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

1. Contract Crowdsourcing: Second Basemen
2. Photo: So-Called Major Leaguer Freddy Sanchez
3. Today’s Playoff Games

Contract Crowdsourcing: Second Basemen
Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. FanGraphs is asking readers to estimate the years and average annual dollar values likely to be received by certain notable free agents. We continue today with second basemen. (Click here for more on the contract crowdsourcing project.)

Other positions: Catcher / First Basemen.

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

1. Contract Crowdsourcing: First Basemen
2. Photo: Carlos Lee Looking Handsome
3. Today’s One Playoff Game

Contract Crowdsourcing: First Basemen
Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. FanGraphs is asking readers to estimate the years and average annual dollar values likely to be received by certain notable free agents. We continue today with first basemen. (Click here for more on the contract crowdsourcing project.)

Other positions: Catcher.

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

1. Contract Crowdsourcing: An Introduction
2. Contract Crowdsourcing: Catchers
3. Today’s One Playoff Game

Contract Crowdsourcing: An Introduction
A Thing That’s a Fact
A totally true fact is that free agency this year begins a mere five days after the end of the World Series — at which point, major- and minor-league free agents may sign contracts with teams other than their former clubs.

Another Thing That’s a Fact
Another thing that’s a fact is how, despite clearly lacking all taste so far as books and films are concerned, is how the Crowds possess a certain Wisdom wherein estimating figures is concerned — like the weight of a slaughtered and dressed ox, for example.

The Only Obvious Conclusion
The only obvious conclusion one is permitted to draw from the true facts above is that the Crowds might be particularly well-suited to estimating the contract year and dollar-value amounts this offseason’s notable free agents are likely to receive.

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

1. Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Indepedent American Association
2. Mostly Relevant Video: Brian Myrow Doubling in 2008
3. Today’s Playoff Games

Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Indepedent American Association
Regarding What Happened Recently
What happened recently is the author, having noted a news story regarding the final game of the independent Atlantic League’s championship series, endeavored to publish SCOUT hitting and pitching leaderboards for that same league.

Regarding What Happened Even More Recently
A thing that happened even more recently is the author, in preparing the aforementioned SCOUT leaderboards for the Atlantic League, was reminded about how there are, like, six or whatever other indepedent leagues — information for all of which the FanGraphs readership would undoubtedly be clamoring.

Regarding What’s Happening Right Now
What’s happening right now is — for the benefit of the clamoring readership — is the author is presenting SCOUT hitting and pitching leaderboards for the independent American Association, which ended in mid-September (championship box score). Click here for a full list of teams and standings.

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

1. Premature SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
2. Video: Brian Goodwin on Emergence
3. Today’s Playoff Games

Premature SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
Regarding What Happened Recently
Recently (which is to say, Tuesday), this year’s edition of the Arizona Fall League began.

Regarding What’s Happening Now
What happening right now is, is the author is publishing a pair of entirely premature SCOUT leaderboards — one for hitting, the other for pitching — including the data from the first two days of the AFL.

Regarding What Is SCOUT
SCOUT is a metric calculated using regressed defense-indepedent numbers (walks, strikeouts, and — for hitters — home runs). The offensive version is SCOUT+, where 100 is league average and above 100 is above average. Its pitching counterpart is SCOUT-, where 100 is league average and below 100 represents above-average run prevention. (Read more here, if you’re even interested.)

Regarding SCOUT, One of Its Benefits
A benefit of SCOUT is it allows one to compare the relative performances of players with markedly different sample sizes and/or batted-ball luck.

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

1. Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Indepedent Atlantic League
2. Video: Atlantic League Excellent Pitcher Matthew Way
3. Today’s Playoff Games

Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Indepedent Atlantic League
Regarding What Happened Recently
What happened recently is the independent Atlantic League’s 2012 season ended, with Long Island defeating Lancaster on Sunday in the fifth game of a five-game championship series (box).

Regarding What Else Happened Recently
What happened even more recently is, is the author prepared hitting and pitching SCOUT leaderboards for the now completed and very independent Atlantic League.

