An essential aspect of any projection system that’s worth a damn is the integration of minor-league data into same — and the translation of that minor-league data to its major-league equivalent (MLE). The Steamer projection system, being worth several of damns, produces MLEs for what appears to be almost every minor-leaguer who exists — and probably some who even don’t.

Yesterday, I asked Steamer owner and operator Jared Cross for the MLE hitting data that’s currently being utilized for the production of Steamer’s rest-of-season and updated forecasts. What follows are four leaderboards featuring that data — specifically, of the MLE batting leaders by various, hopefully useful, criteria.

The first two leaderboards feature minor-league batting leaders (first all of them, and then just prospect-aged one) by translated wOBA. The second pair of leaderboards feature minor-league leaders by translated FIB* — a wOBA estimator (discussed here) which accounts only for home runs, walks, and strikeouts and which has some value insofar as those metrics become stable at least 1,000 plate appearances before BABIP (which metric influences wOBA considerably).

Below the aforementioned leaderboards, followed by some brief comments of varying quality.

MLE Leaderboard: All Minor-League Hitters by wOBA
Below are the top-20 minor-league batters by translated wOBA, according to Steamer (min. 50 PA).

MLE Leaderboard: Prospect-Age Minor-League Hitters by wOBA
Here are the top-20 minor-league batters aged 24-or-under by MLE wOBA, according to Steamer (min. 50 PA).

MLE Leaderboard: All Minor-League Hitters by FIB*
Here are the top-20 minor-league batters by MLE FIB* — i.e. a wOBA estimator which accounts only for home runs, walks, and strikeouts — according to Steamer (min. 50 PA):

MLE Leaderboard: Prospect-Age Minor-League Hitters by FIB*
Here are the top-20 minor-league batters aged 24-or-under by MLE FIB* — i.e. a wOBA estimator which accounts only for home runs, walks, and strikeouts — according to Steamer (min. 50 PA):

Brief Comments of Varying Quality:

• With regard to overall MLE wOBA leader Kyle Roller, here’s who Kyle Roller is: an eighth-round selection by the Yankees in 2010 out of East Carolina University. And here’s who else: a prospect who’s always (a) been old for his levels and (b) produced above-average offensive lines relative to his leagues.
• Despite leading all prospect-age hitters by translated wOBA, Seattle infield prospect Gabriel Noriega’s line at Triple-A Tacoma is also mostly informed by batted-ball outcomes. Indeed, he hasn’t recorded an above-average offensive line since 2008, in the Rookie-level Appalachian League.
• That said, other Seattle infield prospect Chris Taylor — 16th among all minor-league hitters by translated wOBA and just fifth among prospect-age minor-league hitters — received the 38th-best WAR projection among rookie-eligible players before the season.
• Among the top prospect-age hitters by translated FIB* is Jose Ramirez, which Cleveland infield prospect (a) was recently promoted to the majors and (b) JD Sussman considered briefly in Monday’s edition of the Prospect Watch.
• Do you even Mookie Betts?

The sport of baseball, at the major league level, is changing in many ways. The quickly escalating trend in strikeout rate has been well documented, and we’re now several years into a cycle where pitching and defense rule the day, but the league is evolving in other ways as well. Catchers are now hitting better than ever, for instance, and the lack of offense combined with the simultaneous shift in what teams value behind the plate may be leading to a renaissance of the stolen base.

As I noted in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, the success rate of stolen bases in 2014 is currently higher than it has ever been in MLB, and this isn’t simply a continuation of a shift towards conservative baserunning and the protection of precious outs. League caught stealing rates have been trending down for several decades as teams have learned that the hyper-aggressive running of the 1980s was likely counterproductive to run-scoring, but stolen base attempts are actually up this year relative to last year, even while the rate of runners getting thrown out continues to drop.

But even looking at league wide trends can obscure things a bit, as a large majority of players have no interest in attempting a stolen base no matter who the pitcher/catcher tandem might be, and changes in base stealing will be concentrated within a small subset of the player population. So, let’s just look at what we’ve seen among those who run the most.

