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

1. Best Performances of the Cape Cod League
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Best Performances of the Cape Cod League
Introduction
The 2013 iteration of the Cape Cod League — the collegiate, wood-bat summer league responsible for approximately a third of the most recent draft’s first-round picks (and a similar percentage of the first ten rounds’ picks) — concluded last Thursday. This most recent Tuesday, the author found that last year’s top Cape League batters have posted a collective 125 wRC+ in their first exposure to professional ball; the top pitchers, a collective 2.93 FIP.

Below are the final SCOUT leaderboards for this year’s top Cape League hitters and pitchers — and notes concerning same. (All data courtesy Pointstreak.)

Read the rest of this entry »

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

1. Facts Regarding Danny Salazar After 23 Innings
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Facts Regarding Danny Salazar After 23 Innings
Introduction
With his start on Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Americans, Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar has now recorded 23.0 innings in the major leagues this season (and also ever, one finds) — i.e. three innings above the haphazardly selected 20-inning threshold a pitcher must pass in order to qualify for NERD*.

Salazar debuts today on the NERD leaderboard** with perfect score of 10 — and, moreover, has recorded the highest raw score (i.e. not adjusted for the 0-10 scale) among the 217 qualified pitchers. What follows is a brief examination of those factors which have most directly contributed to Salazar’s success both in terms of run prevention and at invoking sensations of awe within the bosoms of every spectator.

**For more on NERD, see below.
**Click here to see current NERD scores for all pitchers.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Fringe Five is a weekly exercise (introduced in April) wherein the 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 this exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe. The author recognizes that the word has different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of this column, however — and for reasons discussed more thoroughly in a recent edition of the Five — the author has considered eligible for the Five any prospect who was absent from all of three notable preseason top-100 prospect lists.

That said, it should also be noted that in cases where the collective enthusiasm regarding a player’s talent becomes very fevered — like how the enthusiasm collectively right now for Philadelphia third-base prospect Maikel Franco is very fevered, for example — that will likely affect said player’s likelihood of appearing among the Five, given that the purpose of the series, at some level, is to identify prospects who are demonstrating promise above what one might expect given their current reputations within the prospect community.

With that said, here are this week’s Fringe Five:

Mookie Betts, 2B, Boston (Profile)
This marks the fourth week in which Betts has appeared among the Fringe Five, nor have the conditions which first earned him a place here changed, really, at all. Now in 160 plate appearances with High-A Salem, Betts has continued to control the strike zone (having recorded a 10.0% walk and 10.0% strikeout rate there), to hit for more power than his body might otherwise suggest (5 HR), and to demonstrate exciting baserunning skills (as his 17-for-17 record on stolen bases likely suggests). Since last week’s edition of the Five, Betts has performed along all those same lines, having posted a 2:2 walk-to-strikeout rate in 30 plate appearances and stolen three bases on as many attempts.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 373
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 discusses notable ideas from the recent Saber Seminar (or SaberSeminar or Saberseminar) in Boston, MA.

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 33 min play time.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

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

1. Professional Stats of Last Year’s Cape Leaders
2. Danny Salazar Night in the Americas, Maybe
3. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

Professional Stats of Last Year’s Cape Leaders
Introduction
The 2013 iteration of the Cape Cod League — the collegiate, wood-bat summer league responsible for approximately a third of the most recent draft’s first-round picks (and a similar percentage of the first ten rounds’ picks) — concluded this past Thursday. Tomorrow, the author will publish the SCOUT* leaderboards for this year’s Cape League hitters and pitchers. For the purposes of this edition of the Notes, however, what the author has done is to create a custom leaderboard featuring the top-10 hitters and pitchers from last year’s Cape League, according to that same methodology.

*The (poorly) regressed defense-independent index stat devised by the author.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

1. Danny Salazar Night in the Americas
2. Promotion Watch 2013: Xander Bogaerts
3. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

Danny Salazar Night in the Americas
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce — such that residents of the Americas (plural) be made aware — to announce that today is Danny Salazar Night in all their respective countries.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

1. Analysis from the Author’s Unsporting Friend
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Analysis from the Author’s Unsporting Friend
The author, as he writes this, is presently sitting across a breakfast table from a former grad-school companion — one (a) who is a very good and talented friend, but (b) whose knowledge of baseball appears entirely confined to the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term in office.

What follows is a small collection of that same friend’s thoughts on the game, in the order which they (i.e. those thoughts) appeared:

On the 1988 World Series
“I hope Kirk Gibson’s leg is alright.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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

1. Largely Concerning Jenrry Mejia’s Start Today
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Largely Concerning Jenrry Mejia’s Start Today
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is mostly to announce that Mets right-hander Jenrry Mejia both (a) has been excellent thus far in his return to the majors and (b) is pitching tonight (Saturday) at 8:40pm ET.

Regarding Mejia’s Performance to Date
Through four starts and over 24.1 innings, the 23-year-old Mejia has recorded strikeout and walk rates of 22.5% and 3.1%, respectively — marks which would place him 23rd and first overall, also respectively, among 91 qualified starters. His ground-ball rate of 57.5%, moreover, would be second-best among that same population.

