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

1. Featured Game: St. Louis at Cincinnati, 19:10 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: St. Louis at Cincinnati, 19:10 ET
A Thing That Will Surprise You
A thing that will surprise you, the marvelous reader, is perhaps that tonight’s starter for Cincinnati, Mat Latos, after a generally miserable April and May, currently has a 95 xFIP- (i.e. park- and league-adjusted xFIP, where below 100 is better).

Regarding Mat Latos, His xFIPs by Month
Here are Latos’s xFIPs by month this season, so far (month and innings pitched in parentheses): 4.79 (April, 28.2 IP), 4.00 (May, 30.1), 3.02 (June, 38.2), 2.26 (July, 7.0).

What a Reasonable Person Might Suggest
A person — an entirely reasonable one, in fact — might suggest, after looking at Mat Latos’s month-by-month xFIPs, that some manner of “trend” has revealed itself.

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Episode 211
Dayn Perry, contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and author of two books (one of them serviceable), discusses for, like, three minutes what he did over the July 4th holiday.

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 6 min. play time.)

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Episode 210
In the wake of his print interview with Glen Perkins, David Laurila, curator of FanGraphs’ Q&A Series, asks the Twins left-hander some questions posed by actual, real-live FanGraphs readers.

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 22 min. play time.)

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

1. World Series Odds, Converted into Projections
2. Actual Transaction News
3. Video for No Reason: Mets Prospect Josh Edgin

World Series Odds, Converted into Projections
Regarding What This Is
This past offseason, after internet sportsbook Bodog had published their early odds for 2012’s World Series winner, I converted those odds into very basic projections, with a view towards seeing what the wisdom of the crowd might reveal about the upcoming season.

Now, with the season roughly at its midway point, I present updated World Series odds, once again converted into projected winning percentages for the league’s 30 clubs.

One Way This Is Different
One way these projected winning percentages are different from those from Novemeber is that these are based on odds from Pinnacle sportsbook, not Bodog. As reader Cliff noted in that first post, Bodog is what’s known as a “square’ book — which is to say, it tends to take bets from casual bettors who are more likely to bet on favorites or for their hometown team, for example. Accordingly, these books will offer less favorable odds on more popular clubs — and artificially inflate the projected World Series chances of those clubs, in the process. A “sharp” book, meanwhile, tends to cater more towards experienced bettors, who are more likely to place reasoned bets. Pinnacle appears to have a reputation as being a sharp book.

Another Way This Is Different
Another way this is different, is that the odds here — unlike in that original version — include the original stake, so the break-even point is just the listed odds divided by one.

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A couple days ago in these pages, I looked at what sort of trade package, in terms of prospects, might be necessary for a team trying to acquire either Zack Greinke or Cole Hamels before the July 31st deadline. Specifically, I looked at what other front-line starters had yielded for their respective teams in recent years — using John Sickels’ prospect grades as a rough guide as to the “quality” of the minor leaguers in question.

Here, I’d like to engage in a practice that is both (a) endlessly amusing for the baseball fan and also (b) probably totally irresponsible — which is to say, using that earlier post as a foundation, I’d like to consider the hypothetical trade package a specific team might have to assemble in order to acquire Zack Greinke.

The hypothetical team in question? In this case, the Los Angeles Angels.

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

1. Glorious Custom Leaderboard: First-Round Draftees
2. Assorted Headlines
3. Image for No Reason: Addison Russell

Glorious Custom Leaderboard: First-Round Draftees
Regarding an Important Gift
Prometheus famously stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. Eve, owing to her conduct in the garden, made humans ultimately capable of shame — one of the best emotions people can have.

I’m confident that I, Carson Cistulli, will be remembered alongside these noteworthy benefactors for the glorious custom leaderboard I’ve recently made — a leaderboard, specifically, of all the first-round picks from the most recent draft to have begun their professional careers — and a hyperlink to which I now make available to the public.

Hyperlink to Said Glorious and Custom Leaderboard
Click this hyperlinked text to navigate your web browser to this glorious and custom leaderboard.

Screenshot of Said Glorious and Custom Leaderboard
Here’s a screenshot (which one might click, perchance to embiggen) of said glorious and custom leaderboard — in this case, sorted by weighted batting runs above average:

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

1. Updated Update: First-Round Signees
2. Notes on Allotted Bonus Pools and Penalties
3. Video for No Reason: Stryker Trahan

Updated Update: First-Round Signees
A Note on the Following
A little less than a month ago, we published in these electronic pages a table of the first-round picks who’d signed so far, along with (a) the amount of each signee’s bonus, (b) MLB’s suggested bonus for each corresponding slot, and (c) photographs of the present author posing sensually without a shirt but with a giant snake.

What follows is that same table, updated to include signings that’ve occurred in the interim. The photos of the author, considered too hot for the whole internet, have been woefully omitted.

Note: the deadline to sign draft picks this year is July 13th, or roughly a month earlier than in recent seasons.

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With the Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies 6.0 and 10.0 games out, respectively, of the second wild-card spot in the National League, it’s probable that one or both teams will trade their front-line, free-agent-to-be starters — i.e. Zack Greinke and Cole Hamels — before the July 31st trade deadline.

“What might either be worth in terms of trade value?” is a question that a reasonable person might ask — perhaps has asked as recently as the first paragraph of this post. Ultimately, the market will dictate the answer to that question. In the meantime, however, we can consider what comparable pitchers have fetched in terms of return packages in the not-very-distant past.

Below are (arguably) the most high-profile starting pitchers to have been traded at or near the deadline over each of the last four seasons. For each pitcher, I’ve included the prospects received in exchange for him. I’ve also included the grades given to those prospects by very respected American gentleman John Sickels in his preseason rankings (which appear at SB Nation’s Minor League Ball).

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It’s not a new thing for someone who writes about baseball to point out both that (a) Delmon Young was, for a number of years, one of the very top prospects in the entire minor leagues, and also that (b) he is not now, some number of years later, one of the very top players in the entire major leagues — is, in fact, only slightly better than replacement level over the course of 3,200-plus major-league plate appearances (or, roughly five full seasons’ worth of baseball).

It’s because of Young’s pedigree, however, that someone who writes about baseball (like the present author, for example) is always wondering if the second thing might be about to change. I am, certainly, more willing to regard a stretch of particularly good play from Young as more legitimately promising — as more a harbinger of likely future success — than, say, similar stretch of play from Willie Bloomquist.

All of which is why when Delmon Young homers in four consecutive games (as he has done in his last four, consecutively) one wonders if, perhaps, Delmon Young, Disappointment is on the verge of becoming Delmon Young, All-Time Baseball Great — or, at the very least, Delmon Young, League-Average Player.

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

1. Introduction to This Edition of the Notes
2. Notable Minor-League Games on MiLB.TV
3. Stirring Hyperlink: John Sickels’ Midseason Top-120 Prospects

Introduction to This Edition of the Notes
A Note to the Reader
The reader will note — if he has not done so already — that, owing to how the All-Star break has begun, there’s what one might call a “dearth” of major-league baseball today.

A Second Note to the Reader
The reader will also note that there’s a decided lack of coverage — in this edition of the Notes — a decided lack of coverage of baseball’s Home Run Derby Exhibition Grand Slam Show, Good Job, which is happening tonight.

Regarding the Lack of Home Run Derby Coverage
The lack of Home Run Derby coverage in this edition of the Notes — and, in fact, likely at this entire baseball internet site today — is not a commentary on the sort of entertainment value which the citizenry might derive from said Exhibition.

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