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When discussing the positive surprises of the first month of the 2014 baseball season, the words “Milwaukee Brewers” and “Charlie Blackmon” are sure to come up very early in the conversation. While Blackmon has clearly not been the most valuable player on his own club – Troy Tulowitzki says hi – he does deserve every bit of attention and scrutiny that has come his way. Who is Charlie Blackmon? Where did he come from, figuratively? What is he, and where might he be going? Let’s look at the track record and attempt to make some educated guesses. Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Tomlin will be on the mound tonight for the Indians. It will be the 29-year-old right-hander’s first start in a Cleveland uniform since he underwent Tommy John surgery late in the 2012 season. The opportunity is well-earned. Tomlin has thrown 17 scoreless innings in his past two outings for Triple-A Columbus and has a 2.06 ERA overall.

Tribe fans can expect to see a revamped-velocity version of the pitcher who went 12-7, 4.25 in 2011. Tomlin still relies on cutters and command – he’ll never be confused with a fire-baller – but he’s throwing harder than he has at any point in his life. More importantly, he’s throwing free and easy.

“The injury prevented me from doing the things I need to do,” Tomlin said. “In 2011, maybe a month after the All-Star break, I started feeling like something wasn’t right. I tried to pitch through it late in 2011 and early 2012, but couldn’t command the ball and couldn’t cut it when I wanted to. I didn’t have the extension to get the ball down and away to righties. Subconsciously, I knew it was going to hurt when I did that, so I kind of cut the ball off trying to get it there. It got to the point where righties could eliminate a pitch away and sit middle in, and lefties knew I was going to work away. When a hitter can take away one side of the plate against me, it’s going to be tough for me to compete. Now I’m able to get the ball to that side and move pitches around to keep hitters off balance. That’s my game.”

Tomlin’s radar gun readers are also healthier. His fastball sat in the upper 80s before the surgery. Now it’s north of 90 mph.

“My velocity has crept up a little bit,” Tomlin said. “I’ve been 91-93 throughout the game with my fastball. My arm speed is better since the surgery. The crispness of my pitches is back to what they were before. Right now I feel like I’m a 15 or 16-year-old kid playing catch again. It doesn’t hurt, I don’t feel it, I don’t think about it. I just take the ball and pitch.”

Tomlin was reminded in spring training that he still has to “pitch” to be effective. He’s never been a power guy and a little extra octane isn’t going to change that.

“I got myself hurt against that Abreu guy with the White Sox,” Tomlin said. “I got him down 1-2 and tried to blow a fastball by him, in. I basically tried to throw the ball too hard – I guess I was overconfident – and left it over the plate. He hit it pretty good. That’s something I had to learn in spring training: How to hone in my new-found velocity and new-found feeling. I can throw pretty hard right now – at least for me – but throwing the ball by someone isn’t my game. I need to set them up to where 89-90 is still effective. It’s about making a quality pitch and missing a barrel, not lighting up the radar gun or trying to get too cute with my fastball.”

Tomlin’s cutter is his most attractive offering. It is also the shapeliest. Thanks to his rebuilt arm, he can tempt hitters with it in two different ways.

“I’m able to do things with my cutter now,” explained Tomlin. “I’m able to make it move horizontally if I want it to. If I get a guy 1-2 with a fastball, I can make it a little bigger. I also have one with more of a slider depth to it. Basically, I’m throwing two different cutters – one more horizontal to miss the barrel and one with a little more depth to try to get ground balls, maybe even a swing-and-miss. But for me, the cutter is a pitch to get weak contact early in the count to keep my pitch count low.”

Tomlin’s repertoire includes a curveball. It’s his third-best pitch and yet another that’s been rejuvenated by his surgery.

