Each day this week, we’ll be looking at the best pitches of the 2011 season — and, of course, the pitchers responsible for throwing them. Today, we look at the three best fastballs. Chris Cwik will look at the league’s best sliders tomorrow. Curveballs, changeups, and assorted other pitches will follow.

Allow me to note immediately that this post concerns only four-seam fastballs (or, at least, what’s been classified as a four-seam fastball, per our PITCHf/x data). There’s enough difference between the four-seamer and the other fastball variants — the two-seamer, sinker, and cutter — that it makes sense to isolate each one. We will look at the other sorts of fastballs later in the week.

Allow me also to note that, in evaluating the “best” pitches, I haven’t used any one criterion exclusively, but rather have exercised judgment while utilizing a number of criteria — and our other writers will be doing the same thing for the other pitches to follow, as well.

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Oakland Coliseum, minutes before first pitch.

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

1. Projecting: ZiPS for Oakland
2. Unhelpful Video: Tom Milone Homers
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Texas Television

Projecting: ZiPS for Oakland
Dan Szymborski has published his ZiPS projections for the Oakland A’s. Below are some of the notable ones, accompanied by very rough WAR projections (for hitters per 600 plate appearances and pitchers per 200 innings). All numbers assume major-league competition. OPS+ and ERA+ are park-adjusted.

Seth Smith, RF, 29: .245/.322/.408, 97 OPS+, 1.7 WAR600
Smith, acquired this offseason in a trade that sent right-hander Guillermo Moscoso and left-hander Josh Outman to Colorado, isn’t interesting in and of him self, but rather because his 97 OPS+ represents the highest projected mark on the entire Oakland roster. As Szymborski notes, “[T]he offense is going to be god-awful.” Having said that, both Coco Crisp (2.4 WAR600) and Kurt Suzuki (3.3 WAR600) are likely to be more valuable relative to their positions than Smith.

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The Klaw!

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

1. Prospecting: Keith Law’s Top-100 Prospect List
2. Video: Hak-Ju Lee and Julio Teheran
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Tampa Bay Television

Prospecting: Keith Law’s Top-100 Prospect List
Keith Law has published his top-100 prospect list for 2012. (Insider only.)

Here are some notes on same:

• Regarding the top-est of the top prospects, they’re all generally where you’d expect. Law ranks Mike Trout first of the Trout-Bryce Harper–Matt Moore triumvirate. Manny Machado at fourth overall is probably slightly higher than on other lists you’ll see, but not particularly so. Atlanta right-handed prospect Julio Teheran at 18th overall is decidedly lower than on other lists. (Teheran was, for example, ranked fourth, fourth, fourth, and sixth, respectively, by Baseball America’s Jim Callis, J.J. Cooper, Will Lingo, and John Manuel on their top-50 lists from the BA Prospect Handbook.)

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

1. Various Farm Rankings
2. Projecting: ZiPS for Texas
3. Video: Mike Olt in AFL Rising Stars Game

Various Farm Rankings
With many prospect lists having already been completed, or at least nearing completion, a few sites/publications have released farm, or organizational talent, rankings. Here are some notable top fives.

Baseball America
This is from their handbook, which means (I think) that it’s from Decemeber, which means that it doesn’t account for the trade that sent A.J. Cole, Tom Milone, Derek Norris, and Brad Peacock to Oakland for Gio Gonzalez.

1. Washington Nationals
2. Texas Rangers
3. Kansas City Royals
4. Arizona Diamondbacks
5. Toronto Blue Jays

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Episode 138
Chris Harris and Chris Thomas are the editors of the internet site BaseballCardPedia, the only free and editable encyclopedia dedicated to baseball cards. In this episode, Chrises Harris and Thomas discuss the BaseballCardPedia project and provide a primer of sort for anyone interested in becoming part of The Hobby.

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 44 min. play time.)

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Even without his excellent secondary pitchers, Stephen Strasburg would probably be decent.

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

1. Table: Starting Pitcher xFIP by Fastball Velocity, 2002-11
2. Projecting: ZiPS for Miami
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Seattle Television

Table: Starting Pitcher xFIP by Fastball Velocity, 2002-11
Over the last couple days, I published a two–part piece looking both at (a) the accomplishment that is Michael Pineda’s combination of fastball velocity and control and (b) which pitchers from the high minors last season were capable of at least approximating Pineda’s 2010 in Double- and Triple-A.

As part of the second piece, I included a table that looked at xFIP by different “buckets” of velocity — from less-than 85 mph, increasing incrementally by 1 mph all the way to greater-than 95 mph. What might not have been entirely obvious is that the data sample included only the 612 starting pitchers from 2002 to ’11 who walked 7% or fewer batters.

So, below, I’m publishing another version of that table with the full sample of 1708 player seasons. This is xFIP by velocity for every pitcher, 2002-11, who threw 50 or more innings and made at least half of his appearances as a starter. The # sign is the number of player seasons, 2002-11, in that particular bucket; the xFIP is the average xFIP of all the player seasons in that bucket; and STD is the standard deviation of xFIP for the player seasons in that bucket.

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Episode 137
Guest Dayn Perry begins this episode by cursing both (a) the existence of the host and (b) all of life. Baseball topics are also discussed, including (and likely limited to): Edwin Jackson, how he’s not a Cardinal; the 1985 World Series (a.k.a. The Series That Rocked Missouri); and FanGraphs+, what it offers.

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 31 min. play time.)

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Yesterday, as Part 1 of this post, I looked at the accomplishment that was Michael Pineda’s 2010 season in the minor leagues — an accomplishment, specifically, for his ability to limit walks while simultanously throwing a fastball with excellent velocity.

As was noted in that piece, no other starter with 50-plus innings in either Double- or Triple-A (again, in 2010) was able to sit at around 95 mph with his fastball while also walking fewer than 7.0% of batters faced. Pineda, in fact, accomplished this feat at both Double- and Triple-A, walking 5.4% of opposing batters in 77.0 innings at Double-A West Tenn and then 6.5% of opposing batters in 62.1 innings at Triple-A Tacoma.

In this post, I’ll be looking at which players performed similarly in the high minors last season to how Pineda did in 2010.

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Today’s edition of Offseason Notes concerns the Caribbean Series entirely.

Escogido Wins Caribbean Series
Despite losing 7-0 to Venezuelan entry Tigres de Aragua, Dominican side Leones del Escogido clinched the Caribbean Series last night with the 4-3 loss of their only mathematical competitor, Mexico’s Yaquis de Obregon, to Puerto Rican club Indios de Mayaguez. (Scoreboard.)

In fact, Obregon was winning their game 3-2 heading into the bottom of the eighth, but conceded one run each in the eighth and ninth innings to lose the game.

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Episode 136
The Washington Nationals recently signed Edwin Jackson to a one-year, $11 million deal. Does the addition of Jackson make the Nats a contender? How would the definition of “contender” change if a second wild-card playoff spot were installed? Also, the Baltimore and Colorado trade: what’s the deal with that? Managing editor Dave Cameron answers all these questions unblinkingly.

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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