Daily Notes: Every Game, Previewed Inadequately

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

1. Announcement: All-Day Chat
2. Every Game, Previewed Inadequately
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Spring Training Batters

Announcement: All-Day Chat
FanGraphs will be hosting basically an all-day chat today, featuring many of the writers you know and love — and also the ones to whom you’re entirely indifferent.

Every Game, Previewed Inadequately
Here are all of today’s games, previewed inadequately and including the preferred television feed of FanGraphs readers, per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project.

Boston at Detroit | 13:05 ET
Jon Lester faces AL Cy Young and MVP Justin Verlander. Ryan Raburn is scheduled to DH for the Tigers.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston.

Atlanta at New York (NL) | 13:10 ET
Mets left-hander Johan Santana makes his first start since 2010. Pitching for Atlanta: Tommy Hanson.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York (NL).

Philadelphia at Pittsburgh | 13:35 ET
The Pirates have had 19 consecutive losing seasons, during which span the best performance by a pitcher is Denny Neagle’s 4.6 WAR in 1995. It’s not inconceivable that today’s starter, Erik Bedard, could approach that mark. Roy Halladay pitches for the Phillies.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Pittsburgh.

Washington at Chicago (NL) | 14:20 ET
Stephen Strasburg makes the first Opening Day start of his career, against Chicago’s Ryan Dempster. Batting fourth and sixth for the Nationals, respectively: Adam LaRoche, Mark DeRosa.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Chicago (NL).

Toronto at Cleveland | 15:05 ET
Today’s free MLB.TV game. Ricky Romero versus Justin Masterson. Brett Lawrie at third base for the Blue Jays. His projected line, per ZiPS: 659 PA, .275/.333/.498 (.314 BABIP), .362 wOBA. That’s probably about a 4.5 WAR.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland, Barely.

Miami at Cincinnati | 16:05 ET
Free-agent signing Mark Buehrle makes his Marlins debut against Johnny Cueto.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Miami, Barely.

Los Angeles NL at San Diego | 19:05 ET
NL Cy Young Clayton Kershaw — owner of one of the league’s best sliders (and probably best fastballs, too) — starts for the Dodgers against offseason trade acquisition Edinson Volquez.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Diego (unless Vin Scully is making the trip).

SCOUT Leaderboards: Spring Training Batters
Batting Leaderboard
SCOUT is a metric designed to assess performance in those instances — like with baseball’s various fall and winter leagues, for example, or spring training — where small samples are the rule. Presented on the same scale as wRC+, SCOUT+ uses regressed home-run rate, walk rate, and strikeout rate as its inputs. Because it uses metrics that become reliable rather quickly, SCOUT+ represents a more stable alternative to batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, etc. (Click here for more on SCOUT+.)

Here’s the SCOUT+ leaderboard for spring-training batters:

Name	Org	PA*	HR%	BB%	K%	xHR%	xBB%	xK%	SCOUT+
Albert Pujols	LAA	67	10.4%	10.4%	6.0%	4.6%	8.3%	12.1%	131
Adam Dunn	CWS	71	8.5%	19.7%	16.9%	4.2%	11.6%	17.0%	127
Shelley Duncan	CLE	64	9.4%	12.5%	15.6%	4.3%	8.9%	16.4%	121
Freddie Freeman	ATL	85	8.2%	8.2%	14.1%	4.4%	7.6%	15.4%	121
Carlos Santana	CLE	68	5.9%	11.8%	5.9%	3.6%	8.7%	12.0%	121
Alex Gonzalez	MIL	60	8.3%	8.3%	6.7%	4.0%	7.5%	12.9%	120
Chris Young	ARI	75	6.7%	13.3%	13.3%	3.9%	9.5%	15.2%	120
Matt Hague	PIT	55	12.7%	0.0%	9.1%	4.7%	5.2%	14.1%	120
Ryan Raburn	DET	62	9.7%	9.7%	14.5%	4.3%	7.9%	16.0%	119
Jesus Guzman	SD	71	8.5%	8.5%	14.1%	4.2%	7.6%	15.6%	118

Batting Laggardboard
Here’s the SCOUT+ laggardboard for spring-training batters:

Name	Org	PA*	HR%	BB%	K%	xHR%	xBB%	xK%	SCOUT+
Brandon Wood	COL	56	0.0%	1.8%	33.9%	2.4%	5.7%	23.3%	78
Matt Kemp	LAD	67	3.0%	3.0%	38.8%	2.9%	5.8%	26.8%	78
Bryan LaHair	CHC	63	0.0%	3.2%	27.0%	2.3%	5.9%	21.2%	81
Pedro Alvarez	PIT	54	3.7%	1.9%	40.7%	3.1%	5.7%	25.6%	82
Clint Barmes	PIT	60	0.0%	1.7%	25.0%	2.3%	5.5%	20.2%	83
Josh Hamilton	TEX	57	0.0%	3.5%	28.1%	2.4%	6.1%	21.2%	83
Neil Walker	PIT	61	0.0%	0.0%	21.3%	2.3%	5.0%	18.8%	84
Hunter Pence	PHI	88	2.3%	3.4%	25.0%	2.7%	5.5%	21.7%	84
Brent Lillibridge	CWS	72	0.0%	9.7%	27.8%	2.2%	8.1%	22.2%	85
Danny Espinosa	WSH	86	2.3%	8.1%	30.2%	2.8%	7.6%	24.6%	85

*Estimated

Notes
• The sample from which these leaderboards were taken includes the 240 spring batters with at least 50 at-bats as of Thursday morning.
• Unlike the most recent pitching version of the SCOUT leaderboards, which featured a number of conspicuously excellent players (Zack Greinke, Roy Halladay, Justin Verlander) among its top 10, the batting leaderboard appears to be less effective at representing true talent — at least with the present samples. If, for example, the names on the above two lists were switched entirely — if Alex Gonzalez and Matt Hague and Ryan Raburn were to appear on the laggardboard; and Josh Hamilton and Matt Kemp and Hunter Pence, on the leader — the results certainly wouldn’t run any more contrary to what other information we have about these players’ respective true-talent levels. If the reliability of pitching SCOUT is something like, say, 0.50 or 0.60, then the reliability of batting SCOUT — again, at this sample — is maybe, like, 0.10 or 0.15.