Episode 727
Dayn Perry is a contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and the author of three books — one of them not very miserable. He’s also the old man on this dry edition of FanGraphs Audio.

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.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 9 min play time.)

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For reasons no one can fathom, you’ve clicked on a post about all the designated hitters in baseball — one of the most absurd installments in our ongoing positional power rankings for 2017. Would you care to read an introduction to the entire series? Dave Cameron has authored one. Would you care to read about other positions? My colleague Sean Dolinar, whatever his many flaws, has created the navigation bar above.

As with the other posts in this series, the current one begins with an illustrative graph:

Here one finds the projected WAR totals for each of the American League’s 15 designated-hitter spots, calculated by combining the Steamer and ZiPS projections hosted at this site with playing-time estimates curated by FanGraphs authors.

Unlike some of the other graphs in this series, this one has been altered slightly to allow for a negative value on the Y axis — in order to accommodate the Chicago White Sox, that is. As the author has noted elsewhere, the White Sox actually rank 30th in the majors on the DH charts before the NL clubs are removed. This isn’t what’s known as an “ideal” state of affairs.

If one is searching for a unifying theme here, I advise you to stop immediately: the relentless human need for patterns and meaning distorts reality! That said, many of the players included here do possess one quality in common, which is that they’re older than the average ballplayer, many of them in their mid-30s.

Those cursory remarks having been made, I invite you to an even longer collection of cursory remarks.

The Toronto Blue Jays appeared at the top of these DH positional rankings in both 2015 and 2016. That’s relevant to the present incarnation of the Indians insofar as Edwin Encarnacion, who was previosly employed by Toronto as their DH, is now a member of the Clevelands, with whom he signed a three-year, $60 million deal this offseason.

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Episode 726
Managing editor Dave Cameron is the guest on this edition of the pod, during which he discusses Toronto’s Steve Pearce, matters relating to Steve Pearce, and also matters that possess no relevance to Steve Pearce at all.

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

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 38 min play time.)

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Week: 1 / 2 / 3.

Over the last couple years, the author has published a periodic statistical report designed to serve as a mostly responsible shorthand for people who, like the author, possess more enthusiasm for collegiate baseball than expert knowledge of it. Those reports integrated concepts central to much of the analysis found at FanGraphs — regarding sample size and regression, for example — to provide something not unlike a “true talent” leaderboard for hitters and pitchers in select conferences.

What follows represents the most current such report for the 2017 college campaign.

As in the original edition of this same thing, what I’ve done here is to utilize principles introduced by Chris Mitchell on forecasting future major-league performance with minor-league stats.

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Episode 725
Managing editor Dave Cameron is the guest on this edition of the pod, during which he discusses the topic of remuneration for, like, the whole time.

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.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 34 min play time.)

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Episode 724
Lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen is the guest on this edition of the pod. In this episode, he discusses certain themes that emerge from the top-100 prospect list he published earlier this week. He also elaborates on the possible value of a college game pitched by two starters who fail to break 90 mph.

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

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 24 min play time.)

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Episode 723
The prolific Travis Sawchik is a former beat reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and author of the book Big Data Baseball. He’s also the guest on this edition of the program, during which he discusses players like Jose Bautista, J.D. Martinez, and others who’ve been compelled to follow unconventional paths to success.

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

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 6 min play time.)

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Episode 722
Kate Preusser is the managing editor of Seattle Mariners SB Nation blog Lookout Landing. She’s also (a) FanGraphs’ inaugural writer-in-residence and (b) the guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

Would you like to nominate someone for a residency? You can do that here.

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

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 7 min play time.)

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