Daily Notes: A Reasonably Adequate Caribbean Series Update

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.

Here’s a table of the standings through three games, copy-and-pasted illicitly from ESPN Deportes, but then formatted to suggest nothing of the sort:

Team	W	L	PCT	JD	CA	CP	DIF
Dominican	3	0	1,000	–	19	9	10
Venezuela	2	1	0.667	1	9	11	-2
Mexico	1	2	0.333	2	11	10	1
Puerto Rico	0	3	0.000	3	3	12	-9

And here’s a glossary, with English translations, for the above:

G: Victorias (Wins)
P: Derrotas (Losses)
PCT: Porcentaje de victorias (Winning Percentage)
JD: Juegos detrás (Games Back)
CA: Carreras anotadas (Runs Scored)
CP: Carreras permitidas (Runs Allowed)
DIF: Diferencial de carreras (Run Differential)

Stats
Here is a slightly absurd, but not entirely usesless, leaderboard of the top-10 hitting performances through the first three games of the Caribbean Series. SCOUT+ an offensive measure calculated with regressed home-run, walk, and strikeout rates, where 100 is average and above 100 is above average. (Click here for more on what is SCOUT.)

Player	Team	Pos	PA	xHR%	xBB%	xK%	SCOUT+
Miguel Tejada	DR	SS	12	2.3%	10.4%	20.5%	108
Joe Thurston	VEN	OF	11	2.0%	10.4%	20.0%	105
Donell Linares	DR	3B	12	2.3%	8.9%	19.9%	105
Jose Ramirez	DR	2B	15	2.0%	11.2%	21.4%	104
Hanley Ramirez	DR	SS	14	2.0%	10.8%	20.9%	104
Barbaro Canizares	MEX	1B	12	2.0%	9.9%	19.9%	104
Robert Perez	VEN	OF	10	2.3%	9.0%	20.8%	103
Jesse Gutierrez	MEX	1B	11	2.0%	9.9%	20.7%	102
Jose Castillo	VEN	2B	12	2.3%	9.4%	21.9%	102
Reegie Corona	VEN	2B	12	2.3%	9.4%	21.9%	102

And here are the top-10 pitching performances thus far — in this case by SCOUT-, a metric calculated with regressed strikeout and walk rates where 100 is average and below 100 is above average.

Player	Team	G	GS	IP	TBF	xK%	xBB%	SCOUT-
Ken Ray	VEN	1	1	6.0	24	24.4%	9.1%	91
Victor Moreno	VEN	1	0	1.2	5	24.0%	9.5%	93
Ricardo Gomez	PUR	1	0	2.0	6	23.6%	9.4%	94
Jailen Peguero	DR	2	0	2.0	6	23.6%	9.4%	94
Angel Castro	DR	1	1	7.0	24	23.0%	9.1%	95
Ramon Garcia	DR	2	0	2.0	7	22.8%	9.4%	97
Darwin Cubillan	VEN	1	0	1.0	6	23.0%	9.6%	97
Jose Cobos	MEX	3	0	2.2	8	22.7%	9.6%	97
Saul Rivera	PUR	1	0	1.0	4	22.6%	9.5%	98
Hector Navarro	MEX	1	0	0.1	1	22.5%	9.5%	98
Tony Pena Jr.	DR	2	0	2.0	6	22.3%	9.4%	98

A Notable Performance
Right-hander Ken Ray, of Venezuelan club Magallanes, had the best start of the Series’ six total games so far on Sunday, striking out nine batters from Puerto Rican champion Caguas while walking none (box).

A veteran of no fewer than six major-league organizations, the 38-year-old Ray’s Baseball Reference record features numbers for him only through 2009 — since which time he appears to have been pitching in Taiwan.

Ray looked quite on Sunday, throwing a fastball at 89-91 mph, at least one breaking pitch, and then a changeup.

Here’s an example of one fastball, what looks like a front-hip two-seamer, for a called strike to Daniel Ortiz (a prospect in the Minnesota system):

And here he is getting a swinging strikeout with high fastball to Miguel Abreu (most recently of Philadelphia):

Here’s an example of what looks like a slider, to get Abreu swinging in the first:

And here’s a pair of GIFs of Ray using a changeup to get Giants minor-league catcher Johnny Monell swinging.

First, in real time:

And then closer, slower:

Schedule
The Series is available both streaming via Watch ESPN and also on ESPN Deportes.

Here are today’s games (ET):
3:00 p.m. Puerto Rico at Dominican Republic
7:00 p.m. Venezuela at Mexico