“My curveball is the pitch that’s probably been helped the most,” Tomlin said. “Again, I’m not thinking about it. I can grip it without that feeling of ‘I hope it doesn’t hurt.’ The conviction I have behind all of my pitches is the biggest change. It’s not like it was when I was struggling and my arm was bothering me a little bit. Not to make excuses, or anything like that, but the conviction I had then is nothing near what I have now.”

Understand, immediately: Mike Trout is currently first in the American League in WAR. In the majors, he’s sandwiched between two Rockies, one surprisingly healthy and one surprisingly awesome, and Trout’s current season pace puts him at 13 WAR, which would eclipse what he’s already done, and what he’s already done has been basically impossibly good. That Mike Trout doesn’t lead the majors in WAR isn’t a reflection of Trout; it’s a reflection of, hey, sample sizes, and also, don’t forget about Troy Tulowitzki, who is also amazing.

But let’s talk about something, just because it’s interesting. Trout is so good, so almost perfect, that we’re at heightened awareness when something might not be right. At the moment, he’s running an extraordinary 161 wRC+, which is an almost exact match for his career mark. But behind that summary number is another number that doesn’t look like the numbers that’ve come before it. What I’m referring to inspired an article in the LA Times.

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As promised a while ago, our Playoff Odds page is, in time, going to feature the old Cool Standings functionality, where you’d be able to click on a team and track its past odds day by day. That way you’d be able to monitor winning and losing streaks, as well as, somewhat indirectly, the impact of injuries and acquisitions. I suspect that it’s going to become one of FanGraphs’ more popular tools.

As promised a while ago, the Cool Standings functionality is coming in time, and that time remains in the future. It’s a priority, but it’s not a top priority, and the result is posts like these, periodic check-ins on how the odds have changed since the start of the season. On April 4, when I did this the first time, the Mariners’ odds were up about eight percentage points, and the Angels’ odds were down about ten. What does the picture look like today, on May 5? Let’s dive right in.

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In one way, CC Sabathia is having the best season we’ve seen him have in years. In another, much more real way, he’s having the worst season of his long and valuable career. Baseball is a weird game sometimes.

When you look at the current ERA standings, from worst to first, a few things jump out at you. (Yes, besides, “ERA is dumb,” because for the moment this is more about what has happened than what might have happened.) You see Kevin Correia and Ricky Nolasco showing absurdly low strikeout numbers (along with Kyle Gibson, the Twins have the three lowest K% pitchers, because Twins) and you understand that pitching to contact in front of a lousy defense might not result in runs being prevented. You see a lot of high BABIP (I see you, Homer Bailey’s .385), and guys who have had a disaster start or two that inflate the number (Bartolo Colon), and guys who either can’t miss bats (John Danks) or throw strikes (John Danks) and find that the end result is poor (John Danks). As it turns out, there’s a lot of different ways to allow runs to score in Major League Baseball.

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When the Padres traded for Andrew Cashner before the 2012 season, he was a reliever with a nasty knuckle slider and a 100 mph fastball — and injury issues. The Padres believed that he could become the front-line pitcher that he is to day, so they were willing to trade a good young position player for him. The weird thing is that those injuries helped Andrew Cashner find the right pitching mix.

Take the fastball. In 2012, he averaged 97.7 on the pitch, and then, well this happened to the velocity:

You could say he was just adjusting to starting, but there were two starts in there before he strained his shoulder that year. And you could say the new lower velocity was just injury-caused, but then there are the words of the pitcher: “When I tried to throw too hard was when I blew my arm out on a 96 mph pitch,” Cashner said before a game against the Giants in late April. The result? “I don’t try to throw 100 any more.”

Read the rest at FoxSports.com.

Nathan Eovaldi is making the transition from thrower to pitcher, and the results are striking. In 37-and-a-third innings over six April starts the 24-year-old Miami Marlins right-hander punched out 35 batters and allowed just five walks. His ERA was a sparkling 2.58.

Eovaldi is thriving on simplicity. Two out of three pitches he’s thrown this year have been fastballs averaging 96 mph. He’s consistently attacking the bottom half of the zone, resulting in a 55.5% ground-ball rate. According to bench coach Rob Leary, that’s by design.

