Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

Caribbean Series Information Post, Game Day 5
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — began Friday in Hermosillo, Mexico, and continues through February 7th.

What follows is an assortment of information regarding that Series after four games.

Scores
Here are the results from Monday’s games, with links to the relevant box scores:

Game 1: Puerto Rico 6, Dominican Republic 4
Game 2: Mexico 2, Venezuela 0

Standings
The Series is played in a double round-robin format, with each team playing every other one twice. After the completion of same, the top two teams will meet in a championship game with a view to acquiring capital-G Glory.

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Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

A Reasonably Adequate Caribbean Series Update
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — began Friday in Hermosillo, Mexico, and continues through February 7th.

What follows is an assortment of information regarding that Series after three games.

Standings
The Series is played in a double round-robin format, with each team playing every other one twice. After the completion of same, the top two teams will meet in a championship game with a view to acquiring capital-G Glory.

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the New York Yankees. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cardinals / Cubs / Diamondbacks / Dodgers / Giants / Mariners / Marlins / Mets / Nationals / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Rays / Reds / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / White Sox.

Batters
It’s probably not entirely correct to say that Robinson Cano is twice as good as any of his field-playing teammates. What does appear to be the case, however, is that — owing to a combination of offensive production, positional adjustment, and durability — Robinson Cano is likely to be twice as valuable in 2013 as any of those same teammates.

Elsewhere, there are a lot of rather low plate-appearance projections among the Yankees batting corps. Brett Gardner, Travis Hafner, Alex Rodriguez, and Kevin Youkilis: none is forecast to make even as many as 500 plate appearances. Of course, A-Rod’s mean projection by that account is already appearing to be rather an optimistic one: according to general manager Brian Cashman, the nominal starting third baseman is expected back from hip surgery in July, but could potentially miss the entire season.

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Episode 301
Dayn Perry, contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and author of two books (one of them serviceable), aids in producing — if not what’s known as Radio Gold — then at least Radio Manganese.

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 0 min play time.)

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Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

A Barely Informed Preview of the Caribbean Series
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — begins today (Friday) at a new ballpark in Hermosillo, Mexico, and continues till February 7th. What the author lacks in knowledge concerning said Series, he makes up for — at least by, like, 20-25% — with enthusiasm for same.

That being the case, he has produced the following, i.e. a Barely Informed Preview of the Caribbean Series.

Participants
As noted above, the Series features the champions from baseball’s four notable winter leagues: the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter.

Here are the teams scheduled to appear in the forthcoming Caribbean Series and those teams’ most notable players (which the author has mostly Lehrer’d from this early post):

League: Dominican Winter
Champion: Escogido (roster)
Notable Players: Young Pirates outfielder Starling Marte, Mets utilityman Jordany Valdespin, occasional Red Sox infielder Mauro Gomez, well-traveled reliever Octavio Dotel, and excellent Rays closer Fernando Rodney.

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the Miami Marlins. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cardinals / Cubs / Diamondbacks / Dodgers / Giants / Mariners / Mets / Nationals / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Rays / Reds / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / White Sox.

Batters
It will come as no surprise to the reader to learn that the 2013 Marlins are likely to be a poor team. That’s not to suggest, of course, that the Miami players themselves will be anything less than committed to flawless victory, but rather that the front office — by way of their deadline and offseason trades — have conspired to make the chances of said flawless victory much less likely.

In the interest of brevity — and because the author is running out of port as he writes this — let’s summarize the projections for Miami’s field players via bullet-point technology:

Regard:
• Giancarlo Stanton‘s forecast — which is on par with Ryan Braun‘s (link) and Buster Posey’s (other link) — suggests that, if healthy, he could contend for MVP candidacy in the National League.
• ZiPS concurs with Justin Ruggiano’s pronouncement via Twitter from November — regarding the Marlins center-field spot — that Ruggiano’s “got this.” His two-win projection is the second-highest among Miami field players.
• Here’s the departed Jose Reyes‘s WAR projection relative to his replacement Adeiny Hechavarria’s: 4.3 vs. 1.3.

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

1. Five Notable Oliver Batting MLEs from 2012
2. Qs and As with Brian Cartwright, Proprietor of Oliver
3. Video: Cleveland Prospect Dorssys Paulino

Five Notable Oliver Batting MLEs from 2012
Attentive readers — and entirely negligent ones, too, probably — will have noted by now that Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been appearing all up in these electronic pages over the course of the last month.

I don’t believe I’m letting any cats out of their various bags when I state that, soon, FanGraphs will also be releasing Brian Cartwright’s Oliver projections — projections, that is, which could be acquired only in exchange for vast amounts of American currency at The Hardball Times as recently as last year.

By way of whetting the readership’s collective appetite, I present below five notable major-league equivalent stat lines (or, MLEs) from the 2012 season, courtesy that same Oliver system.

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cardinals / Cubs / Diamondbacks / Giants / Mariners / Mets / Nationals / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Rays / Reds / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / White Sox.

Batters
The Dodgers begin 2013 with slightly more than double the payroll of their 2012 opening-day roster. That fact established, it will not surprise the reader to learn that the Dodgers have spent some of that additional money on position players. The club’s highest-paid field player at the start of 2012 was outfielder Andre Ethier, at $10.95 million. As of today, the Dodgers have five batters earning more than that: Adrian Gonzalez ($21.9 million), Carl Crawford ($20.9 million), Matt Kemp ($20.3 million), Hanley Ramirez ($15.5 million), and Ethier himself ($13.5 million).*

One would hope — for the sake of order in the universe, if nothing else — that the Dodgers’ financial outlay would correlate to success. In fact, it appears as though it will. The Dodgers produced 20.3 WAR via batting and fielding last season; the squad presented here is probably closer to 25 WAR. To the front office’s credit, there are some values here, as well: Luis Cruz, A.J. Ellis, and Tim Federowicz — all expected to produce like average major leaguers — will combine to make just $3 million in 2013.

Figures stolen directly from Cot’s Contracts.

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

1. Assorted Headlines
2. GIFs: College Prospect Ryne Stanek’s Lusty Slider
3. Status Update: Venezuelan Winter League Championship Series

Assorted Headlines
Baseball America Publishes Excellent College Baseball Preview
“Published last Thursday” would be the more appropriate phrasing, but would also reveal that the author, who is hypothetically paid to do just such a thing, neglected to see Aaron Fitt’s excellent annual piece when it was released. In any case, Fitt has released his preview-cum-scouting-report of the top-25 college teams. First overall: North Carolina, which team features three starters who posted an 8.1 K/9 or better last season. Noted, and draft-eligible, pitching prospect Ryne Stanek — whose repertoire includes a mid-90s fastball and plus slider — heads third-ranked Arkansas.

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the Seattle Mariners. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cardinals / Cubs / Diamondbacks / Giants / Mets / Nationals / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Rays / Reds / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / White Sox.

Batters
One, choosing to wax optimistic with regard to the projections below, would note that five of the top six players by projected WAR on the Mariners are either 25 years old or younger. Dustin Ackley, Mike Zunino, Kyle Seager, Jesus Montero, and (less immediately) Brad Miller: not only might they form a young, cost-controlled nucleus around which the front office can build, but their youth suggests that improvement is not only possible, but likely.

Another, choosing to be less optimistic — perhaps because he knows that, as a resident of Seattle, summer proper is still ca. six months away and that the city will remain ensconced in a 45-degree rain cloud until then — perhaps that other one would emphasize the lack of impact talent among the club’s field players and how recent acquisitions (like Jason Bay, Raul Ibanez, Kendrys Morales, and Michael Morse) address the team’s needs, but by too little.

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