Regarding What Is SCOUT
SCOUT is a metric calculated using regressed defense-indepedent numbers (walks, strikeouts, and — for hitters — home runs). The offensive version is SCOUT+, where 100 is league average and above 100 is above average. Its pitching counterpart is SCOUT-, where 100 is league average and below 100 represents above-average run prevention. (Read more here, if you’re even interested.)

Regarding SCOUT, One of Its Benefits
A benefit of SCOUT is it allows one to compare the relative performances of players with markedly different sample sizes and/or batted-ball luck.

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

1. Assorted Headlines
2. Video: Colorado Shortstop Prospect Trevor Story
3. Today’s Playoff Schedule

Assorted Headlines
Arizona Fall League Begins Today
The Arizona Fall League — featuring many of baseball’s top prospects and giving us daily games at regular times, which certain, unnamed and anxiety-prone authors prefer — begins this afternoon. Among today’s notable starters: Seattle left-hander James Paxton (for Peoria) and Jarred Cosart (for Mesa), whom Houston received in the Hunter Pence trade with Philadelphia. Here’s where John Sickels ranks Cosart on the list noted below: 30th among pitching prospects. And here’s where he ranks Paxton: 25th.

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

1. Custom Leaderboard: All the Minor-League Free Agents So Far
2. Video: Angel Sanchez, Defensively
3. Today’s Playoff Schedule

Custom Leaderboard: All the Minor-League Free Agents So Far
What Happened About a Month Ago
Just a little less than a month, Dave Cameron presented to the readership — with the assistance of Brandon Warne — presented a custom leaderboard featuring the players most likely to become free agents this offseason.

What’s Happening Right Now
What’s happening right now is the present author is announcing the creation of a custom leaderboard that he himself has made featuring 29 minor-league players who just declared free agency.

The Two Aforementioned Leaderboards, A Similarity
The similarity between the list below and the one presented by Cameron last month is that they both utilize FanGraphs Custom Leaderboard Technology™.

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

1. Assorted Headlines
2. Today’s Games
3. Unnecessary Video: Longest Home Run of 2012

Assorted Headlines
Featuring, at the very least, 140%-150% of news that’s fit to print.

Cubs Fans Gross, Cardinals Fans Not
Urine Feces Everywhere (UFE), some manner of independent agency situation, has assessed all 30 major-league stadiums on cleanliness “using over 79 different criteria,” according to their site. What one learns: Wrigley Stadium was the dirtiest park in the majors (mostly owing to a lack of handwashing among men) and Busch was the cleanest. There are probably some interesting questions raised here about design or event management for people who enjoy asking questions along those lines.

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

1. A Brief Note Regarding the Regular Season
2. Summary: Shelby Miller’s First MLB Start
3. Forthcoming Games

A Brief Note
It might have occurred to the reader — as it did to the author, last night, as he started writing these very same Notes — that the 2012 regular season is now over. There is really nothing to recommend this state of affairs.

Brief Summary: Shelby Miller’s First MLB Start
What Happened Last Night
Last night, top Cardinals prospect Shelby Miller (after five September relief appearances) made his first major-league start — and did so in front of the straight-on Cardinals center-field camera.

Miller’s Line
Miller was entirely proficient in his starting debut. To wit: 6.0 IP, 21 TBF, 7 K, 2 BB, 3 GB on 11 batted-balls (27.3% GB), 3.97 xFIP. Also, he and the Cardinal defense allowed just a single hit — albeit, not against what the most imposing version of the Cincinnanti offense. Miller threw 52 of 72 pitches (72.2%) for strikes. (League average for starters is ca. 63%, with a standard deviation of ca. 2.5%.)

A Note on Miller’s Fastball
As he did in his real-live major-league debut — and has done in his appearances since — Miller generated a number of swing-and-misses on his fastball. Per Texas Leaguers, Miller got whiffs on eight of his 51 total four-seam fastballs, or about 16%. The league-average whiff rate on fastballs is about 6%. Miller’s swinging-strike on fastballs is currently at 13.0%.

Most Overpowering Fastball
Here’s footage of Miller’s hardest fastball (93.7 mph) that was also a swinging-strike — to Drew Stubbs in the fifth inning:

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