“He’s getting a lot of [ground balls] on his fastball,” said Leary. “We’re not asking him to strike anyone out. We’re not asking any of our pitchers to strike anyone out. The more efficient they are, the longer they can go. We saw that with Henderson Alvarez recently when he threw a 90-pitch complete game. We want our pitchers to get outs with quality pitches, and the sooner the better. Balls down in the zone get put into play, typically on the ground.”

Pitchers with high ground-ball rates are often assumed to throw a two-seam fastball. Eovaldi doesn’t. With semantics in mind, even when his fastball sinks, it’s not a sinker.

“I don’t throw a two-seam,” explained Eovaldi. “I throw a four-seam and grip the ball the same every time. I’m just trying to throw good-quality low strikes and a lot more of my pitches have been down by the knees this year. I don’t really pay much attention to the movement I might be getting. I just throw to where the glove is.”

“He throws a four-seam that’s real heavy,” explained catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia. “Most guys throw the ball and you just catch it. Nate’s ball has that little extra oomph. He can throw it down in the zone and he can also throw it up here [at the letters] where it looks good and you swing, but it’s hard to square up because it’s 98.”

Leary feels Eovaldi is making the transition from thrower to pitcher, but acknowledges that the flame-throwing youngster is still a work in progress. Is he more than a thrower?

“Absolutely,” responded Leary. “He obviously possesses a real big arm, and when you have that type of fastball people are going to say ‘He’s a thrower’ or ‘He’s just a power guy.’ But I don’t consider him that. He just needs to continue to refine his pitches. He has the makings of three good off-speed pitches, it’s just a matter of consistency.

“He uses the slider more than his curveball, but at any time, or any night, they’re both very good pitches. They’re out pitches. Again, it’s just a matter of consistency. Between last year and this year we’ve seen him improve, and we want to continue to see good progress.”

Saltalamacchia echoed Leary.

“He’s obviously got a really good fastball, so once he gets his secondary stuff down he’s going to be one of the top pitchers in the game,” said Saltalamacchia. “He’d be right up there with Jose Fernandez right now if he didn’t struggle with his secondary a little bit. But he’s working on it. His slider is his second-best pitch and his curveball is becoming a good pitch. His changeup is getting better.”

Eovaldi’s understanding of how to pitch is clearly getting better. He’s still more about power than finesse, and probably always will be, but he’s no longer just a thrower. His emergence as a quality starter bears that out, as does his simple-yet-maturing approach.

“It’s not necessarily about velocity,” said Eovaldi. “If you can locate pitches you’re going to be good, no matter how hard you’re throwing. I’ve been able to throw a lot more quality strikes and repeat the good arm slot on my slider more consistently. How much I throw my curveball depends on the hitter, the situation, the count, and whether they’re on my fastball or not. It’s about knowing strengths and weaknesses, and mixing pitches. But everything is going to work off my fastball.”

——

At the end of the 2009 season I interviewed Josh Reddick for a now-defunct print publication. He was 27 games into his big-league career, having debuted that summer with the Red Sox. We covered several topics, from rookie hazing to rumors he would be traded in the offseason.

Reddick wasn’t traded that winter, but he was two years later, to Oakland. The A’s are at Fenway Park this weekend, so I decided it might be fun to revisit parts of our old conversation.

One of the first things I asked about was the mohawk he shaved off when he got called up from the minor leagues. His response was similar to what it was four-and-a-half years ago.

“I felt like it wouldn’t be a good first impression to make on a bunch of guys I didn’t know very well,” said Reddick. “A 22-year-old rookie making his debut in a mohawk probably wouldn’t look too good.”

The Oakland outfielder is colorful, and prone to changing his look from time to time, so I asked if he’d be comfortable wearing one now. He didn’t sound inclined. Not that he’s especially pleased with his current coif.

