Episode 259
Are this season’s playoffs too dramatic? Managing editor Dave Cameron’s answer might shock you — although, probably only if you’re easily shocked. Also asked: Why does everyone hate A-Rod so hard? And: Are the Cardinals magic?

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 31 min. play time.)

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

1. Contract Crowdsourcing: An Introduction
2. Contract Crowdsourcing: Catchers
3. Today’s One Playoff Game

Contract Crowdsourcing: An Introduction
A Thing That’s a Fact
A totally true fact is that free agency this year begins a mere five days after the end of the World Series — at which point, major- and minor-league free agents may sign contracts with teams other than their former clubs.

Another Thing That’s a Fact
Another thing that’s a fact is how, despite clearly lacking all taste so far as books and films are concerned, is how the Crowds possess a certain Wisdom wherein estimating figures is concerned — like the weight of a slaughtered and dressed ox, for example.

The Only Obvious Conclusion
The only obvious conclusion one is permitted to draw from the true facts above is that the Crowds might be particularly well-suited to estimating the contract year and dollar-value amounts this offseason’s notable free agents are likely to receive.

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I did not know five minutes ago — but probably should have, owing to how I’ve watched Law and Order at least once in my life — that, per U.S. law, all deaths are classified as one of five sorts. These sorts, in fact:

• Natural
• Accidental
• Homicide
• Suicide
• Undetermined

Another thing I didn’t know five minutes ago, but have realized is likely not the worst idea, is that a way to discuss the Nationals’ (now deceased) 2012 season — and, in particular, their playoff-series defeat at the hands of the St. Louis Cardinals — is via the language of forensic science, a very basic understanding of which I’ve just acquired from Wikipedia, and which I will now dispense haphazardly throughout what follows.

“What was the cause of the death of the Nationals’ 2012 season?” we ask.

Here are cases for all five of the legally recognized types:

Type of Death: Natural

Real Definition: Death by illness or malfunction of the body.

Baseball Definition: All humans die. All baseball teams but one (i.e. the World Series winners) are eliminated. Most human deaths are natural. Most baseball teams, just by virtue of the season/playoff format, are unlikely to win a championship in a given season.

Relevance to Nats: The Nationals were a good baseball team this year, posting the best Pythagorean record in the National League. That said, the Cardinals were also a good baseball team, one which posted the second-best Pythagorean record in the National League. Over the course of 162 games, the Nationals would probably have beaten the Cardinals, like, 82 times. Logic dictates then that, over the course of a playoff series — a short, five-game series, especially — each team probably had about a 50% chance of winning.

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Because I’m married — and because my wife informed me that we needed to “get out of the house” at around 5pm CT or whatever — I watched the last third of yesterday afternoon’s Cardinals-Nationals NLDS game from a very authentic sort of supper club near my house in Madison, Wisconsin.

Watching baseball at a supper club in Wisconsin is nothing to complain about — one is warm, one is drinking a brandy Old Fashioned, one is drinking (later on) a second brandy Old Fashioned. Life, in short, has been perfected.

What is something to complain about, I learned — especially if you’re Matt Holliday or the TBS broadcast team or (later on) the entire internet — is home-plate umpire Jim Joyce’s strike zone.

These were not complaints that I actually heard with my own ears. Perhaps the one drawback of watching a baseball game at an authentic sort of supper club in Wisconsin is that a constant soundtrack of top hits from the 50s and 60s and 70s takes precedence over audio commentary.

However, all was not lost: as a married person — and especially as a married person who is also an idiot — I have become quite adept at registering frustration in the facial and bodily expressions of others (wives, most notably, but different kinds of people, too). Which, as an expert in this area, frustration is what I registered on the face and body of Matt Holliday following the third pitch (and third called strike) of his eighth inning plate appearance against Nationals.

Can you spot it?

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

1. Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Indepedent American Association
2. Mostly Relevant Video: Brian Myrow Doubling in 2008
3. Today’s Playoff Games

Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Indepedent American Association
Regarding What Happened Recently
What happened recently is the author, having noted a news story regarding the final game of the independent Atlantic League’s championship series, endeavored to publish SCOUT hitting and pitching leaderboards for that same league.

Regarding What Happened Even More Recently
A thing that happened even more recently is the author, in preparing the aforementioned SCOUT leaderboards for the Atlantic League, was reminded about how there are, like, six or whatever other indepedent leagues — information for all of which the FanGraphs readership would undoubtedly be clamoring.

Regarding What’s Happening Right Now
What’s happening right now is — for the benefit of the clamoring readership — is the author is presenting SCOUT hitting and pitching leaderboards for the independent American Association, which ended in mid-September (championship box score). Click here for a full list of teams and standings.

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Episode 258
David Laurila, curator of FanGraphs’ Q&A Series, talks with former major-league left-hander and co-author (with Yahoo’s Tim Brown) of a recently released autobiography, Jim Abbott.

