Episode 300
While most podcasts and their hosts will analyze maybe 30% or 50% of baseball or something like that, this one features FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron analyzing all baseball. Topics considered, specifically: the sanest way to evaluate new revelations of players using PEDs; if it’s possible to present information (like a ZiPS WAR projection, for example) so that it’s easily consumed but retains its nuance; the life and career of Nick Johnson.

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 39 min play time.)

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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. Table: Nick Johnson’s Walk Rate in Context
3. Three Images: Venezuelan Winter League Championship Series

Assorted Headlines
Johnson Announces Retirement
Former Yankees and Expos and Nationals first baseman Nick Johnson has retired, reports Sweeny Murti of New York’s WFAN. A legitimate offensive force when healthy, Johnson was frequently injured and amassed just 200 major-league plate appearances between 2010-12. A notably patient batter, he was among the league’s leaders in walk percentage over the course of his career — a claim that the author has supposed by means of nicely appointed table below.

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

1. Actual Quotes from the Actual Ryan Braun
2. Status Update: All the Caribbean Leagues
3. Plagiarized Video: Johnny Monell Hitting Home Runs

Actual Quotes from the Actual Ryan Braun
By what is likely a result of some manner of oversight or clerical error on their part, the BBWAA recently admitted the present author into its membership. What that does is to provide him (i.e. me, the author) less-than-fettered access to major-league baseball players and personnel. Having only ever had entirely fettered access beforehand, this represents a considerable improvement.

Sunday afternoon’s Brewers On Deck fanfest situation at Milwaukee’s Delta Center provided the first opportunity for the author to exercise the rights of his credential.

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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 Tampa Bay Rays. 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 / Reds / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / White Sox.

Batters
In a study from February of 2012, Matt Swartz found that designated hitters, left fielders, and first basemen — in that order — were, on average, (over)paid the most dollars per win on the open market. It’s fitting, perhaps, in light of these findings, that the Tampa Bay — an organization that has distinguished itself for its efficient spending — would be weakest at these positions. The players mostly likely to fill those roles for Tampa Bay are Luke Scott, Sam Fuld, Shelley Duncan, and James Loney. Combined, they’re unlikely to make much more than $5 million this season, depending on the precise terms of Scott’s recent deal.

Regardless of the degree to which it informs our understanding of Evan Longoria’s actual future, his top comparable, Jim Ray Hart, is of some interest — if for no other reason than the reader has likely (and the author has definitely) never heard of him. Hart, however, was among the league’s best players for a four-year stretch in the 1960s, as this totally embiggenable WAR grid reveals:

Lest the reader find himself concerned about Hart’s whereabouts today, rest easy: per Wikipedia, he “retired in 2006 to a life of leisure and good health.”

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Episode 299
It is accepted practice — to make a fortune cookie’s message more amusing — it’s accepted practice to add the words “in bed” to the end of it. RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris takes that technique to its logical conclusion in this edition of FanGraphs Audio, conducting the entirety of the conversation from his own actual bed.

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 39 min play time.)

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

1. Nerds Stats for Venezuela’s Provisional WBC Team
2. Comparative Images: Cesar Jimenez vs. Caesar Augustus

Nerds Stats for Venezuela’s Provisional WBC Team
Last Thursday, all 16 participants in this year’s World Baseball Classic announced their provisional rosters for that same tournament (which itself begins in early March). Recently, in the Notes, we’ve considered the nerds stats for some of the notable WBC rosters, where notable is defined as “those which most interest the author on that particular morning.”

Here are the countries considered so far: Canada* / Dominican Republic / United States.

*Not by this precise methodology.

Below are the members of the Venezuelan national team, accompanied by various nerd stats from the last three seasons of major-league play.

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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 St. Louis Cardinals. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

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

Batters
The Cardinals have a number of hitters who’ve posted above-average offensive numbers over the last three years on the strength of high batting averages on balls in play. David Freese (.359 BABIP, 1200 PA), Jon Jay (.348, 1328), Matt Holliday (.333, 1879), and Allen Craig (.329, 857): each has posted a ball-in-play figure considerably above league average (which typically falls in the .290-.300 range).

The production of high BABIPs certainly can be a skill; however, as Dan Szymborski suggested recently with regard to Detroit’s Austin Jackson (who’s also posted high ball-play-numbers), it takes rather a large sample for that skill to reveal itself in the numbers. Accordingly, the ZiPS projections are going to appear conservative for players whose offensive value has been informed more considerably by his batted-ball profile.

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Episode 298
David Temple is a contributor both to NotGraphs and the Platoon Advantage — and is now the proprietor of a podcast, Stealing Home, which makes up for its lack of quality content with excellent production value.

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 7 min play time.)

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

1. Regressed Stats for the Dutch League, Also
2. Professional Humor Video: Holland vs. the Netherlands

Regressed Stats for the Dutch League, Also
Much as he did for the Italian Baseball League in the composition of yesterday’s Daily Notes post, the author has spent a not insubstantial portion of the past 24 hours both (a) copy-and-pasting Dutch baseball league stats into an Excel file, and then (b) formatting and applying a simple regression to those same stats, so’s to produce the leaderboards one finds below — which is to say, SCOUT-type leaderboards for that same Dutch baseball league

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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 Detroit Tigers. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

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

Batters
On the one hand, we know that the league-average BABIP generally settles within the .290-.300 range. On the other, we also know that Tigers center fielder Austin Jackson has posted a .370 BABIP over his first three seasons (ca. 2000 plate appearances). On the third hand — this being one of those rare instances in which a third hand is present — we know that true-talent BABIP tends not to exceed about .350.

How does ZiPS handle a situation like this? Szymborski addressed a question along these very same lines on Wednesday, writing: “Short version: even at 1960 PA, you expect a player’s BABIP to regress ~43% toward mean.”

Otherwise, here’s a point of interest: Andy Dirks is likely as productive a major-league corner outfielder as Torii Hunter, whom Detroit signed to a two-year, $26 million contract this offseason — and is likely a full win better than the departed Delmon Young.

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