“My hair has pretty much been the same since then,” said Reddick. “I’ve gone with the longer hair look, except for now. The stylist screwed up and took too much off. But I haven’t done anything crazy with my hair like mohawk it, spike it or blond it. The only crazy thing I’ve really done here is the beard thing.”

The beard thing. Reddick explained it this way.

“Coco [Crisp] and I started a little one-on-one challenge for who could grow the best facial hair,” said Reddick, who in 2009 told me he’d ‘always been a facial hair guy.’ “This was coming into the spring of 2013. I dominated him. Coco couldn’t grow it nearly as well as I could. I decided to keep it for awhile, and then [WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan] challenged me to a beard-off. Everybody knows how big of a wrestling fan I am, so of course I jumped right on that. Later, he shaved mine off, which was fun. He’s the champion now, and his big push came right after our beard-off, so I’ll have to take credit for that.”

Is there anyone in the Oakland clubhouse who could compete with him in a beard-off?

“The only guy who seems like he could come close is [Derek] Norris,” opined Reddick. “He’s got a pretty good one right now. [Sean] Doolittle has had a pretty good one, but he keeps his pretty thinned. Mine was thick and long.”

Reddick admits he would have fit in well with last year’s well-bearded Red Sox team. It could have happened were it not for the December 2011 deal that sent him west. Don’t blame Theo Epstein.

“I got traded the year after Theo left for Chicago,” explained Reddick. “It was Ben Cherington’s first year. I actually saw Theo in spring training of 2012 and he said, ‘Yeah, man, I told you I wasn’t going to trade you. Ben did and he’s got his own willpower.’ So yeah, Theo held out his end of the bargain. He didn’t trade me.”

——

I wasn’t surprised to learn Mike Ekstrom is playing in Italy and blogging about the experience. Back when I authored the Minor Issues column at Baseball Prospectus, Ekstom was featured twice. On one occasion we discussed travel. In the other he weighed in on Dirk Hayhurst’s “Bullpen Gospels.”

Ekstrom had a fairly nondescript career stateside. He pitched for the Padres, Rays and Rockies, but most of his time was spent in the minors. His big-league resume consists of 51 relief outings from 2008-2012. Last year he turned 30 and logged a 5.14 ERA between a pair of Triple-A stops. The writing was on the wall.

“I didn’t have many good options back in the US,” Ekstrom told me recently. “I wasn’t really interested in indie ball or Mexico, so I thought of Italy. Europe had been on my radar for a few years as a place to travel and play before moving on. My team takes care of all my expenses, gives me a car, and pays a decent salary. I’ll make 16-20 starts and get to experience life in Europe for the summer. It’s a different atmosphere, but a fun place to play and live.

“I’ve been fortunate to see baseball in some unique places,” continued Ekstrom. “I’ve played in traditional markets like Australia and Asia, but I’ve also seen baseball in less-conventional places like Iceland, Vietnam, and now Italy. Playing before raucous crowds in Taiwan is exciting, but holding a baseball clinic in Iceland or watching Japanese businessmen and Vietnamese teenagers play a sandlot game in Hanoi are moments I really enjoy and like sharing.”

Sharing his experiences is something Ekstrom does well. It may not be fair to say he’s a better writer than pitcher, but he’s moving in that direction.

“I created Baseball Round the World as a way to learn some relative skills for when I need a real job,” explained Ekstrom. “Maybe that’s web design, writing or marketing. It’s also a way to share my experiences and keep in touch with friends and family back home. I’ve never been a huge fan of player blogs – they usually seem self-serving and lame – but it’s been a fun project. Plus, it’ll be nice to have something on my resume other than ‘fringe-average professional baseball pitcher.’

Ekstrom isn’t the only player – fringe-average or otherwise – whose stories will populate the blog going forward.

“I plan to expand the website and add interviews from old teammates and friends who’ve played overseas,” explained Ekstrom. “I think it’ll be really interesting to have a site that paints a picture of the wide variety of professional leagues and youth programs around the globe. When I’m done playing I’d like to work in international baseball in some capacity. So far I have interviews to post from guys who’ve played in Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Vietnam, Austria, Germany, and New Zealand. I’ll start rolling out interviews next week and expand from there.”