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 17 min. play time.)

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The Washington Nationals face elimination from the playoffs today at home, down 2-1 in their NLD Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Pitching for the Cardinals is Kyle Lohse, who is a fine, if not excellent, starter. The Nationals counter with left-hander Ross Detwiler — or, as he will likely be referred to more than once by TBS broadcasters Dick Stockton and Bob Brenly, “Not Stephen Strasburg.”

The reader probably hasn’t heard about it even once, so allow me to say: Stephen Strasburg is an excellent pitcher for the Nationals. He had Tommy John surgery towards the end of the 2010 season. He rehabbed for the majority of the 2011 season. Entering 2012, the Nationals suggested that they’d enforce some manner of innings limit with Strasburg — just as they had the previous year with other, young Tommy John-survivor Jordan Zimmermann. Then both Strasburg and the Nationals were really good — like, good enough, at one point, that the playoffs became a foregone conclusion (which is weird for the Nationals). Then people were like, “Are you really going to shut down Stephen Strasburg?!?” And then the Nationals were like, “Yes.” And then they did. In September.

It’s not necessarily the case that Stephen Strasburg would be pitching this game today, but it’s also the case that the only reason Ross Detwiler is pitching this afternoon is because Stephen Strasburg was shut down. Otherwise, the Nationals would have likely deployed a playoff rotation of Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Zimmermann, and Edwin Jackson — with Strasburg pitching a hypothetical fifth game.

What the people are certainly wondering — and which question Stockton and Brenly will certainly ask today — is “How much is Strasburg’s absence actually worth in terms of run prevention?” Or, alternatively: “How many runs would Strasburg have saved over his replacement(s)?”

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

1. Premature SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
2. Video: Brian Goodwin on Emergence
3. Today’s Playoff Games

Premature SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
Regarding What Happened Recently
Recently (which is to say, Tuesday), this year’s edition of the Arizona Fall League began.

Regarding What’s Happening Now
What happening right now is, is the author is publishing a pair of entirely premature SCOUT leaderboards — one for hitting, the other for pitching — including the data from the first two days of the AFL.

Regarding What Is SCOUT
SCOUT is a metric calculated using regressed defense-indepedent numbers (walks, strikeouts, and — for hitters — home runs). The offensive version is SCOUT+, where 100 is league average and above 100 is above average. Its pitching counterpart is SCOUT-, where 100 is league average and below 100 represents above-average run prevention. (Read more here, if you’re even interested.)

Regarding SCOUT, One of Its Benefits
A benefit of SCOUT is it allows one to compare the relative performances of players with markedly different sample sizes and/or batted-ball luck.

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The St. Louis Cardinals won Game Three of their NLD Series against the Washington Nationals on Wednesday, taking a 2-1 lead in said series in the process. Besides Chris Carpenter, who pitched 5.2 scoreless (if not always dominant) innings, the player most directly responsible for the Cardinal victory — by Win Probability Added, I mean — was shortstop Pete Kozma, whose second-inning three-run homer (at .128 WPA) was the game’s single most decisive play and whose 0.11 WPA for the game was tops among Cardinal hitters.

Here’s how you, the reader — provided you’re not a Nationals fan, at least — feel about Pete Kozma, probably: you like him. Here’s why you like him, maybe: because he’s just a little guy. Or here’s why else, maybe: because he was in the minors until the end of August and is now the starting shortstop for a playoff team. Or here’s a third reason, perhaps: because he’s produced better offensively over the last month-plus in the majors than he did at any time, basically, during his previous five months in the very offensive Triple-A Pacific Coast League.

One other possible reason you like Pete Kozma is because you’re his mother — in which case, that’s really great how curious you are about advanced baseball analysis, Mrs. Kozma. Welcome.

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

1. Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Indepedent Atlantic League
2. Video: Atlantic League Excellent Pitcher Matthew Way
3. Today’s Playoff Games

Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Indepedent Atlantic League
Regarding What Happened Recently
What happened recently is the independent Atlantic League’s 2012 season ended, with Long Island defeating Lancaster on Sunday in the fifth game of a five-game championship series (box).

Regarding What Else Happened Recently
What happened even more recently is, is the author prepared hitting and pitching SCOUT leaderboards for the now completed and very independent Atlantic League.

Regarding What Is SCOUT
SCOUT is a metric calculated using regressed defense-indepedent numbers (walks, strikeouts, and — for hitters — home runs). The offensive version is SCOUT+, where 100 is league average and above 100 is above average. Its pitching counterpart is SCOUT-, where 100 is league average and below 100 represents above-average run prevention. (Read more here, if you’re even interested.)

Regarding SCOUT, One of Its Benefits
A benefit of SCOUT is it allows one to compare the relative performances of players with markedly different sample sizes and/or batted-ball luck.

Read the rest of this entry »