Daily Notes: May’s WAR Leaders, Almost Definitively

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

1. May’s WAR Leaders, Almost Definitively
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

May’s WAR Leaders, Almost Definitively
Introduction
Insofar as (a) it is now June and (b) the most recent weekly UZR update was conducted at the time of day when the present author’s parties most frequently conclude (i.e. around dawn), what follows are the complete WAR leaderboards for May. Insofar, however, as the seasonal baseline for UZR changes by small increments over the course of the season, altering perhaps players’ monthly WAR figures by a tenth of a win here or there, what follows are not the entirely definitive, but just mostly definitive, WAR leaderboards for May.

Almost Definitive WAR Leaderboard: May Hitters
Here are almost certainly the top-10 field players, by WAR, for May:

Rank	Name	Team	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	BABIP	wRC+	Fld	BsR	WAR
1	Miguel Cabrera	Tigers	132	.379	.455	.767	.381	224	-3.8	0.2	2.2
2	Mike Trout	Angels	127	.327	.409	.664	.359	191	0.3	1.9	2.1
3	Joey Votto	Reds	124	.388	.492	.631	.436	207	0.0	1.1	1.9
4	Chris Davis	Orioles	113	.364	.442	.768	.400	218	-0.8	0.1	1.8
5	Manny Machado	Orioles	130	.355	.380	.556	.387	152	5.4	-1.1	1.8
6	Joe Mauer	Twins	121	.371	.455	.571	.507	179	0.5	0.0	1.7
7	Jose Bautista	Blue Jays	130	.337	.446	.548	.361	169	2.2	0.1	1.7
8	Paul Goldschmidt	D-backs	106	.376	.434	.699	.389	205	1.0	0.1	1.6
9	Marco Scutaro	Giants	111	.420	.473	.560	.427	197	-0.7	0.2	1.6
10	Troy Tulowitzki	Rockies	109	.360	.413	.630	.390	174	2.4	-0.7	1.6

Almost Definitive WAR Leaderboard: May Pitchers
And now here are almost certainly the top-10 pitchers, by WAR, for May:

Rank	Name	Team	IP	K%	BB%	GB%	BABIP	ERA-	FIP-	xFIP-	WAR
1	Derek Holland	Rangers	39.0	27.0%	5.5%	46.8%	.389	52	50	64	1.6
2	Chris Sale	White Sox	31.0	27.7%	4.5%	51.3%	.200	20	47	65	1.3
3	Matt Harvey	Mets	37.2	26.2%	3.5%	44.0%	.242	58	59	73	1.3
4	Felix Hernandez	Mariners	40.2	26.7%	5.6%	56.9%	.336	74	60	57	1.3
5	Anibal Sanchez	Tigers	37.1	31.0%	5.8%	44.6%	.347	98	55	56	1.3
6	Doug Fister	Tigers	34.2	24.3%	3.3%	56.3%	.400	99	51	64	1.3
7	Cliff Lee	Phillies	45.0	19.3%	4.7%	40.8%	.244	47	72	95	1.2
8	Clayton Kershaw	Dodgers	45.2	19.8%	6.2%	43.7%	.231	54	69	93	1.2
9	Max Scherzer	Tigers	45.0	27.6%	6.8%	35.5%	.165	71	72	80	1.2
10	Shelby Miller	Cardinals	31.2	26.2%	4.9%	35.4%	.284	54	58	90	1.1

Almost Definitive WAR Leaderboard: Brief Comments
And finally, here are some brief comments regarding the leaderboards above.

• As is always the case, the editors of FanGraphs do not intend to suggest that a leaderboard merely sorted by WAR represents the best players from a particular interval (be it month or year or career) in that precise order. Rather, it is probably best to say that a case could be made for any player above, so far as which of them had the best May — probably a better case, that is, than for the players who don’t appear on either top-10 board.

• It is difficult to ignore that the top two field players by WAR in May were the ones most deserving of last season’s AL MVP award. Of note regarding Trout: the highest batter WAR ever produced in an age-21 season is Rogers Hornsby’s 9.4 mark in 1917. Trout, who already holds the best mark for age-20 seasons, is a about third of the way to Hornsby’s figure about a third of the way through the season.

• San Francisco shortstop second baseman* Marco Scutaro struck out three times in May.

*Although, importantly, Scutaro plays shortstop for the author’s very impressive ottoneu fantasy team.

• As per usual, calculating pitcher WAR with runs allowed, as opposed to FIP, would generate a different table than the one seen above, in this case one topped by Chicago Americans left-hander Chris Sale (2.1 RA9-Wins). San Diego’s Jason Marquis posted the best figure by that measurement relative to his FIP-based WAR (-0.6 WAR, 0.4 RA9-Wins). Milwaukee’s Wily Peralta posted the worst mark relative to his FIP-based WAR (0.2 WAR, -1.2 RA9-Wins)

• The best reliever of May by WAR was Pittsburgh’s Jason Grilli (13.2 IP, 0.9 WAR).

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Oakland at Milwaukee | 20:10 ET
Tommy Milone (69.0 IP, 100 xFIP-, 0.8 WAR) faces Marco Estrada (65.1 IP, 102 xFIP-, 0.2 WAR). Of note regarding Oakland outfielder Coco Crisp: he’s posted walk and strikeout rates of 15.0% and 8.6%, respectively. The closest any qualified batter comes to Crisp’s walk/strikeout differential is Milwaukee’s Norichika Aoki (7.5% BB, 5.0% K).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Milwaukee 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 4.7.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Justin Masterson	CLE	7	9	6	5	5	NYA	Andy Pettitte	19:05
Tom Koehler	MIA	6	0	3	2	2	PHI	Kyle Kendrick	19:05
Tyler Chatwood	COL	8	9	6	6	4	CIN	Bronson Arroyo	19:10
A.J. Burnett	PIT	8	6	6	8	4	ATL	Kris Medlen	19:10
Tommy Milone	OAK	5	6	6	5	6	MIL	Marco Estrada	20:10
Trevor Cahill	AZ	5	4	5	2	7	STL	Lance Lynn	20:15
Erik Bedard	HOU	0	3	3	5	5	LAA	Joe Blanton	22:05
John Danks*	CHA	6	0	3	6	1	SEA	Joe Saunders	22:10
Eric Stults	SD	4	7	4	3	2	LAN	Chris Capuano	22:10

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