Daily Notes, Featuring the Best Performances of A-Ball

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

1. SCOUT Leaderboards for Both the Class-A Leagues
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

SCOUT Leaderboards for Both the Class-A Leagues
Regarding What This Is, First of All
What follows are the SCOUT Leaderboards for both the Class-A Leagues (the Midwest and South Atlantic ones, that is) combined.

Regarding a “SCOUT Leaderboard,” What That Is
SCOUT is metric designed to assess performance in those instances — like in a minor league, for example — where small samples are ubiquitous. A high SCOUT+ is good for a hitter; a low SCOUT- is good for a pitcher.

More on SCOUT, How It’s Calculated
SCOUT uses regressed, defense-independent inputs to calculate FIP-like stats for both pitchers and hitters. Click here to learn more about it.

Regarding SCOUT, One of Its Benefits
A benefit of SCOUT is, because both SCOUT+ and SCOUT- are presented relative to league, it allows one to compare the relative performances of players across multiple leagues — like in what follows, for example.

Regarding These Numbers
All the following numbers are final for 2012.

Top Batters of the Class-A Leagues (Overall)
Here are the top-10 batters of the Class-A Leagues, as determined by the methodology explained above.

Player	Team	League	Age	PA	xHR%	xBB%	xK%	SCOUT+
Matt Skole	Nationals	Sally	22	448	6.0%	21.0%	25.9%	177
Alejandro Segovia	Rays	Midwest	22	284	5.1%	10.2%	12.7%	160
Nolan Fontana	Astros	Sally	21	222	1.1%	29.3%	19.8%	155
Curt Casali	Tigers	Midwest	23	206	3.2%	13.1%	8.7%	154
Colin Walsh	Cardinals	Midwest	22	425	3.8%	14.1%	15.3%	151
Steve Souza	Nationals	Sally	23	293	5.7%	7.5%	16.7%	151
Brian Goodwin	Nationals	Sally	21	266	3.2%	16.2%	14.7%	151
Miguel Sano	Twins	Midwest	19	553	5.1%	14.5%	26.0%	146
Kennys Vargas	Twins	Midwest	21	186	4.3%	14.6%	22.0%	145
Dan Paolini	Mariners	Midwest	22	473	3.8%	10.4%	13.3%	144

Top Batters of the Class-A Leagues (Aged 21 and Under)
Here are the top-10 batters of the Class-A Leagues who might still, because of their age relative to the level, be considered prospects — again, as determined by the methodology explained above.

Player	Team	League	Age	PA	xHR%	xBB%	xK%	SCOUT+
Nolan Fontana	Astros	Sally	21	222	1.1%	29.3%	19.8%	155
Brian Goodwin	Nationals	Sally	21	266	3.2%	16.2%	14.7%	151
Miguel Sano	Twins	Midwest	19	553	5.1%	14.5%	26.0%	146
Kennys Vargas	Twins	Midwest	21	186	4.3%	14.6%	22.0%	145
Josh Sale	Rays	Midwest	20	297	3.3%	17.2%	20.9%	144
Christopher Austin	Yankees	Sally	20	309	4.5%	12.3%	22.0%	140
Cameron Garfield	Brewers	Midwest	21	257	3.9%	10.5%	16.3%	140
Gregory Polanco	Pirates	Sally	20	485	3.3%	9.1%	13.2%	134
Aderlin Rodriguez	Mets	Sally	20	352	4.5%	8.2%	20.2%	132
Max Muncy	Athletics	Midwest	21	274	1.5%	15.0%	13.5%	130

Top Pitchers of the Class-A Leagues (Overall)
Here are the top-10 pitchers of the Class-A Leagues, as determined by the methodology explained above.

Player	Team	League	Age	IP	TBF	xK%	xBB%	SCOUT-
Matthew Stites	Padres	Midwest	22	48.2	175	34.3%	6.4%	49
Michael Tonkin	Twins	Midwest	22	39.0	154	34.4%	7.8%	53
Aaron Barrett	Nationals	Sally	24	34.2	139	36.1%	8.8%	53
Matt Barnes	Red Sox	Sally	22	26.2	97	35.0%	8.2%	55
Jose Fernandez	Marlins	Sally	19	79.0	295	33.6%	7.5%	57
Dylan Bundy	Orioles	Sally	19	30.0	99	33.4%	7.8%	58
Nick Goody	Yankees	Sally	20	24.2	94	34.1%	8.8%	59
Cody Hall	Giants	Sally	24	38.1	161	33.5%	8.6%	60
Russell Brewer	Rockies	Sally	24	60.1	236	32.2%	7.9%	62
Mariano Llorens	Cardinals	Midwest	19	20.1	81	31.6%	8.2%	62

Top Pitchers of the Class-A Leagues (Starters Only)
Here are the top-10 pitchers in the Class-A Leagues who made at least half of their appearances as starts — again, as determined by the methodology explained above.

