Over-Under Day — the day the first sportsbooks release their win-loss over-under totals for all 30 MLB teams — is one of my favorite days of the lead-in to baseball season. I’m not much of a gambler — I stick to risking my money on fantasy sports, personally — but Las Vegas is as good a projection system as we have, and although the numbers here will likely be revised between now and Opening Day, they provide as good a barometer for current team strength as you’ll find anywhere.

The Orioles, unsurprisingly, have the biggest drop-off from last year’s win total to this year’s over-under — 93 wins in 2012 to just a 76.5 over-under for 2013. Should Baltimore perform to Vegas’s projection, it will be just another example of the fleeting greatness of particularly clutch units, like the Orioles’ 2012 bullpen.

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the Cleveland Indians. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Braves / Brewers / Cardinals / Cubs / Diamondbacks / Dodgers / Giants / Mariners / Marlins / Mets / Nationals / Orioles / Padres / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Rays / Reds / Red Sox / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / Twins / White Sox / Yankees.

Batters
If you’re like the author, you’re hirsute in a way that make pets and small children demonstrably uncomfortable. You’re also a bit surprised by the competence of the Indians offense entering 2013. No Cleveland field player posted better than a 3.4 WAR in 2012; in fact, there are three players here — Carlos Santana (4.4), Michael Bourn (4.0), and Asdrubal Cabrera (3.7) — projected to surpass last year’s team-high mark. Six other players are forecast to post something between a 2.0 and 3.0 WAR.

A thing to note: both Michael Brantley and Drew Stubbs are projected as center fielders, where each spent the majority of 2012 defensively. Moving to the corners won’t affect their individual WAR projections, likely, but does mean that what they lose in runs to positional adjustment, they’re likely to regain in terms of runs saved afield. If we say that Brantley and Stubbs are roughly average center fielders, then it’s also fair to say they’re likely to save something like +10 runs defensively in either left or right field.

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Ben and Sam preview the Mariners’ season, and Pete talks to Seattle Times Mariners writer Geoff Baker (at 18:53).

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Last season, like usual, Joey Votto was amazing, but last season, unlike usual, Joey Votto then injured his knee. It happened at the end of June, and while Votto tried to play through it for a time, he wound up being sidelined for a number of weeks before returning in September. He hit his final home run on June 24, before the injury, and down the stretch and in the playoffs, it was obvious that Votto didn’t have his normal Votto power. Maybe one of last season’s most unbelievable things is that, if you set a minimum of 100 plate appearances, Votto led baseball in second-half OBP. From the start of July through the end of the regular season, Votto reached 48% of the time. In a short playoff series, Votto reached 50% of the time. His power stripped away, Votto became even more difficult to retire than before.

Understandably, though, despite all the OBP, Votto is a bit of a question mark, as people are unsure whether his power will rebound now that he’s put more time between himself and his injury. It’s evident how a weaker knee can limit a hitter’s strength, and Votto conceded in October that he wasn’t at 100%. Now, there is this brief but encouraging update:

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In my last article, I explained how wOBA’s current implementation changes the value of walks, singles, home runs, etc., annually due to changing league characteristics.  Does this mean that the value of an event is the same for every team in the league each season?  Or in every park in the league?  No way.  If you’re talking about a weak offense in a high-offense era, then the overall constants for a weak offensive era are probably more applicable to that team.  However, it’s not really the point of standard wOBA to guess the run-producing contribution of a particular player to a particular team; I think it’s probably more accurate to say it’s about his probable productiveness in a typical team (although park effects aren’t taken into account, so not exactly… that would be more true of wRC+).

Anyway, Tom Tango realized this limitation, and produced a table that shows how the values change depending on a team’s runs scored.  He accomplished this system of “Custom Linear Weights” (“a necessary offshoot” of linear weights, he says) by making use of David Smyth’s BaseRuns formula, which is, in simplest terms, Runs Scored = base runners * (% of base runners that score) + home runs.  Home run hitters are not considered base runners, in this equation, by the way.  Makes perfect sense, right?