Here are two examples of Ekstrom’s writing. The first has yet to be published. The second is excerpted from an earlier entry in his blog.

Ekstrom: “Recently, I’ve heard a lot about John Grisham’s book Playing for Pizza – a novel about an American football player, playing in Italy. I think my Italian experience could be more accurately described as Playing for Parmesan & Prosciutto. It seems that in life and in baseball, everything in Italy revolves around food. Just last week, we had a 90-minute practice followed by a three-hour meat-fest of a team barbecue. Last night, our practice was cut short by some light showers – we don’t have a tarp, it’s great! — but the team dinner raged well past midnight. Even during our games, seeing a reliever pounding a piadina – the local flatbread, prosciutto and cheese sandwich – in the fifth inning isn’t out of place. Don’t get me wrong, despite our complete lack of speed on the base paths, I think it’s fantastic. This love of food isn’t specific to my team in Rimini either, Italian league teams largely stick to a station-to-station approach on offense. As an import player, initially I had some concerns about finding the right food here. On the contrary, the food has been a highlight and it’s unexpectedly helped me manage the running game while I’m pitching.

“One difference in the games is that players – especially on the other team — are really passionate and vocal about each and every play. Perhaps it’s because we only play two games a week, but it really felt like a college atmosphere with the entire dugout hanging on each pitch. It’s quite a difference, and definitely less peaceful than the standard apathetic and silent Triple-A dugout. A small part of me felt bad for the umpire – except he was brutal — because regardless of him calling a strike or ball, one team was gonna be yelling at him. Capra means “goat” in Italian, and that’s gonna be my go-to word when yelling at the umpires.”

——

On at least one occasion, Bill King used far stronger language when expressing his opinion to an official. Notable is the fact he was broadcasting the game.

A legendary broadcaster in the Bay Area, King was the voice of the Oakland A’s from 1981-2005. He also called games for the football Raiders, from 1966-1992, and the basketball Warriors, from 1962-1983. His life and career are chronicled in “Holy Toledo: Lessons From Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic,” which was published last year. The book’s author is a legend of his own. Ken Korach worked alongside King and is now in his 19th season in the A’s radio booth.

In Korach’s words, King “had a thing for authority figures which manifested itself in his feelings for umpires and officials. He wore his emotions on his sleeve and there was no middle ground.”

I asked Korach for examples of King’s emotional diatribes. He shared two, both of which are told in more detail in his book.

Korach: “According to my boss, Ken Pries – he still works for the A’s – several times he got a call from Major League Baseball expressing concern about something Bill allegedly said on the air about umpires. One time Ken was called down to the umpire’s dressing room at the Coliseum because the crew chief felt Bill had crossed the line, that it had been a personal attack. Ken checked the tape and told him, ‘Listen, I think Bill got emotional, but I don’t think he crossed the line or got personal.’ He gave the crew chief the tape and said, ‘If you have a problem, let me know.’ He never heard back.

“The most-infamous Bill King story was from December 1968. The Warriors were playing the Supersonics, in Seattle. It was a very competitive game with a lot of fouls. Late in the game a call went against the Warriors. Bill was working courtside and wearing an old harness mic, which was attached to his chest. Bill was outraged by a call made by Ed Rush – maybe the most famous NBA official ever – and ripped off his harness mic. He screamed at Rush, ‘You mother______!’ The engineer didn’t get his signal to cut the crowd mic, so those words went out over the air, over 50,000 watts in Northern California.

“A few years later, in December, the Warriors were in San Diego playing the Clippers. Ed Rush got a Mother’s Day card and wrote on it, ‘Happy Mother’s Day, Ed.’ and gave it to Bill before the game. From that point on, every year, Ed and Bill would celebrate Mother’s Day, in December, in honor of what happened that one day in Seattle.”