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

1. Five Notable Signings from the Indy Leagues
2. Action Footage: Mike Benacka’s Excellent Changeup
3. Entirely Still Footage: Mike Benacka’s Virile Beard

Five Notable Signings from the Indy Leagues
The author has given some attention this offseason, by way of these Notes, to various independent and winter leagues. What follows is a list of five players who have both (a) excelled in one or the other of those types of leagues (i.e. independent or winter) and (b) been signed this offseason by a major-league organization.

Note: Ages listed are 2013 “baseball” ages — meaning age as of June 30, 2013. Other note: the author’s expertise in on this subject is not a matter of debate — which is to say, no one debates that he’s an expert.

Player: Mike Benacka, 30, RHP
2012 Line: 52.2 IP, 15.7 K/9, 6.0 BB/9 in American Association
Signing Club: Toronto Blue Jays
Notes: Member of Oakland system from 2008 to -11, after success in Frontier League in 2007-08. Has posted formidable strikeout and walk rates due to a combination of an excellent changeup and less excellent other pitches, it appears. Posted best regressed pitching in American Association in 2012. Did same thing in Mexican Pacific League this winter.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

1. Crowdsourced vs. Actual Contract Values
2. Table: Top-Five Remaining Crowdsourced Contracts
3. Potentially Irrelevant Video: Michael Bourn, Diving Catch

Crowdsourced vs. Actual Contract Values
Before the end of the season, FanGraphs asked readers to project what sort of contracts the league’s free agents would receive, both in terms of years (Yrs) and average annual value (AAV). Now, as we approach the middle of February, the largest portion of those same free agents have received actual, real-live contracts.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

1. Top Performers of the Australian Baseball League
2. Largely Unhelpful Video: Adam Buschini Homering
3. Final (!) SCOUT Leaderboards: Australian Baseball League

Top Performers of the Australian Baseball League
The championship series for the Australian Baseball League (ABL) took place this weekend, with Canberra defeating Perth, 2-0, in the best-of-three competition.

Here are the top performers of the ABL, per SCOUT (a metric explained below, but which, briefly stated, uses regressed inputs to help make sense of small samples).

Best Hitter: Adam Buschini
A native of Oakland, Canberra second baseman Adam Buschini was originally a fourth-round pick out of Cal Poly by the Philadelphia in the 2009 draft. After spending 2008-09 in the Phillies system, he was released by the club and found his way to independent ball, first with Chico (of the North American League) in 2011 and then with Amarillo (of the American Association) in 2012. This season in the ABL, Buschini almost doubled the home-run total of the next-best by that measure, hitting 15 of them to lead the league. San Diego appears to have recently signed Buschini to a minor-league deal.

Read the rest of this entry »

Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

Three Pleasures of the Caribbean Series Title Game
The Caribbean Series title game took place on Thursday night between the champions of the Dominican and Mexican winter leagues — Leones de Escogido and Yaquis de Obregon, respectively. To say, however, that it took place “Thursday night” isn’t entirely accurate: while the contest began at 9pm ET, it did not end until 18 innings and seven-plus hours later. In between, there were over 500 pitches thrown, three dramatic game-tying hits, and a game-winning cuadrangular by a native of Springfield, Massachusetts. In the end, the representatives of host country Mexico won 4-3 (box).

If the point of baseball as spectator sport is for it to be enjoyed — in all the ways, I mean, that humans are capable of enjoying things (a definition broad enough to include even the peculiar and flagellant experience that is Mariners fandom) — then this game succeeded in that regard.

In fact, the game succeeded in no fewer than three ways, I’d suggest — upon which ways I will now wax authoritative.

Read the rest of this entry »

Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

Caribbean Series Title Game
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — began last Friday in Hermosillo, Mexico. The first six days of the Series were played in a double round-robin format, with each team playing every other one twice.

