Daily Notes, Featuring Expected wRC+ for Cape Cod

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

1. Expected wRC+ for the Cape Cod League
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Expected wRC+ for the Cape Cod League
Regarding What This Is
What follows is a so-called Expected wRC+ Leaderboard for the very prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League of Cape Cod, a summer wood-bat league that, generally speaking, features the country’s best college prospects.

Regarding Expected wRC+, What That Could Possibly Be
One assumes that Expected wRC+ could be any number of things. In this particular case, however, it’s an attempt to represent in one number — a number a lot like wRC+, that is — something close to the “true talent” production of a player.

Regarding Expected wRC+, How the Author Calculated It
To calculate Expected wRC+, I found the home-run, walk, and strikeout rates for all the batters in the very prestigious Cape Cod League. After that, I attempted to find “expected” versions of those three rates by weighting each of them against league average until they reached their sample threshold for reliability.

For example, Phil Ervin of the Harwich Mariners has a home-run rate of 7.3% in 150 plate appearances — but, per work by Russell Carleton, home-run rate becomes reliable only after 300 plate appearances. So, to find Ervin’s “expected” home-run rate, I weighted his 150 plate appearances’ worth of 7.3% with 150 plate appearances of league-average (2.2%) home-run rate. The result is Ervin’s 4.8% expected home-run rate.

After finding the expected versions of the aforementioned rate stats, I calculated what is essentially a FIP for offense with them, multiplying home-run rate by 12, walk rate by three, and strikeout rate by two. From there, I finished by adjusting the results such that 100 equaled league average.

Regarding a Thing That’s Possible
It’s entirely possible that the plate-appearance sample thresholds for reliability — like for home-run rate and walk rate and strikeout rate — are different for the Cape Cod League than they are for the majors.

Regarding What the Author Has Done About That Thing
As he’s done for many other problems in his life, the author has opted to ignore this potential issue concerning sample sizes and reliability with the Cape Cod League.

Results: Expected wRC+ Leaders
Below are the top-ten leaders in Expected wRC+ (xRC+) for the Cape Cod League at the moment. (Click here for numbers of every player.)

Player	Team	POS	PA	xHR%	xBB%	xK%	xRC+
Phil Ervin	Harwich	OF	150	4.8%	10.7%	18.7%	147
Conrad Gregor	Orleans	IF	186	3.2%	18.6%	21.0%	147
Tyler Horan	Wareham	3B	163	6.3%	6.6%	24.5%	142
Brian Ragira	Harwich	1B	155	4.1%	14.0%	21.9%	142
Kyle Schwarber	Wareham	OF	189	3.5%	12.0%	15.9%	141
Tony Kemp	Cotuit	OF	131	1.9%	14.5%	13.0%	136
Zak Blair	Y-D	SS	169	1.6%	12.9%	8.9%	136
Eric Jagielo	Harwich	OF	174	5.3%	10.6%	28.2%	134
Mike Ford	Cotuit	P	127	1.9%	14.7%	16.3%	130
Austin Anderson	Falmouth	SS	127	2.9%	10.2%	15.7%	130

A Note on Phil Ervin, Who He Is
Phil Ervin just finished his sophomore season at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. He finished third on the team, behind a pair of seniors, in home runs (10) and led the team in stolen bases (16-for-21). Regarding Ervin, Baseball America’s Peter Wardell wrote last month:

While it’s his offensive outburst that has garnered the attention of scouts thus far, Ervin’s performance in center field has been notable as well. He is an above-average runner with good instincts and a strong, accurate arm. He’s displayed adequate route running and good range, giving him the potential for five average to above-average tools.

Video of Phil Ervin
Here’s video of Phil Ervin hitting a grand slam, like, a month and a half ago:

Note: stats from the official site of the Cape Cod League.

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
San Francisco at St. Louis | 20:15 ET
The Cardinals continue — according to NERD, at least, our infallible watchability metric — continue to be the league’s Most Interesting Team. They remain atop the leaderboard for Team wRC+ (113) and, according to WAR, have lost about six more games than they should’ve (while the first-place Reds have won about six more games than WAR would suggest makes sense). Of note: with a 162 wRC+, Matt Holliday is in the midst of the best offensive season of his career.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio.

Today’s Complete Schedule
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 4.2.

Note: the following Game Scores include the poorly conceived playoff-odds adjustment discussed in a recent edition of Daily Notes. Also note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Wade Miley	AZ	7	7	6	5	5	PIT	Erik Bedard	19:05
Ben Sheets	ATL	7	7	5	5	5	PHI	Vance Worley	19:05
Scott Diamond	MIN	6	4	4	3	7	CLE	Zach McAllister	19:05
Ivan Nova	NYA	7	7	7	5	9	DET	Jus. Verlander	19:05
Jason Vargas	SEA	3	4	2	0	5	BAL	Chris Tillman	19:05
Yu Darvish	TEX	7	8	4	5	2	BOS	Aaron Cook	19:10
Edwin Jackson	WAS	6	7	2	4	0	HOU	Dallas Keuchel	20:05
Bronson Arroyo	CIN	4	4	3	8	6	MIL	Yo. Gallardo	20:10
Luis Mendoza	KC	2	7	4	4	10	CHA	Chris Sale	20:10
Matt Cain	SF	7	3	7	10	5	STL	Jake Westbrook	20:15
Jered Weaver	LAA	4	7	6	5	6	OAK	Jarrod Parker	22:05
Travis Wood	CHN	2	0	0	6	2	SD	Eric Stults	22:05
Drew Pomeranz	COL	4	8	5	1	6	LAN	Chris Capuano	22:10

To learn more about Pitcher and Team NERD scores click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.