A Statistical Report on All the Caribbean Leagues at Once

For much the same reason that he has published statistical reports of varying degrees of maturity for the Arizona Fall League over the past several weeks, the author is publishing here a combined statistical report for the various Caribbean winter leagues that have started play — 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 transportation 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, and Venezuelan 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.

*The fourth major Caribbean league, the Puerto Rican League, doesn’t commence until tomorrow.

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
• Dodgers outfield prospect Joc Pederson has demonstrated the ability to take walks in the minor leagues, posting a rate of 13.5% by that measure this year with Double-A Chattanooga in just his age-21 season. In fact, he’s almost tripled that mark so far with Lara of the VWL. Pederson is an interesting case: were he with a second-division club, he’d almost certainly be competing for a major-league role. As it is, his parent club currently employs an excess of outfielders.

• Right-handed Cleveland prospect Paolo Espino was featured in these same electronic pages just days ago owing to the impressive translated line he’d recorded as a minor-leaguer this season. There, the author noted how Espino had been particularly effective over his last five starts with Triple-A Columbus, recording a 38:3 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 29.0 innings over that interval. Indeed, it appears as though that success has carried over to Venezuela, where Espino has posted the league’s most impressive strikeout-to-walk figures relative to innings pitched.

• San Diego prospect Juan Oramas, 23, was absent from prospect lists entering the season. An impressive, if truncated, season with Double-A San Antonio, however, earned him a number of appearances on this site’s critically acclaimed (probably) Fringe Five column. Oramas returned this June from a Tommy John procedure and then recorded strikeout and walk rates of 28.0% and 7.0%, respectively, over 12 starts and 55.2 innings in the Texas League. He seems to have more or less reproduced those rates through three starts and 15.0 innings in the Mexican Pacific League.