Player	Team	League	Age	IP	TBF	xK%	xBB%	SCOUT-
Matt Barnes	Red Sox	Sally	22	26.2	97	35.0%	8.2%	55
Jose Fernandez	Marlins	Sally	19	79.0	295	33.6%	7.5%	57
Dylan Bundy	Orioles	Sally	19	30.0	99	33.4%	7.8%	58
Kyle Smith	Royals	Midwest	19	67.1	280	31.1%	7.9%	63
Clayton Blackburn	Giants	Sally	19	131.1	531	26.9%	3.6%	65
Noah Syndergaard	Blue Jays	Midwest	19	103.2	420	29.0%	7.7%	69
A.J. Cole	Athletics	Midwest	20	95.2	376	27.1%	6.2%	70
Alex Meyer	Nationals	Sally	22	90.0	367	29.2%	9.2%	74
Justin Nicolino	Blue Jays	Midwest	20	124.1	495	24.0%	4.7%	75
Adam Conley	Marlins	Sally	22	74.1	301	27.9%	8.5%	76

Three Notable Performances
• Matt Skole, a third baseman in the Nationals system, was pretty clearly the offensive leader of A-ball by this methodology. Both age (born in July of 1989, Skole was an old 22 this year) and defense (Brian Cartwright’s OLIVER projects Skole as almost a full win below average at third base) remain concerns regarding Skole’s status as a prospect, even as his offensive line provides a certain optimism.
• Houston’s Nolan Fontana is the only player both to (a) appear among the league’s prospect-age offensive leaders and (b) do so while playing the majority (and, in this case, roughly all) of his defensive innings at shortstop. Drafted in the second round out of Florida this summer, Fontana showed little in the way of power (hitting just two home runs in 222 plate appearances), but a great deal in the way of patience: Fontana’s regressed walk rate was eight percentage points higher than the next Class-A batter.
• There are a number of impressive and quite young pitchers on the SCOUT starting-pitcher leaderboard: of the five 19-year-olds toward the top of the list, three of them (Jose Fernandez, Dylan Bundy, and Noah Syndergaard) are widely hailed prospects. What follows are the most cursory possible notes on the other two. Kyle Smith is a right-hander and former fourth-round pick by the Royals (in 2011) who had little in the way of presence on preseason prospect lists entering the season. Reports from 2011 had his fastball in the 88-92 mph range, although there isn’t much coverage of him on the internet. Clayton Blackburn has a “heavy fastball,” according to Marc Hulet, who ranked the right-hander 12th among Giants prospects before the season. Blackburn was taken in the 16th round last year (i.e. 2011) out of a Oklahoma high school.

Other SCOUT Leaderboards
International League (Triple-A)
Pacific Coast League (Triple-A)
Eastern League (Double-A)
Southern League (Double-A)
Texas League (Double-A)
California, Carolina, and Florida State Leagues Combined (High-A)
New York-Penn and Northwest Leagues Combined (Low-A)
Appalachian, Arizona, Gulf Coast, and Pioneer Leagues Combined (Rookie)

Today’s Notable Games
Oakland at Detroit | 19:05 ET
Oakland right-hander A.J. Griffin (65.0 IP, 87 xFIP-, 1.7 WAR), whose curveball doesn’t stop to the tick-tock or any other manner of onomatopoeic expression, faces well-regarded man of letters Max Scherzer (176.2 IP, 76 xFIP-, 4.1 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Oakland or Detroit Radio.

Chicago AL at Kansas City | 20:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Gavin Floyd’s last start, against Detroit, was his best of the season on a per-batter basis. Line: 4.2 IP, 19 TBF, 7 K, 1 BB, 70.0% GB, 1.37 xFIP. He starts tonight for the White Sox.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Kansas City Radio, I Guess.

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 4.1.

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
Aaron Harang	LAN	1	1	3	7	8	WAS	J. Zimmermann	19:05
Yovani Gallardo	MIL	6	9	6	4	8	PIT	A.J. Burnett	19:05
P.J. Walters	MIN	2	4	2	2	6	CLE	David Huff*	19:05
A.J. Griffin	OAK	7	6	8	4	10	DET	Max Scherzer	19:05
Ricky Romero	TOR	2	5	4	6	10	NYA	Andy Pettitte	19:05
Paul Maholm	ATL	4	6	2	4	4	MIA	Nathan Eovaldi	19:10
Felix Doubront	BOS	7	5	4	5	3	TB	J. Hellickson	19:10
Tyler Cloyd	PHI	5	5	5	2	10	NYN	Matt Harvey	19:10
Homer Bailey	CIN	6	4	2	1	4	CHN	Justin Germano	20:05
Gavin Floyd	CHA	4	4	4	8	5	KC	Luke Hochevar	20:10
Fernando Abad*	HOU	3	3	4	9	5	STL	Kyle Lohse	20:15
Eric Stults	SD	3	7	3	6	5	AZ	Ian Kennedy	21:40
Ryan Dempster	TEX	6	7	5	8	4	LAA	Jered Weaver	22:05
Wei-Yin Chen	BAL	5	2	5	4	9	SEA	Er. Ramirez	22:10
Jeff Francis	COL	6	6	4	4	7	SF	Tim Lincecum	22:15

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.