The Tampa Bay Rays used to be the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays used to have a player named Bobby Smith. On August 24, 1999, in a game against the Chicago White Sox started by Jim Parque, Smith finished 0-for-4, striking out looking four times. To get more recent — just last June 14, in a game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers, Justin Upton finished 2-for-5, striking out looking three times. Many strikeouts are called, but most strikeouts are not. This is something you knew, even if this isn’t something you knew.

Last year, Jerry Sands got into nine games, batting 24 times. He struck out nine times, and he struck out looking four times. Last year, Delmon Young got into 151 games, batting 608 times. He struck out 112 times, and he struck out looking four times. Of Delmon Young’s strikeouts, 4% were called strikeouts. No regular or semi-regular player posted a lower rate of called strikeouts.

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Here at FanGraphs, you are treated with a smorgasbord of baseballery. From research on aging curves to in-depth mustache analysis, the pages are filled with the base and ball dreams of a true diamond-level nerd.

And so it’s true of our premium product that all the different parts of baseball are represented. Ostensibly, the ‘annual’ portion of FanGraphs+ is fantasy-baseball-centered, but that doesn’t mean that your average non-roto baseball lover won’t find something to enjoy. Take Dan Wade’s investigation into reaching on error as a skill. Or Jeff Zimmerman looking at adjustment times for position players switching leagues. Hey, even if you hate closers, you might be interested in Jack Moore’s attempt to predict closer changes with a stat found on our leaderboards. And with the purchase of FanGraphs+, you’ll also get free access to the analysis we provide ESPNInsider on a weekly basis.

NotGraphs? Our staff painstakingly produced 1113 player caps. There are only 750 players on opening day rosters, and even with our near-200 prospect caps — which, by the way, are full of observations from Marc Hulet, Mike Newman, Jason Catania, J.D. Sussman and others — that leaves almost 200 players that probably shouldn’t get a player cap. Enter the wit of our glorious Notters, who will leave little nuggets of laughter for you on the unexpected player page. You’ll leave with a smile on your face and a question in your heart: Why was I looking at Vincente Padilla’s player page anyway?

And yes, it’s also a fantasy product. Later this week, we’ll give you Auction Values on the projections leaderboards. Chad Young already gave ottoneu players auction values for all scoring settings. Between Michael Barr, Mike Podhorzer and I, you’re set in preparing for your draft, no matter what style it is. And then there are the rookies! Marc Hulet gets the top-notch ones, Carson Cistulli rummages through the bargain bin, and Chris Cwik tells you why you shouldn’t care about any of them.

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Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

A Reasonably Adequate Caribbean Series Update
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — began Friday in Hermosillo, Mexico, and continues through February 7th.

What follows is an assortment of information regarding that Series after three games.

Standings
The Series is played in a double round-robin format, with each team playing every other one twice. After the completion of same, the top two teams will meet in a championship game with a view to acquiring capital-G Glory.

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On Friday, ESPN.com’s lead baseball story was title “Let’s Corral the WAR Horse,” and the image used in the rotation feature box was simply a white sign with the words “NO WAR” attached to a stick, presumably a stock image of a sign from an anti-violence protest. In the piece, Jim Caple — a writer I like, have spent a little bit of time with, and who is a pretty good advocate for logical thinking, by the way — explained why he’s a little frustrated with what he perceives as an over reliance on WAR as the stat’s popularity grows.

Quoting Caple:

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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 New York Yankees. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

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

Batters
It’s probably not entirely correct to say that Robinson Cano is twice as good as any of his field-playing teammates. What does appear to be the case, however, is that — owing to a combination of offensive production, positional adjustment, and durability — Robinson Cano is likely to be twice as valuable in 2013 as any of those same teammates.

Elsewhere, there are a lot of rather low plate-appearance projections among the Yankees batting corps. Brett Gardner, Travis Hafner, Alex Rodriguez, and Kevin Youkilis: none is forecast to make even as many as 500 plate appearances. Of course, A-Rod’s mean projection by that account is already appearing to be rather an optimistic one: according to general manager Brian Cashman, the nominal starting third baseman is expected back from hip surgery in July, but could potentially miss the entire season.

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Ben and Sam preview the Tigers’ season with Paul Sporer, and Pete talks to MLB.com Tigers beat writer Jason Beck (at 17:49).

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Episode 301
Dayn Perry, contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and author of two books (one of them serviceable), aids in producing — if not what’s known as Radio Gold — then at least Radio Manganese.

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 1 hr 0 min play time.)

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You’re familiar with the story of Adam Greenberg, even if you’d completely forgotten about it until just now. Greenberg made his major-league debut in 2005, and he was hit in the head by the very first pitch that he saw. Greenberg sustained a concussion, and until 2012, that represented the entirety of his big-league career. Eventually, there was a petition to get Greenberg another major-league at bat. The Marlins signed Greenberg to a contract toward the end of 2012, because if there’s one baseball organization that badly wants people to like it, it’s the Miami Marlins. The friendly, lovable, PR-conscious Miami Marlins.

With the Marlins, Greenberg doubled his career playing time. On the one hand, it was a great gesture on the Marlins’ part, as they signed Greenberg and allowed him to pinch-hit in a home game on October 2. On the other hand, it was an awful gesture on the Marlins’ part, as they forced a cold and unprepared Greenberg to pinch-hit against the eventual NL Cy Young winner before thousands upon thousands of viewers in person and on TV. In his second big-league plate appearance, Adam Greenberg faced one of baseball’s best-ever knuckleballs. The results were predictable.

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Every year, around this time, players advertise themselves as being in the best shape of their lives, either because their offseason conditioning regimens improved, or because previously they were lazy. I think the players are almost always being sincere — they probably, genuinely, feel great — but as fans, we identify this as a cliche, and we generally dismiss it. For one thing, we hear this claim entirely too often. For another, it’s never been demonstrated that there’s a relationship between best shape and on-field success. Or, if you prefer, on-field improvement. It’s been studied, albeit not exhaustively so.

There’s something particular I want to examine, though, and it has to do with Jhonny Peralta. This is an article about Peralta from Friday morning. Within:

Fewer pounds would be preferable, they told him, as he headed home for the winter. He got the message and lost 18.

“It’s good,” Peralta said. “I’ve never been at this weight since I’ve been with Detroit. I finished last season at 236. I’m at 218 now.”

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