Daily Notes for March 7th

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

1. Three Notable Spring Debuts
2. Video: Excellent Yu Darvish Compilation
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Texas Radio

Three Notable Spring Debuts
The four games being offered on MLB.TV today likely won’t hold much interest for fans outside the relevant markets. Notable, however, is that three Pitchers of Interest will be making their spring debuts, as follow.

Shelby Miller at Washington, 13:05 ET
Miller has been near the top of every prospect list this offseason. His fastball sits in the mid-90s and both his curve and change are already solid-average pitches. Last year, in his age-20 season, he struck out 29.7% of batters faced in 139.2 innings between High- and Double-A. Here’s his ZiPS projections for this season: 132.1 IP, 8.57 K/9, 4.63 BB/9, 0.68 HR/9, 3.65 FIP. He’s unlikely to break camp with the Cardinals, but could compel the club to give him a midseason call-up. Like, by pitching well, I mean. Not by threats of violence, like you were thinking.

Wei-Yin Chen vs. Minnesota, 13:05 ET
The 26-year-old left-hander Chen signed a three-year, $11.4 million deal with Baltimore this offseason after pitching for four years in the NPB. Both his strikeout (8.4, 8.0, 7.3, 5.1 K/9) and walk (2.6, 2.2, 2.3, 1.7 BB/9) rates dropped during his time in Japan. According to NPB Tracker, Chen’s fastball sits at around 89-92 mph, and he throws five other pitches: curve, slider, forkball, shuuto, and cut fastball.

Yu Darvish at San Diego, 15:05 ET
No comment necessary.

Video: Excellent Yu Darvish Compilation
Here’s an excellent compilation of Yu Darvish pitches from Japan. Note: 100, 125, and 150 kph is approximately 62, 78, and 93 mph, respectively.

Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Texas 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.