Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels*, and (most importantly) lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing on any updated list — such as the revised and midseason lists released by Baseball America or BP’s recent midseason top-50 list — will also be excluded from eligibility.

*All 200 names!

In the final analysis, the basic idea is this: to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Yonny Chirinos, RHP, Tampa Bay (Profile)
This represents Chirinos’s third consecutive appearance among the Five. His start this week, on Wednesday against Pirates affiliate Indianapolis, was consistent with the others he’s produced over the past month or so. Against 26 batters over 6.0 innings, the 23-year-old right-hander recorded an 8:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and conceded his lone earned run on a homer (box).

Chirinos continues to exhibit impressive comfort with his secondary pitches, showing a willingness to throw them in all counts. Indeed, he began his most recent appearance with three different pitches, all for strikes, to dispatch swiftly of Indy leadoff hitter Eury Perez.

This video footage documents that sequence:

Read the rest of this entry »

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.

How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.

Most Highly Rated Game
Milwaukee at Pittsburgh | 12:35 ET
Nelson (115.2 IP, 75 xFIP-) vs. Taillon (67.2 IP, 83 xFIP-)
The author’s haphazardly constructed algorithm has identified three games of similar interest today: this Milwaukee-Pittsburgh game, the Arizona-Cincinnati contest also at 12:35 p.m. ET, and the Yankees-Mariners game at 10:10 p.m. ET. Of particular note regarding this game is the pitching matchup, featuring a pair of starters who each sit at 95 mph and who’ve recorded roughly five wins between them, both by the FIP-based version of WAR and the runs-allowed one.

One might consider preparing for the game by reading about how Jimmy Nelson has utilized his college studies in kinesiology to render his mechanics more efficient. One might consider also not doing that.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Milwaukee Radio.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.

How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.

Most Highly Rated Game
Seattle at Houston | 14:10 ET
Paxton (87.1 IP, 79 xFIP-) vs. Morton (68.2 IP, 86 xFIP-)
Three games are separated by mere hundredths of a point for the distinction of today’s most appealing, per the author’s haphazardly constructed algorithm. The Yankees-Twins contest features two clubs in close proximity to the top of their respective divisions. The Tampa Bay-Oakland game features, in the Rays, one of the league’s top power-hitting and running clubs despite a prohibitive budget. Finally, this Mariners-Astros affair offers a pair of pitchers who’ve recorded an average fastball velocity of 96 mph. Were free will to exist, the reader would be invited to exercise his or her while deciding which of today’s games to consume. Because it doesn’t however, no such invitation has been been extended.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Seattle or Houston Radio.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 756
Last week, managing editor Dave Cameron discussed the first couple installments of his annual Trade Value series. Now he discusses the last few installments.

A reminder: FanGraphs’ Ad Free Membership exists. Click here to learn more about it and share some of your disposable income with FanGraphs.

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 42 min play time.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.

How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.

Most Highly Rated Game
Arizona at Cincinnati | 19:10 ET
Ray (106.0 IP, 86 xFIP-) vs. Romano (8.0 IP, 125 xFIP-)
The author’s haphazardly constructed algorithm indicates that no single game on today’s schedule is demonstrably more promising than the others. As for this contest between the D-back and Reds, it has received the honored designation of Most Highly Rated largely because of the dumb author’s own interest in young, right-hander Sal Romano. Not unlike other Reds starter Luis Castillo, Romano entered the season with something less than universal praise as a prospect. Also like Castillo, however, he features a plus fastball. Consider: over two starts, Romano has recorded an average fastball velocity of 96.3 mph. That mark would place him fifth among the league’s 71 qualifiers.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Arizona Radio.

Read the rest of this entry »

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.

How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.

Most Highly Rated Game
Milwaukee at Pittsburgh | 19:05 ET
Suter (27.1 IP, 94 xFIP-) vs. Kuhl (85.1 IP, 110 xFIP-)
The author’s haphazardly calculated algorithm has identified today’s Brewers-Pirates game as the day’s most compelling due partly to Milwaukee’s chances of winning the division (about 64% accrording to the coin-flip method) and also to Brent Suter’s surprising competence as a member of the Brewers’ rotation (he’s recorded an 83 xFIP- over three starts). Why else that algorithm has identified this game as the day’s most compelling, though, is due to the pace at which Suter works.

Consider the following table, which includes the top pace marks by starting pitchers (minimum 10 innings):

What one finds here is that Suter works a second faster per pitch than the next resident on this list, Madison Bumgarner, and that he works two seconds more quickly per pitch than the sixth-fastest-working pitcher. League average among starters is 23.6 seconds between pitches, or roughly six seconds slower than Suter. Over the course of a 100 pitches, in other words, Brent Suter saves 10 minutes of everyone’s life — time which one can then dedicate to the consumption of a long Russian novel or other improving book.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Milwaukee Radio.

Read the rest of this entry »

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.

How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.

Most Highly Rated Game
New York AL at Boston | 20:05 ET
Tanaka (102.0 IP, 88 xFIP-) vs. Price (53.0 IP, 104 xFIP-)
Were the season only a month or two old, the author’s haphazardly constructed algorithm would have likely identified this afternoon’s Giants-Padres games as the day’s most promising — based, that, on what appears to be that contest’s superior pitching matchup (based on 2017 performance, at least). However! As the season continues, the aforementioned algorithm weighs more heavily the seasonal leverage of the clubs involved. San Francisco and San Diego, possessing no reasonable chance of qualifying for the postseason, are playing what amounts to a well-attended exhibition game today. As for New York and Boston, however, each possesses a very reasonable chance, thus making the consequences of any one game (such as this one) much greater.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston Radio.

Read the rest of this entry »

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.

How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.

Most Highly Rated Game
New York AL at Boston | 16:05 ET
Severino (106.2 IP, 69 xFIP-) vs. Sale (127.2 IP, 61 xFIP-)
This game features one of the best pitchers in the American League by every reasonable measure against the actual best pitcher in the American League by every reasonable measure. What else it features is a pair of clubs with encouraging but inconclusive postseason futures. This, like almost anything including bufala mozzarella, is a very promising recipe.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston Radio.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels*, and (most importantly) lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing on any updated list — such as the revised and midseason lists released by Baseball America or BP’s recent midseason top-50 list — will also be excluded from eligibility.

*All 200 names!

In the final analysis, the basic idea is this: to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Yonny Chirinos, RHP, Tampa Bay (Profile)
The right-handed Chirinos made his debut among the Five last Friday. That evening, he started for Triple-A Durham and exhibited all the same traits that led to his first appearance here, recording a 6:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 29 total batters over 8.0 innings in a game against the Tigers’ Triple-A affiliate (box). To the extent that one can tell merely by observing game footage, he also appeared to demonstrate even more impressive velocity than in earlier contests.

Consider, by way of example, this three-pitch sequence to Detroit prospect Jason Krizan — a collection of fastballs at 95 and 95 and then 96 mph, ending in a strikeout:

Read the rest of this entry »