Daily Notes for March 26th
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. Programming Note: Mystery Guests
2. Select Televised Games
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Spring Training Pitchers
4. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Philadelphia Radio
Programming Note: Mystery Guests
The present author will be spending the week in and around Jupiter, Florida, spring home of the Cardinals, Marlins, and the author’s grandfather.
As a result, the next three editions of Daily Notes will be authored by three Mystery Guests. Their identities willn’t be revealed now — with a view, that is, towards preserving the mystery part of their name — but the reader can rest assured that each edition of Daily Notes between Tuesday and Thursday will be full of Heartpounding Excitement and Bone-Chilling Suspense.
Select Televised Games
Notable games on MLB.TV.
Boston at Philadelphia | 13:05 ET
Who’ll play shortstop for the Red Sox this April, Mike Aviles or Jose Iglesias? Who’ll play second base for the Phillies, Freddy Galvis or another person? Tune in to have these questions kinda, sorta answered!
Colorado at Los Angeles AL | 16:05 ET
Right-hander, and frontrunner for the Angels’ fifth rotation spot (provided Jerome Williams isn’t ready to begin the season), Garrett Richards makes the start for Los Angeles. Richards sits at around 95 mph with his four-seamer and has posted rather low walk rates (generally ca. 7.0%) in the minors. Here he is so far this spring: 9.0 IP, 7 K, 1 BB, 0 HR. Left-hander Drew Pomeranz pitches for Colorado.
SCOUT Leaderboards: Spring Training Pitchers
Pitching 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 ERA-, SCOUT- is calculated like kwERA, except using regressed stikeout and walk rates instead. Because it uses metrics that become reliable rather quickly, SCOUT- represents a more stable alternative to ERA. (Click here for more on SCOUT-.)
Here’s the SCOUT- leaderboard for spring-training pitchers, as of Sunday afternoon:
| Name | Org | G | GS | IP | BF* | K% | BB% | xK% | xBB% | SCOUT- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zack Greinke | MIL | 4 | 3 | 12.1 | 46 | 43.2% | 2.2% | 25.6% | 6.3% | 75 |
| Francisco Liriano | MIN | 5 | 5 | 18.0 | 67 | 34.3% | 4.5% | 25.2% | 6.4% | 77 |
| Dan Haren | LAA | 4 | 4 | 15.0 | 55 | 32.7% | 3.6% | 23.3% | 6.4% | 83 |
| Wade LeBlanc | MIA | 5 | 2 | 19.2 | 69 | 27.7% | 2.9% | 22.3% | 6.2% | 85 |
| Justin Verlander | DET | 4 | 4 | 14.2 | 57 | 30.0% | 5.3% | 22.4% | 6.6% | 86 |
| Matt Maloney | MIN | 7 | 0 | 11.1 | 40 | 34.7% | 5.0% | 22.3% | 6.6% | 86 |
| Vance Worley | PHI | 4 | 4 | 16.0 | 66 | 27.3% | 3.0% | 22.0% | 6.3% | 86 |
| Max Scherzer | DET | 5 | 5 | 20.0 | 82 | 25.6% | 6.1% | 22.1% | 6.6% | 87 |
| Cory Luebke | SD | 4 | 4 | 14.0 | 57 | 28.1% | 5.3% | 21.7% | 6.6% | 88 |
| Jaime Garcia | STL | 4 | 4 | 13.1 | 55 | 28.9% | 9.0% | 21.9% | 7.0% | 88 |
And the laggardboard:
| Name | Org | G | GS | IP | BF* | K% | BB% | xK% | xBB% | SCOUT- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Pelfrey | NYM | 4 | 4 | 15.2 | 80 | 7.5% | 7.5% | 12.4% | 6.8% | 116 |
| Jason Marquis | MIN | 4 | 4 | 12.2 | 65 | 7.7% | 13.9% | 13.5% | 7.6% | 115 |
| Bronson Arroyo | CIN | 4 | 4 | 13.0 | 65 | 7.7% | 12.3% | 13.4% | 7.4% | 115 |
| Wandy Rodriguez | HOU | 3 | 3 | 10.0 | 52 | 5.8% | 13.5% | 13.6% | 7.4% | 114 |
| Homer Bailey | CIN | 5 | 5 | 14.2 | 70 | 8.6% | 10.1% | 13.5% | 7.1% | 114 |
| Josh Tomlin | CLE | 5 | 3 | 17.0 | 84 | 8.3% | 1.2% | 12.5% | 5.9% | 113 |
| Jair Jurrjens | ATL | 4 | 4 | 13.1 | 74 | 10.8% | 13.5% | 14.3% | 7.6% | 113 |
| Carl Pavano | MIN | 5 | 5 | 17.2 | 83 | 9.7% | 6.1% | 13.3% | 6.6% | 113 |
| Jon Lester | BOS | 3 | 3 | 11.0 | 54 | 7.4% | 13.0% | 14.1% | 7.3% | 113 |
| Kevin Correia | PIT | 4 | 4 | 14.0 | 57 | 7.0% | 7.0% | 13.7% | 6.7% | 112 |
*Estimated
Notes
• The sample for this edition of the SCOUT pitching leaderboard includes the 164 pitchers who’d thrown 10.0 or more spring-training innings as of Sunday afternoon.
• Marlins left-hander Wade LeBlanc moves up one spot after placing fifth on last week’s leaderboard. In the meantime, he’s made a start (against Boston, on Saturday) and done this: 5.0 IP, 21 TBF, 4 K, 0 BB, 7/3 GO/AO. The Marlins are also considering right-hander Chad Gaudin for a long-relief role, reports MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro, although — at this moment, at least — that would appear to be a poor decision.
• Despite his 6.59 spring ERA, Roy Halladay is actually 12th (of 164 pitchers), with an 88 SCOUT-.
• Here are some contenders for the Red Sox rotation: Alfredo Aceves, 95 SCOUT- (37th); Felix Doubront, 106 (133rd); Daniel Bard, 111 (153rd). Note that this doesn’t include Bard’s Sunday start.
• Mike Pelfrey, fourth from the bottom last week, takes over the last spot overall on this edition of the leaderboard after another underwhelming performance on Saturday, during which he struck out only two of the 28 batters he faced (7.1%).
Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Philadelphia Radio
Recently, we released the results of our television broadcaster rankings — itself the product of reader crowdsourcing that started in late November. Now, FanGraphs is asking readers to rate the radio broadcast teams for all 30 major-league clubs (Click here for more on this project.)
Rate other teams: Washington / Toronto / Texas / Tampa Bay / Seattle / San Francisco / San Diego / St. Louis / Pittsburgh.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
I know it’s only spring training but what the hell has gotten into Wade LeBlanc.