Archive for Daily Graphings

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Here at FanGraphs, we enjoy rolling out cool new things. It’s fun to be able to add stuff that we can all use on a daily basis, and David Appelman has done a great job of building some incredible tools for public consumption. Today, we’re going to introduce you to the newest additions to FanGraphs: Depth Charts and a dedicated Standings page. We’re rolling them out together because they actually go hand in hand.

We’ll start with the standings page, because that’s what you’ll see first when you visit the new section of the site. The standings table is broken into three sections: Year to Date, Projected Rest of Season, and Projected Full Season.

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Glen Perkins knows his FIP. He also knows his HR/9, Z-Swing% and O-Swing%. More importantly, he understands what they mean. As the Minnesota Twins left-hander says, “I like baseball and I like math.”

Perkins is more than a stat geek. The 30-year-old converted starter is one of the better closers in the American League (despite his skepticism of modern-day closer usage). Six weeks into the current campaign he’s well on his way to topping last year’s save total, despite a markedly higher ERA — a number he considers less important than his FIP.

Perkins talked about his 2013 numbers prior to last night’s game at Fenway Park.

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J.A. Happ got hit in the head by a line-drive comebacker. When the same thing happened to Doug Fister, he got lucky; when the same thing happened to Brandon McCarthy, he also got lucky, if you understand that “luck” can go both ways, like “accelerate.” Happ is fortunate in that he seems to be doing well, but the scene at the time was terrifying, with Happ on the ground and blood on his face. It was the kind of incident that makes you wonder if we’re going to see a player die, and it’s sparked back up the familiar debate regarding pitcher protection. This post isn’t about that, because there’s nothing new to be said. (It would be nice.) (Reality hasn’t yet matched up with the theory, in that no one’s yet invented anything worthwhile.)

This post is about the result of the play. Desmond Jennings was the player who drilled the line drive, and he wound up standing on third base with a two-run triple. A screenshot taken moments after ball-head impact:

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Win probability said the Reds had a 4.3 percent chance of winning when Devin Mesoraco stepped to the plate against Craig Kimbrel. There were two outs and nobody on base. Win probability obviously didn’t know Craig Kimbrel was pitching.

According to Tom Tango’s run frequency calculator, given Kimbrel’s career .154/.240/.208 line against, a run is expected to score off Kimbrel 2.3 percent of the time with two outs and the bases empty. Actual win probablity, then, is more like 1.0 percent, considering Atlanta would be expected to win half the times Kimbrel gets out of the inning with a tie.

Naturally, then, Mesoraco and Shin-Soo Choo hit back-to-back home runs, and the Reds left with likely the most improbable walk-off win of the season.

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We’re only five-plus weeks into the season. Each team has at least 128 games left to play. It’s not too early, though, to talk about players who might be trade targets this summer, as teams fall out of contention. (Is it ever too early, really? This is what we dream up all day long, right?)

Today, we’re going to focus on players with no-trade clauses on teams that may very well be sellers come mid-July. That means starting with the Phillies. Philadelphia has several expensive players who could be quite valuable to contenders down stretch. All of them have no-trade clauses.

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Over the weekend, the Baseball Hall of Fame opened its newest exhibit, Diamond Mines, which was created to honor scouts and the history of scouting in baseball. I’m sure the exhibit itself is pretty neat, and if you’re planning on a trip to Cooperstown, you now have something else to look forward to.

But even if you’re not going to Cooperstown, this exhibit is fantastic, because in addition to the physical museum presence, they created an online searchable deposit of historical scouting reports. And it is awesome.

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I know it’s not like me to use such a provocative, declarative headline. Truth be told, I’d be more comfortable with “Yuniesky Betancourt Hasn’t Changed a Bit, Probably”, just so I can cover all my bases. But here we are, and I think it needs to be said, on the heels of Betancourt slamming his eighth dinger of the still very young regular season. This is a time for sanity, in the midst of something very much insane.

The Blue Jays are 13-21, and John Buck has ten home runs. The Dodgers are 13-19, and Dexter Fowler has eight home runs. The Angels are 11-21, and Yuniesky Betancourt also has eight home runs. When something early in the season takes you by complete surprise, it’s worth re-evaluating your expectations, rather than sticking to your guns. But just because you re-evaluate doesn’t mean you have to change your position, and if Betancourt’s changed at 31 years old, it’s showing up in only one place.

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A year ago, one of baseball’s best individual player stories was Kris Medlen, of the Braves. Previously something of a forgotten man, Medlen threw 138 innings as a reliever and then as a starter, allowing just 26 runs and six dingers. The year before, Pirates sinkerballer Charlie Morton made a name for himself by starting 29 times and allowing just six dingers. The year before that, Brett Anderson was outstanding for the A’s when healthy, making 19 starts and riding his sinker while allowing just six dingers. This year, the Royals are looking like an early American League surprise, and one of their best arms out of the bullpen is Kelvin Herrera. But over just 14 games, Herrera has already allowed six dingers, his latest coming on Monday.

Maybe we don’t need to compare Herrera to other pitchers, who don’t have anything to do with him. As fun as it is to compare opposite extremes, if we want to make a point we need only compare Herrera to himself. Already in 2013, Herrera has seen six batted balls fly over the fence. Last season — over a full season — Herrera saw four batted balls do the same thing. Against 17% as many opposing hitters, Herrera has allowed 150% as many home runs, and that’s a thing for us to talk about.

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Scott Diamond throws strikes. The Minnesota Twins left-hander walked just 1.61 batters per nine innings last year, lowest in the American League among qualified pitchers. After beginning the current campaign on the disabled list, his rate is a puny 1.2 in four starts.

The 26-year-old control artist also doesn’t log many strikeouts. In 173 innings last year, his K-rate was 4.68. That ranked him second from the bottom in the A.L., ahead of only Henderson Alvarez. So far this season he’s a tick better at 5.2.

Can Diamond match last year’s success — a 3.54 ERA and team-best 12 wins — with his pitch-to-contact ways? Some are skeptical, but he didn’t exactly rely on smoke and mirrors in his rookie season. He had a respectable 3.94 FIP and his .292 BABIP wasn‘t far from league average. His 53.4 ground-ball rate should be sustainable despite the absence of a two-seam fastball in his repertoire.

Diamond takes the mound tonight against the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

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Scott Diamond on his approach: “I get guys out by throwing strikes. I make them feel uncomfortable by getting ahead and playing the numbers game — the odds of them getting themselves out. We had a pitcher last year, P.J. Walters, who worked a lot with Dave Duncan when he was with the Cardinals. I don’t know if this number is exact, but he said when hitters swing at the first pitch they hit something like .158. If I get ahead early, I have them in a hole.

“My mentality for getting ahead is simply throwing a strike down in the zone. A lot of that is based on scouting guys beforehand. I’m looking at my approach against theirs and seeing where I want to locate. But I’m also keeping it simple in terms of halves of the plate. I’m not locating to a particular sector. A lot of scouting reports say my ball doesn’t move a lot, but based on the reactions I get from hitters, I throw to general sectors and let my ball do what it needs to do.”

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