Author Archive

Daily Notes: Rest-of-Season Leaderboards for Hitters, Pitchers

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

1. Rest-of-Season Leaderboards for Hitters, Pitchers
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Rest-of-Season Leaderboards for Hitters, Pitchers
Introduction
While Italian people are famously always like “che sarà” this and “sarà” that, it would appear as though the baseballing public’s relationship with the future is considerably more fraught. With a view towards easing whatever such anxieties might exist among this site’s readership, the author has prepared the following — namely, hitting and pitching leaderboards for the rest of the season, created from the projections freely available at the site.

For each hitter below is included his projected rest-of-season plate appearances, wOBA, and WAR; for each pitcher, projected rest-of-season innings, ERA, and WAR. Column headings preceded by an s denote Steamer projections; z, ZiPS projections; and c, a combination of the two.

A full list of both hitter and pitcher rest-of-season projections is available as a web page here.

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Daily Notes: On Jose Fernandez’s Last Two Starts, Briefly

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

1. On Jose Fernandez’s Last Two Starts, Briefly
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

On Jose Fernandez’s Last Two Starts, Briefly
A Note Regarding Jose Fernandez
Following his performance on Friday against Cleveland (box), Miami right-hander Jose Fernandez has recorded 27 strikeouts and a single walk against 56 batters over two starts and 16.0 innings, posting a 0.29 xFIP and 1.2 WAR over that interval.

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FanGraphs Audio: David Temple at SABR 43 in Philadelphia

Episode 366
David Temple is a contributor to NotGraphs and proprietor of the podcast Stealing Home. He and HardballTalk’s Aaron Gleeman (for like 10 minutes) are the guests on this edition of FanGraphs Audio, live on tape from the lobby of the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown.

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 14 min play time.)

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Daily Notes: Including a Leaderboard of Traded Players

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

1. A Leaderboard of Traded Players
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Leaderboard of Traded Players
Regarding What Has Happened
With the trade deadline having passed, it is now the duty of the public — between now and the end of the baseball season — it’s the duty of the public to pass Spirited Judgment regarding the efficacy of July’s trades. With a view to helping that same public fulfill their very important obligations, the author has produced a custom leaderboard of all the players both (a) who were involved in a trade during this past July who also (b) have some sort of previous major-league experience.

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Daily Notes: Very Compelling Prospect Chad Bettis to Debut

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

1. Very Compelling Prospect Chad Bettis to Debut
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Very Compelling Prospect Chad Bettis to Debut
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce how talented right-handed Colorado prospect Chad Bettis is making his debut today (Thursday) against Atlanta at 7:10pm ET.

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Daily Notes: Meeting of the Corey Kluber Society Today

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

1. Meeting of the Corey Kluber Society Today
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Meeting of the Corey Kluber Society Today
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is, firstly, to announce a meeting — in this case, at 7:05pm ET today (Wednesday) — of the Corey Kluber Society. Secondly, it’s to publish — for the reader’s pleasure — three accounts by noted personages of Corey Kluber and the eponymous Society.

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The Fringe Five: Baseball’s Most Compelling Fringe Prospects

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:

Chad Bettis, RHP, Colorado (Profile)
This marks the second consecutive week in which Bettis has appeared among the Five, and third overall. It’s possible, however, that it will be his last, as he’s scheduled to make his major-league debut on Thursday against Atlanta. Bettis has been excellent for Double-A Tulsa, recording a 68:13 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 63.0 innings. The right-hander has received considerable praise both for his fastball (which sits at 93-95 mph) and slider. As the very dark footage below indicates, however — from a recent start against Angels affiliate Arkansas — his changeup might also be an excellent pitch.

Like this changeup:

Bettis Coward CH SS 4th

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Daily Notes: A Brief Review of Brandon Beachy’s Season Debut

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

1. A Brief Review of Brandon Beachy’s Season Debut
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Brief Review of Brandon Beachy’s Season Debut
Introduction
Undrafted out of Indiana Wesleyan University in 2008 following his junior year there, but subsequently signed that summer by Atlanta for $20 thousand out of a collegeiate wood-bat league in Virginia, right-hander Brandon Beachy proceeded to move rapidly through the Braves system. After recording strikeout and walk rates of 26.5% and 5.7%, respectively, in 208.0 innings in the minors, Beachy made his major-league debut in 2010. The following season, he was excellent, posting an 82 xFIP- and 2.8 WAR in 141.2 innings. After 13 starts in 2012, he was forced to undergo Tommy John surgery. His start last (Monday) night against Colorado at home was his first in the majors since June of last year.

What follows is a brief review of same.

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FanGraphs Audio: Dave Cameron Analyzes All Trade Deadlines

Episode 365
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 mostly discusses the very approaching trade deadline.

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 36 min play time.)

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Daily Notes: Complete and Updated Team NERD Scores

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

1. Complete and Updated Team NERD Scores
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Complete and Updated Team NERD Scores
Introduction
In June of 2010, in response to a challenge issued by loud-thundering Rob Neyer, the present author submitted to the public the first iteration of a metric called — for reasons that need little elaboration — a metric called NERD. The purpose of NERD: to represent in a single number the likely aesthetic value of a player or team or game to the sabermetrically inclined. Over the last three years, there have been modifications to how NERD is calculated — the variables included in the formula, for example, and how heavily each of those variables is weighted — but the framework remains more or less the same.

What follows, below, are the complete and updated Team NERD scores for all 30 major-league clubs this season.

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