A Haphazard Comparison Involving Jenrry Mejia
Here’s a haphazardly selected statistical comparison between Mejia and another pitcher (in this case, Adam Wainwright) whom the author noticed has a similar profile — in this case, featuring each pitcher’s defense-independent performance over the last month:

Mejia and Wainwright, Another Similarity
Beyond some statistical similarities over the past month, what Mejia and Wainwright also have in common is that each throws a fastball with cutting action about one-third of the time.

Action Footage: Jenrry Mejia’s Slider
Here’s action footage from Mejia’s August 8th start against Colorado of the right-hander striking out Corey Dickerson on an excellent slider:

Slower Action Footage: That Same Slider
And here’s slower action footage of that same pitch:

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Houston at Los Angeles AL | 21:05 ET
Dallas Keuchel (114.0 IP, 90 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR) faces Garrett Richards (93.2 IP, 88 xFIP-, 1.1 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston Radio, Perhaps?

Today’s Complete Schedule
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.8.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Trevor Cahill	AZ	5	3	4	7	3	PIT	Jeff Locke	16:05
Hiroki Kuroda	NYA	5	3	6	9	8	BOS	John Lackey	16:05
Joe Kelly	STL	4	3	4	5	3	CHN	Travis Wood	16:05
Chad Bettis*	COL	8	7	6	9	3	BAL	Bud Norris	19:05
Clayton Kershaw	LAN	10	3	5	0	3	PHI	Kyle Kendrick	19:05
Wade Davis	KC	4	7	6	7	7	DET	Doug Fister	19:08
Chris Sale	CHA	10	1	7	3	7	MIN	Andrew Albers*	19:10
Mat Latos	CIN	8	3	5	4	4	MIL	Yovani Gallardo	19:10
Matt Cain	SF	5	5	5	1	7	MIA	Hend. Alvarez	19:10
J.A. Happ	TOR	0	5	4	10	6	TB	R. Hernandez	19:10
St. Strasburg	WAS	10	2	8	8	8	ATL	Mike Minor	19:10
Felix Hernandez	SEA	10	4	8	3	8	TEX	Martin Perez	20:05
Jenrry Mejia	NYN	10	7	7	6	3	SD	Edinson Volquez	20:40
Ubaldo Jimenez	CLE	3	7	5	6	6	OAK	Dan Straily	21:05
Dallas Keuchel	HOU	7	4	7	7	7	LAA	Garrett Richards	21:05

To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.

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

1. Most Improved Pitchers So Far, Per ZiPS
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Most Improved Pitchers So Far, Per ZiPS
In May, the author examined those hitters and pitchers whose projections had most improved, up till that point, according to the Steamer and ZiPS systems. This week, in the Notes, we’re revisiting that effort.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we looked at the most improved hitters according to Steamer and ZiPS, respectively. Yesterday, we considered here the most improved pitchers according to Steamer — where “most improved” is defined as “greatest decrease in projected ERA.” Below are the most improved pitchers according to ZiPS.

Note: pitchers who (a) are projected to make starts in fewer than 50% of their remaining appearances or (b) are absent currently from a major-league roster have been omitted from consideration. Other note: only pitchers who were assigned both a preseason and rest-of-season projection have been considered.

5. Derek Holland, LHP, Texas
ZiPS (Pre): 170.2 IP, 7.43 K/9, 2.90 BB/9, 1.42 HR/9, 4.53 ERA
ZiPS (RoS): 47.0 IP, 7.80 K/9, 2.75 BB/9, 1.11 HR/9, 4.02 ERA
Notes: Holland’s strikeout and walk rates this season are better, but not significantly better, than in past seasons. His ground-ball rate has actually decreased. What’s mostly improved for Holland is the rate at which fly balls have become home runs: the left-hander has recorded a 7.3% HR/FB this season, after a 15.2% mark last one.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

1. Most Improved Pitchers So Far, Per Steamer
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Most Improved Pitchers So Far, Per Steamer
In May, the author examined those hitters and pitchers whose projections had most improved, up till that point, according to the Steamer and ZiPS systems. This week, in the Notes, we’re revisiting that effort.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we looked at the most improved hitters according to Steamer and ZiPS, respectively. Below are the most improved pitchers according to Steamer — where “most improved” is defined as “greatest decrease in projected ERA.”

Note: pitchers who (a) are projected to make starts in fewer than 50% of their remaining appearances or (b) are absent currently from a major-league roster have been omitted from consideration.

5. John Lackey, RHP, Boston
Steamer (Pre): 143.0 IP, 5.89 K/9, 2.98 BB/9, 0.98 HR/9, 4.42 ERA
Steamer (RoS): 43.0 IP, 7.47 K/9, 2.55 BB/9, 0.85 HR/9, 3.77 ERA
Notes: Lackey’s present strikeout rate of 22.2% is the highest such figure he’s recorded since 2005, when he posted a 22.3% mark. His current 81 xFIP- would be the lowest of his career by that measure.

Read the rest of this entry »