Championship Game: Escogido vs. Obregon, 9pm ET
Dominican club Leones de Escogido and Mexican club Yaquis de Obregon finished first and second during the round-robin portion and meet in the first-ever actual title game of a Caribbean Series, the champion of which has historically been whichever club recorded the most wins from the round-robin tournament.

With regard to tonight’s game, here are points of interest for the reader:

• Right-handers Angel Castro and Rodrigo Lopez pitch for Escogido and Obregon, respectively. Castro was impressive in the club’s opening game against Venezuela, striking out seven while walking none in seven innings. Lopez was less so, posting a 2:1 K:BB in six innings — also against Venezuela — but allowing just a single run anyway, somehow.

Read the rest of this entry »

Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

Caribbean Series Information Post, Game Day 6
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — began Friday in Hermosillo, Mexico, and continues through February 7th.

What follows is an assortment of information regarding that Series after five games.

Scores
Here are the results from Tuesday’s games, with links to the relevant box scores:

Game 1: Puerto Rico 4, Venezuela 1
Game 2: Dominican Republic 11, Mexico 6

Standings
The Series is played in a double round-robin format, with each team playing every other one twice. After the completion of same, the top two teams will meet in a championship game with a view to acquiring capital-G Glory.

Read the rest of this entry »

Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

Caribbean Series Information Post, Game Day 5
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — began Friday in Hermosillo, Mexico, and continues through February 7th.

What follows is an assortment of information regarding that Series after four games.

Scores
Here are the results from Monday’s games, with links to the relevant box scores:

Game 1: Puerto Rico 6, Dominican Republic 4
Game 2: Mexico 2, Venezuela 0

Standings
The Series is played in a double round-robin format, with each team playing every other one twice. After the completion of same, the top two teams will meet in a championship game with a view to acquiring capital-G Glory.

Read the rest of this entry »

Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

A Reasonably Adequate Caribbean Series Update
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — began Friday in Hermosillo, Mexico, and continues through February 7th.

What follows is an assortment of information regarding that Series after three games.

Standings
The Series is played in a double round-robin format, with each team playing every other one twice. After the completion of same, the top two teams will meet in a championship game with a view to acquiring capital-G Glory.

Read the rest of this entry »

Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

A Barely Informed Preview of the Caribbean Series
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — begins today (Friday) at a new ballpark in Hermosillo, Mexico, and continues till February 7th. What the author lacks in knowledge concerning said Series, he makes up for — at least by, like, 20-25% — with enthusiasm for same.

That being the case, he has produced the following, i.e. a Barely Informed Preview of the Caribbean Series.

Participants
As noted above, the Series features the champions from baseball’s four notable winter leagues: the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter.

Here are the teams scheduled to appear in the forthcoming Caribbean Series and those teams’ most notable players (which the author has mostly Lehrer’d from this early post):

League: Dominican Winter
Champion: Escogido (roster)
Notable Players: Young Pirates outfielder Starling Marte, Mets utilityman Jordany Valdespin, occasional Red Sox infielder Mauro Gomez, well-traveled reliever Octavio Dotel, and excellent Rays closer Fernando Rodney.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

1. Five Notable Oliver Batting MLEs from 2012
2. Qs and As with Brian Cartwright, Proprietor of Oliver
3. Video: Cleveland Prospect Dorssys Paulino

Five Notable Oliver Batting MLEs from 2012
Attentive readers — and entirely negligent ones, too, probably — will have noted by now that Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been appearing all up in these electronic pages over the course of the last month.

I don’t believe I’m letting any cats out of their various bags when I state that, soon, FanGraphs will also be releasing Brian Cartwright’s Oliver projections — projections, that is, which could be acquired only in exchange for vast amounts of American currency at The Hardball Times as recently as last year.

By way of whetting the readership’s collective appetite, I present below five notable major-league equivalent stat lines (or, MLEs) from the 2012 season, courtesy that same Oliver system.

Read the rest of this entry »