A Statistical Report on All the Caribbean Leagues

For much the same reason that he has published weekly statistical reports on the Arizona Fall League over the past month (such as this latest one from Wednesday), the author is publishing here a combined statistical report for the various Caribbean winter leagues — again, not necessarily because such reports are of great utility for evaluating players, but because they provide a means by which to participate in those leagues which doesn’t also require a substantial investment in transport and lodging.

In this case, what the author has done is to identify the regressed hitting and pitching leaders in the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues separately*. What he’s then done is to combine the hitting and pitching leaders of those leagues into a pair of top-10 lists, which one can find below. Note: all ages are as of July 1, 2013; all organizations, as of the end of regular-season play. Last week’s report on the Caribbean leagues is available here.

*The Puerto Rican League having just commenced play this past week.

SCOUT Leaderboard: Caribbean Leagues Hitting
Below is the current SCOUT batting leaderboard for all the Caribbean League hitters, combined. SCOUT+ combines regressed home-run, walk, and strikeout rates in a FIP-like equation to produce a result not unlike wRC+, where 100 is league average and above 100 is above average. Note that xHR%, xBB%, and xK% stand for expected home run, walk, and strikeout rate, respectively.

SCOUT Leaderboard: Caribbean Leagues Pitching
Below is the current SCOUT pitching leaderboard all the Caribbean Leagues, combined. SCOUT- combines regressed strikeout and walk rates in a kwERA-like equation to produce a number not unlike ERA-, where 100 is league average and below 100 is better than average. Note that xK% and xBB% stand for expected strikeout and walk rate, respectively.

*Denotes an estimated figure.

Notes
• On Tuesday, Baseball America published its annual list of the 550 minor-league players to have been granted free agency. Here are the players to appear both on that list and also one of the two leaderboards above Yamaico Navarro, Zelous Wheeler, Luis Rodriguez, Jay Jackson, and Paolo Espino.

• A note regarding Navarro: while listed here as a left fielder (and having actually played quite a lot of it with Licey in the Dominican, it appears), the former Oriole has made the majority of his minor- and major-league defensive appearances at either shortstop or third.

• Not included on the batting leaderboard published here, but still quite productive, are very promising Texas shortstop Jurickson Profar (133 SCOUT+) and also promising Pittsburgh outfielder Gregory Polanco (129 SCOUT+), who just completed their age-20 and -21 seasons, respectively. Younger than either of them and also less celebrated, is Minnesota infield prospect Jorge Polanco, who turned 20 in July. Polanco’s recorded a 126 SCOUT+, having hit a home run while posting a 8:6 walk-to-strikeout rate in 68 plate appearances. All three of the aforementioned are presently rostered on Dominican League teams.

• One will note that left-handed Atlanta prospect Ryan Buchter has been excellent thus far in the Mexican Pacific League. In fact, the strikeout figures aren’t unusual for Buchter: he appears to have struck out 103 of the 274 batters (37.6%) he faced with Triple-A Gwinnett this season. That he also walked 51 of those opponents (18.6%) is very likely the reason he hasn’t made a major-league appearance as of yet. Since the last edition of the Caribbean leagues report, Buchter has posted this line: 2.0 IP, 5 K, 2 BB.