Tango realized that BaseRuns had a better handle on the team run-scoring process than his basic linear weights system (and all the other run estimators), so he translated the results of BaseRuns in various run environments into linear weights.  Specifically, the BaseRuns formula told him how many runs the team should score, and the linear weight value of each hit came from how many additional runs BaseRuns expected the team score if it had one more of that type of hit (the marginal value of each hit type).  Here are just the basics of his results, in graphical form:

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The St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system is the envy of the league. ESPN’s Keith Law recently ranked the Cardinals’ minor-league teams Number 1 in his annual farm-system rankings, with Shelby Miller, Trevor Rosenthal and Oscar Tavares all in Law’s Top 100 prospects. Baseball America agreed.

But all is not well for the Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate Memphis Redbirds of the Pacific Coast League. Their story is a warning that, even in a baseball-loving town, it isn’t always true that “if you build it, they will come.”

The Redbirds play in AutoZone Park in downtown Memphis. The ballpark, built in 2000, is nestled between high-rise office buildings not far from the Mississippi River. AutoZone Park is considered a jewel among minor-league ballparks. Baseball America named it the 2009 Minor League Ballpark of the Year. There are wide concourses, club seating, luxury suites and open-air party decks. It cost $80 million to build — a high price tag for a minor league ballpark.

And now, it’s awash in a sea of debt.

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

1. Five Notable Signings from the Indy Leagues
2. Action Footage: Mike Benacka’s Excellent Changeup
3. Entirely Still Footage: Mike Benacka’s Virile Beard

Five Notable Signings from the Indy Leagues
The author has given some attention this offseason, by way of these Notes, to various independent and winter leagues. What follows is a list of five players who have both (a) excelled in one or the other of those types of leagues (i.e. independent or winter) and (b) been signed this offseason by a major-league organization.

Note: Ages listed are 2013 “baseball” ages — meaning age as of June 30, 2013. Other note: the author’s expertise in on this subject is not a matter of debate — which is to say, no one debates that he’s an expert.

Player: Mike Benacka, 30, RHP
2012 Line: 52.2 IP, 15.7 K/9, 6.0 BB/9 in American Association
Signing Club: Toronto Blue Jays
Notes: Member of Oakland system from 2008 to -11, after success in Frontier League in 2007-08. Has posted formidable strikeout and walk rates due to a combination of an excellent changeup and less excellent other pitches, it appears. Posted best regressed pitching in American Association in 2012. Did same thing in Mexican Pacific League this winter.

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The Cleveland Indians pulled a dual surprise by signing both Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn, and while they’re unlikely to complete the trifecta by signing Kyle Lohse, the recent Bourn acquisition has people thinking about the Indians as a dark-horse American League playoff contender. Everybody likes an underdog, the Indians have put themselves in the headlines, and they do possess an abundance of talent. The Indians, at least, look to be something approximating a .500 ballclub, and given the error bars that come with win-total projections, the playoffs aren’t out of the question.

When you look closer, the Indians seem to be well below the Tigers, and about on par with the Royals and the White Sox in the Central. Despite everything the Indians have done, people still question the starting rotation, and for legitimate reasons. In my Tuesday chat queue there were several concerns expressed regarding the Indians’ starters, and consensus seems to be that the Indians don’t have enough pitching. They did add Brett Myers and Trevor Bauer, but they still have a rotation fronted by Justin Masterson and Ubaldo Jimenez.

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“I know we were playing Philadelphia, and I want to say we played the Dodgers after that. End of July some time. I kind of realized that, hey, you gotta help the team out somehow. … Sometimes you get lost out there, and you try to start playing to prove yourself, playing for yourself, however you want to say it, but if you go up there and remember that this is a team game, and you’re there for them, you’re going to play better personally in return.” — Brandon Belt

No matter how many player interviews you’ve read, this quote from Brandon Belt fits right in. There’s little to separate it from the post-game interviews that laud camaraderie and perseverance above strategy and nuance. That’s fine — admit too much and you’ve given your competition information. There is one aspect of this quote that might be a little different than most quotes, though. Belt basically provides the exact date on which his 2012 season turned for the better.

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