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The Hitting Stats for the Hitting Coaches
The Miami Marlins named former Cardinal and Devil Ray and Mariner and Yankee Tino Martinez as their new hitting coach this offseason, shortly after the departure of Ozzie Guillen and his staff — including Guillen’s hitting coach, former major leaguer Eduardo Perez.

There’s nothing to suggest, so far as the author knows, that a player’s own personal hitting ability is a determinative factor in his ability to coach others well in that same art. That said, it’s also the case that Martinez was an above-average hitter over the course of his 16-year career.

“How, generally, have the league’s batting coaches performed as major leaguers?” the author, who constructs thoughts in full sentences, asked himself. The answer, one finds, is best presented in the form of a table, not unlike the one below.

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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 Colorado Rockies. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

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

Batters
It is not surprising to find that, among Colorado’s field players, ZiPS finds two stars: Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez. The former, in particular, is fantastic on a per-game basis; however, injury trouble has created a rather conservative plate-appearances projection for Tulo. The shortstop has recently reported a return to form, but remember: ZiPS doesn’t know how or why he’s been injured, just that his playing time has been deflated in the near past.

Elsewhere, like last season, third base appears to be a cause for some concern for the Rockies in 2013. Chris Nelson (0.3 WAR in 377 PA) and Jordan Pacheco (0.2 WAR in 505 PA) started 148 games there between them in 2012. Neither appears to be a starting option on a winning team. Likely second baseman Josh Rutledge, meanwhile, must be a pleasant surprise for the club. Ranked around 10th on most prospect lists entering the 2012 season, ZiPS suggests that he’s become something not unlike a major-league regular.

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1. A Schedule of Upcoming Actual Baseball
2. GIF: Last Pitch of the 2009 WBC

A Schedule of Upcoming Actual Baseball
With the announcement scheduled for Thursday of all 16 WBC provisional rosters and also the continued progression of the various winter-league playoffs — which end, finally, with the Caribbean Series (in Hermosillo, Mexico this year) — the prospect of real-live baseball is an actual thing.

Below are three upcoming events that will offer said real and live baseball to the reader.

Event: 2013 Caribbean Series
Dates: February 1-7
Notes: The Caribbean Series features the winners of the four major winter leagues from the Dominican, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela — and looks likely to feature, for example, Elvis Andrus and Pablo Sandoval this season (whose Magallanes team is currently first place in the Venezuelan league’s playoff round robin) and probably Javier Vazquez (who continues to dominate for Caguas in Puerto Rico). While in past seasons the Caribbean Series has utilized merely a round-robin format, this year’s edition will feature a proper final (about which one can read here). The Series is generally available on both MLB Network and MLB.com.

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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 Chicago White Sox. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cubs / Giants / Nationals / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Royals.

Batters
To their credit, Chicago has had some success in populating their starting lineup with cost-controlled talent. Alejandro De Aza, Gordon Beckham, Tyler Flowers, Dayan Viciedo: all are either in their first season of arbitration or earlier, and all are likely to be worth more than their salaries in 2012. What’s less fortunate is that none of them is likely to be any better than average, if that.

Even more unfortunate is that no other field player on the team is projected to be much better than average, either. Adam Dunn, Paul Konerko, and Alex Rios will make more than $40 million combined in 2013, but are forecast to produce just six wins or so — or, about $7 million a win.

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Episode 294
FanGraphs author and proprietor of Mariners SB Nation blog Lookout Landing Jeff Sullivan analyzes a certain portion of baseball less than all of it, but more than none.

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 49 min play time.)

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1. Nerds Stats for Canadia’s Provisional WBC Team
2. For Reference Sake: Maps of Canada
3. Video: Team Canada’s Best Reliever, Sort Of

Nerds Stats for Canadia’s Provisional WBC Team
It has come to the attention of the author that a certain number of this site’s readers are from Canada. In not entirely unrelated news, certain representatives from Canada have recently announced that country’s provisional roster for the World Baseball Classic (which itself begins in early March).

Below are the members of that roster, accompanied by various nerd stats.

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1. Top Performers of the Venezuelan Winter League
2. Unhelpful Video: Alex Torres Recording a Strikeout Once
3. Final (!) SCOUT Leaderboards: Venezuelan Winter League

Top Performers of the Venezuelan Winter League
The playoffs for the Venezuelan Winter League (VWL) have begun — and, as such, the regular-season stats for the players in said League are final.

Here are the top performers of the VWL, per SCOUT (a metric explained below, but which, briefly stated, uses regressed inputs to help make sense of small samples).

Best Hitter (Overall): Luis Jimenez
One of the best hitters in last year’s edition of the VWL, DH-type Luis Jimenez finishes this year with the league’s best regressed offensive line, as well. A bit on the giant side so far as humans are concerned, Jimenez received his first major-league plate appearances in 2012, his age-30 season, posting this line in seven games: 18 PA, .059/.111/.059 (.077 BABIP), 1 BB, 4 K, -0.3 WAR. While finishing just ninth in the VWL by total home runs (nine), Jimenez’s plate-discipline numbers (39:29 BB:K) set him apart. A part of the Mariners organization in 2011-12, Jimenez signed with Toronto at the beginning of December.

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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 Pittsburgh Pirates. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cubs / Giants / Nationals / Phillies / Rangers / Royals.

Batters
Andrew McCutchen’s projection unsurprisingly places him among the early candidates for the NL MVP award. Certain readers might note, however, that the WAR forecast here represents a decline not only from his excellent 2012 season, but also (by a slight margin) his 2011 one — despite the fact that he’s still theoretically on the upward slope of his age curve. I asked Szymborski about this, to which he responded, as follows:

Regression to mean. Great players usually have (and should have) lower projections than years in which very little went wrong — the risk is generally one-sided. And in this case, Cutch has that .375 BABIP in 2012 as well. ZiPS still gives him a 35% chance of a 140+ OPS+, 8% 160+.

Part of the difference is the defense — the projection’s the same as his 2011 fWAR minus 4 runs of defense.

While McCutchen has been Pittsburgh’s best field player in each of his first four seasons, ZiPS is optimistic that the club’s supporting cast will be more, uh… supportive than in previous seasons. Since 2009, never has McCutchen had more than three teammates with a season WAR total of 2.0 or greater. ZiPS projects four such players in 2013: Pedro Alvarez, Starling Marte, Russell Martin, and Neil Walker.

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Episode 293
Prospect analyst Marc Hulet discusses his organizational top-15 prospect lists for the 2012-13 offseason, with particular attention to right-handed reliever Jim Henderson (Brewers), other right-handed reliever Bruce Rondon (Tigers), and infield-sort Jonathan Schoop (Orioles) — as well as the assorted issues raised by each.

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
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1. FAN Projection Targets: Basically Every Brewers Starter
2. Action GIF: Mark Rogers’ Slider
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Australian Baseball League

FAN Projection Targets: Basically Every Brewers Starter
As is made apparent by the very recently released 2013 ZiPS projections for the Milwaukee Brewers, the starting rotation for said team contains a considerable amount of uncertainty — due either to a change of roles in the not-very-distant past (Marco Estrada, Mike Fiers) or injury (Chris Narveson, Mark Rogers).

In situations like this, where information not included in the ZiPS algorithm might be of some import regarding a specific player, it’s possible that the Wisdom of the Crowds might have some advantage in producing an able projection for said player.

To that end, the author encourages the readership to complete FAN Projection ballots for the following five pitchers — all candidates for Milwaukee’s rotation in 2013.

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