A few weeks ago, Dave Cameron wrote a piece on RE24, explaining that, because RE24 measures offensive production with respect to the specific base-out state, one could compare it to a context-neutral offensive metric, such as Batting runs, in order to measure the effects of situational hitting.

Situational hitting is a vague term often used to laud making outs as long as it moves the runner up a base, but as I see it, all the phrase means is hitting differently depending on the situation. That is, good “situational hitting” is distributing your hits and extra base hits into the times that you hit when runners are on base, and especially in scoring position.

Subtracting Batting Runs (or Bat) from RE24 works as a good measure of situational hitting because it compares the value of the context-neutral event (single, strikeout, home run, etc) with the value of the actual change in base-out state. A single is worth more in certain situations; that “more” is measured using this method.

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

1. Corey Kluber Society on the Precipice of History
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game(s)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Corey Kluber Society on the Precipice of History
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce a meeting of the Corey Kluber Society tonight (Friday) at 8:10pm ET.

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Super agent Scott Boras is known to boast about his clients’ market value, particularly as each player nears or enters free agency. Oh, Boras doesn’t come right out and give a number. Sometimes he gives a range. Sometimes he talks on background and allows a reporter to claim “Sources say Boras is looking for 5 years/$100 million for Johnny So-in-So.”

This week, Boras tried to set a floor for Reds outfielder Shin-Soo Choo, who will be a free agent this winter. Jon Heyman had suggested in August — based on discussions with “baseball executives” — that Choo’s new contract could be in the $90 million to $100 million range. On Wednesday Heyman followed up, noting the considerable backlash against such a high number for Choo. And there was backlash from Boras, too. He believes $90 million to $100 million is too low for Choo.

“As a custom of the industry, prognostications by executives this time of year are dramatically divergent from the real market,” Boras said in a phone interview. “I don’t think anyone correctly predicted what Jayson Werth or Carl Crawford got.”

The interesting question is what Boras predicted Werth and his other clients would get. How close were Boras’ pre-contract comments with the deals he eventually negotiated for his clients?  Does he undersell? Oversell? Something in-between?

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Ben and Sam discuss Mariano Rivera’s farewell, Carlos Gomez’s suspension, and Bud Selig’s legacy.

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There is always a bit of a lull between the end of the minor league playoffs in September and the start of the annual top prospects lists in early November. Because of that gap, I’m breathing new life into an old feature that I wrote for the site in FanGraphs’ infancy back in 2008 and 2009.

The series ‘A Minor Review of 2013’ will look back on some of the major happenings in each MLB organization since the beginning of April as a primer for the upcoming FanGraphs Top 10+5 prospects lists. This series will run throughout September and October. I hope you enjoy the series and are eagerly anticipating the start of ‘Prospect List Season.’

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About half-way through May, something strange was going on in Jake McGee’s world. The 27-year-old reliever was giving up hits and home runs to left-handed hitters. For a lefty with 96 mph gas and a wicked slider, that was out of the norm. But, as most pitchers do over the course of the season, he made an adjustment and figured the problem out. If there ever was one to begin with.

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It’s not completely set in stone, but we can be pretty sure that next Tuesday, the Pirates and Reds are going to square off in the NL Wild Card game. If the Pirates sweep the Reds and the Cardinals can’t win a single game against the Cubs, then Pittsburgh and St. Louis would tie for the division title, but let’s be honest, that’s probably not happening. Without giving up entirely, the Pirates can start planning for next Tuesday’s win-or-go-home game.

So, let’s talk strategy. Last year, I appealed to the Braves to just skip the starter entirely, using Craig Kimbrel to open the game, and then mix-and-match behind him to take advantage of platoon match-ups and let the bullpen carry them to the division series. I still believe in in the theory of skipping the starter in an elimination game, but the reality is that the participants in these games are people, and they are used to set routines, and divergence from their established roles might have a negative impact on their performance. It is probably, in reality, too crazy of a strategy for any team to actually adopt.

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Home-field advantage is a strange concept, or should I say, a strange reality. It doesn’t really matter, for our purposes, why it exists — it just matters that it exists. It’s there, all of the time, in every single baseball game, and while I wouldn’t say it’s an unspoken thing, it’s seldom thought of in depth. A team playing at home has an advantage it wouldn’t have in a neutral site. A team playing on the road is at a corresponding disadvantage. We accept that it is, and we don’t talk much about it, and when we talk about potential edges, it’s usually ignored in favor of pointing at match-ups. It’s almost too boring to point out Team X stands better odds because they’re playing in their ballpark. Someone’s always playing at their ballpark.

But home-field advantage is exactly what the Reds and Pirates have to play for this weekend. Very fleeting home-field advantage — home-field advantage in the one-game wild-card playoff between the two rivals. The teams will play three before they play one, and the Pirates are 50-31 at home, while the Reds are 49-28. Each would prefer to play before its own partisan audience. It’s obvious that it matters who gets to play at home. But how much does it matter? What’s a way that we can think about this?

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

1. A Count of Every Club’s Meaningless Games
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Statistical Update on Players in Deadline Deals
Introduction
With four days remaining in the major-league regular season, only three clubs — Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and Texas — possess some manner of playoff odds that aren’t either 0.0% or 100.0%. Some teams (Kansas City, New York AL) have only just been eliminated from a possible postseason berth; others (Chicago AL, Houston, Miami) have possessed playoff odds of 0% for over a month.

What the author has done, in the table below, is to calculate the number of meaningless games every major-league team will have played by the end of the season — where meaningless indicates games played while the team in question has possessed either a 0% or 100% chance of making the playoffs, per Cool Standings. Note that this is different, probably by a little bit, than what is frequently referred to as “mathematical elimination,” but (a) is another, pretty similar type of mathematical elimination and also (b) was easier to calculate, as the author’s internet browser happened already to be pointed to Cool Standings.

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