Episode 443
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he endures the slings and arrows of outrageous internet connectivity.

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 31 min play time.)

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While it’s true that, not unlike snowflakes, all baseball players are unique, it’s also the case that most of them (i.e. most of those baseball players) follow somewhat predictable career paths. First, they are young and merely promising. Then, they are less young but something more than just promising — at which point they’re perhaps capable of playing in the major leagues. Then they are progressively worse until they retire, take work as a scout or manager or broadcaster, and then die.

It’s entirely possible that Texas right-hander Colby Lewis will take work as a scout someday — and is a certainty that, barring considerable advancements in medical technology, that he’ll also die — however, his career path to date has been unusual in most other regards.

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Episode 442
Aaron Gleeman is a contributor to NBC’s Hardball Talk and longtime proprietor of AaronGleeman.com. He’s also the guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which episode he relates all the damage he’s caused.

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 1 min play time.)

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Deadly accurate demographic information for the present site reveals that nearly all FanGraphs readers are either (a) busy executives or (b) busy executives on the go — in either case, one finds, the sort of people who can’t spend the day in explanation.

With a view to serving that particular demographic, the author presents the following — i.e. a small collection of numbered facts regarding celebrated Houston prospect George Springer’s debut, all of them (i.e. all the facts) of the sort which might appeal to those with a soft spot for the scientific method.

1. Over six plate appearances in an 11-inning game, Springer walked once, struck out twice, and recorded an infield hit — producing a single-game .263 wOBA (box).

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The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced last April by the present author, wherein that same ridiculous author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own heart to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion in the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above both (a) absent from all of three notable preseason top-100 prospect lists* and also (b) not currently playing in the majors. Players appearing on the midseason prospect lists produced by those same notable sources or, otherwise, selected in the first round of the amateur draft will also be excluded from eligibility.

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On April 9th at Minnesota, Oakland right-hander Jesse Chavez recorded a 9:0 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 26 batters over 7.0 innings, en route to a single-game 1.79 xFIP (box). Yesterday (Monday), Oakland right-hander Jesse Chavez — in this case, away at Anaheim — recorded a 9:0 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 26 batters over 7.0 innings, en route to a single-game 1.79 xFIP (box). Now, including an April 4th start against Seattle that was also rather successful, Chavez has produced a 22:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 20.0 innings and the seventh-best park-adjusted xFIP among 100 qualified starters.

What’s notable about the pitchers who appear towards the top of the leaderboard to which I’ve linked just above is that all of them either (a) entered the season having recorded more career major-league starts than Jesse Chavez or (b) signed a seven-year, $155 million contract with the Yankees this offseason after a celebrated career in Japanese baseball.

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Episode 441
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he considers la règle du jeu, as it were.

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 43 min play time.)

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Right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez produced his third consecutive poor start for the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday, recording just three strikeouts against 27 opposing batters while posting a single-game xFIP of 5.23 (box). It was also the third consecutive start for his new club in which Jimenez produced an average fastball velocity below his 2013 average of 92.1 mph (or 91.9 mph average when accounting for all pitches classified as either a four- or two-seam fastball).

It’s both (a) largely unimaginative and also (b) not entirely inappropriate to begin any investigation into a pitcher’s poor performances with an investigation into velocity trends. A hastily performed study by the present author, for example, demonstrates that — amongst a large pool of starting pitchers from 2002 to -11 — that every mile-per-hour was worth about a tenth of a run of xFIP. Such a study, of course, accounts mostly for pitchers who have already adapted to their own particular velocity limits. One assumes that any one individual pitcher, when compelled to work with reduced velocity, would demonstrate an even greater increase in xFIP.

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Episode 440
Dayn Perry is a contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and the author of three books — one of them not very miserable. He’s also the entirely audible guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

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 13 min play time.)

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Episode 439
Radio voice of the Texas Rangers for over 30 years, Eric Nadel is both the recipient of the 2014 Ford Frick Award and also one of the most highly regarded of broadcasters by readers of FanGraphs. He’s also the guest on this edition of the podcast, recorded live on tape from Fenway Park.

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 19 min play time.)

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