Friday night pitchers presently. According to Aaron Fitt, Rodon “easily reaches the mid-90s from the left side [and has] a filthy 83-86 slider.” He posted a 135:41 walk-to-strikeout ratio in 114.2 innings last season as a freshman. Also on NC State is sophomore shortstop Trea Turner, who slashed .336/.432/.459 in 2012 and went 57-for-61 on stolen-base attempts.

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When I started researching the club, I underestimated just how good the Pirates system is right now. It has impressive high-ceiling talent at the top of the list and depth. I had five or six other players outside the Top 15 that I really wanted to write about, but ultimately they fell just short of the list.

#1 Gerrit Cole (P)

Cole was the first overall selection during the 2011 draft and he reached triple-A in his first season in pro ball, securing himself as one of the best pitching prospects in the game. The right-hander’s greatest strength is his heater, which can tickle triple digits and sits in the 93-96 mph range. His second best pitch is a dominating slider. He also has a curveball and a changeup.

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Ben and Sam preview the Astros’ season with Jason Collette, and Pete talks to MLB.com correspondent Richard Justice (at 16:54).

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Episode 306
Dayn Perry, contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and author of two books (one of them serviceable), answers questions from concerned readers.

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 57 min play time.)

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Below, a back-and-forth.

Jeff Sullivan
Michael Bourn finally got signed, right before the start of spring training. Bourn’s signing leaves only Kyle Lohse among available free agents of consequence. Lohse, of course, is going to sign somewhere eventually, if only because spring training means starting pitchers will get hurt, but it’s hard to identify a destination, as no one’s — publicly — a sweepstakes favorite.

A big problem is that people don’t seem to trust Kyle Lohse. Another big problem, and maybe a bigger problem, is that Lohse was extended a qualifying offer, meaning he’d cost a signing team a draft pick. Teams this offseason have been highly protective of their draft picks, and the Mets, for example, decided they’d rather have a first-round pick than Michael Bourn. I’m curious, then, about a Kyle Lohse hypothetical. Let’s say that Lohse were available at the league minimum for the cost of a first-round draft pick. He’s not, presumably, but: would you do it? In other words, how highly do you value that early selection?

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On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim signed Chad Cordero to a minor league deal, and Cordero tweeted, “comeback has officially begun.” The 30-year old right-hander — amazingly he’s still just 30 years old — hasn’t pitched in the major leagues since 9 2/3 innings in 2010, and hasn’t pitched a full season in the majors since 2007, which is when he recorded his last save. He announced his retirement in 2011, which came after 128 saves in Montreal and Washington, then shoulder surgery in 2008, three subsequent years of rehab, and the death of his daughter, Tehya, in 2010 due to SIDS. Now he’s trying to make it back to the majors.
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It took almost no time at all for Marlins Park to develop a pitcher-friendly reputation. Its debut saw a number of long fly balls drop dead in the outfield, and of course, plenty of people were watching. Among those watching were the players participating in the game, and here’s Lance Berkman:

“It’s the biggest ballpark in the game,” Berkman said. “It’s huge. If they don’t move the fences in after this year, I’d be surprised.”

To my knowledge, the Marlins haven’t yet touched the fences. But Berkman’s was a popular sentiment, and indeed, in Marlins games last season, there were 113 home dingers, and 157 away dingers. One can conclude only so much from a single season of play, but the early evidence is that Marlins Park takes long fly balls and spits on them. The way it played in that regard mirrors the way it looks like it should play. It’s meaningful when the numbers match the expectations.

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When the Red Sox signed John Lackey as a free agent in December of 2009, they had some concern about an existing elbow injury, but not enough concern to walk away from the deal entirely. So, they (or maybe his agent) came up with a pretty creative solution, adding a league minimum club option to the end of the deal if Lackey missed significant time due to an elbow issue. Sure enough, Lackey’s elbow became problematic, and after the 2011 season, he underwent Tommy John surgery and spent the entire 2012 season on the DL, triggering the club option for 2015.

As a result, the Red Sox now own the rights to Lackey’s 2015 season at a salary of around $500,000. Given the recovery rates of Tommy John survivors, it’s quite possible that Lackey could still be a useful pitcher in a couple of years, even at 36-years-old. If he rebounds and becomes something like an average starting pitcher, that option could end up holding $10 to $15 million in value, which wouldn’t quite make up for the fact that the Red Sox paid Lackey $15.25 million to spend last year rehabbing, but it would certainly help balance the scales.

Well, it seems like that contract stipulation might be gaining in popularity. Yesterday, Felix Hernandez signed his seven year, $175 million contract with the Mariners, and it included a stipulation that might very well come to be known as The John Lackey clause.

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

1. Some Brief and Mostly Important Disclaimers
2. The Top-Five Rookie-Eligible Hitters, According to ZiPS
3. The Top-Six Rookie-Eligible Pitchers, According to ZiPS

Some Brief and Mostly Important Disclaimers
With the release of the ZiPS projections for the Cleveland Indians this morning, now all 30 major-league teams have been caressed tenderly by Dan Szymborski’s math computer.

In celebration, what the present author has done is to peruse haphazardly all 30 sets of ZiPS team projections with a view to extracting from same the rookie-eligible hitters and pitchers (meaning fewer than 130 at-bats or 50 innings in the majors) with the best projections — where “best” is equivalent to “highest projected WAR” and nothing else.

Below are the players who most aptly fit all of that description — the top-five hitters and, because there was a tie for fourth, top-six pitchers. Alongside each player’s name are listed his 2012 line (for the level at which he spent the most time) and his 2013 projection. (Note that ZiPS does not predict playing time in the majors, but, rather, projects major-league equivalent production.) Finally, the author has appended brief comments to each entry to give the impression that he has not merely assembled a List of Numbers.

The Top-Five Rookie-Eligible Hitters, According to ZiPS
By the criteria outline above, here are the top five rookie-eligible hitters for 2013, according to ZiPS.

5. Mike Olt, 3B, Texas
2012 Line: 420 PA, .288/.398/.579 (.327 BABIP), 168 wRC+ at Double-A
2013 ZiPS: 487 PA, .247/.331/.429 (.325 BABIP), 2.4 WAR
Notes: At 24, Olt is among the oldest players on this list. With plus power and defense, skill set is not entirely dissimilar from — if less impressive than — Rangers current third baseman Adrian Beltre’s.

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