During the FOX telecast of Thursday night’s Game Two contest between Boston and St. Louis, there was some speculation among those gathered about what sort of players could have possibly been selected in the 2012 draft ahead of 19th-overall pick Michael Wacha, the Texas A&M product who has pitched excellently for the Cardinals this postseason just a year-plus after having been acquired.

In part, such feelings are understandable. One finds, in Wacha, a young pitcher excelling at the highest level under very demanding circumstances. That Wacha was chosen by the Cardinals — an organization whose player-development department appears, not unlike an early 1980s iteration of Tom Cruise, to have all the right moves — likely only compounds the impression that Wacha’s talents were there to be seen, had anyone been looking properly.

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Episode 393
Richard Whittall is the caretaker of The Score’s Counter Attack blog and a particularly thoughtful voice apropos the state of soccer analytics. He’s also the 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 53 min play time.)

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Episode 392
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 analyzes all of the World Serieses presently being contested.

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 35 min play time.)

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Over the past two weeks, the author has published an entirely premature statistical report and then a slightly less premature one of those for the Arizona Fall League — not necessarily because such a thing is of great utility to prospect analysis, but more because, for those of us not currently present in the Greater Phoenix area, it’s one of the few ways to participate in that very compelling league. Moreover, it can serve as a pretense upon which to discuss participants in that league, not unlike Atlanta’s Thomas La Stella.

What follows, then — sans both apology and expertise — is the third edition of this site’s weekly AFL statistical report.

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Episode 391
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 analyzes probably, like, every free agent.

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 35 min play time.)

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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs once again facilitated this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2013-14 free-agent market.

Below are the results of same. For each player, respondents provided estimates of the years/dollars each free agent is likely to receive (denoted as Real) and also how much they — were they, themselves, actual GMs — would offer each free agent in terms of years and dollars (denoted as Fake).

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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2013-14 free-agent market.

Note that, this year, in addition to asking readers to estimate the years/dollars each free agent is likely to receive, FanGraphs is also requesting that readers make note of how much they’d pay each free agent were they, themselves, actual GMs.

In this edition: Fernando Rodney.

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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2013-14 free-agent market.

Note that, this year, in addition to asking readers to estimate the years/dollars each free agent is likely to receive, FanGraphs is also requesting that readers make note of how much they’d pay each free agent were they, themselves, actual GMs.

In this edition: Joe Nathan.

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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2013-14 free-agent market.

Note that, this year, in addition to asking readers to estimate the years/dollars each free agent is likely to receive, FanGraphs is also requesting that readers make note of how much they’d pay each free agent were they, themselves, actual GMs.

In this edition: Edward Mujica.

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Episode 390
Brian Burke is the proprietor of the internet’s very excellent Advanced NFL Stats, itself roughly to football what FanGraphs is to baseball. He’s also the 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 45 min play time.)

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