Daily Notes: Nerd Stats for the Dominican’s WBC Roster

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

1. Nerds Stats for the Dominican’s Provisional WBC Team
2. Video: The Only Footage You’ve Maybe Seen of Kelvin Herrera
3. Status Update: All the Caribbean Leagues

Nerds Stats for the Dominican’s Provisional WBC Team
This past Thursday, all 16 participants in this year’s World Baseball Classic announced their provisional rosters for that same tournament (which itself begins in early March). Over the course of this week, we’ll consider the nerds stats for some of the notable WBC rosters, where notable is defined as “those which most interest the author on that particular morning.”

Here are the countries considered so far: Canada* / United States.

*Not by this precise methodology.

Below are the members of the Dominican Republic team, accompanied by various nerd stats from the last three seasons of major-league play.

Here, first, are the field players for the Dominican national team, sorted by WAR per every 650 plate appearances over the past three seasons:

Now, here are the Dominican pitchers who’ve made at least 50% of their appearances in a starting capactiy, sorted by WAR per every 200 innings:

And now, here the Dominican players who’ve pitched mostly in relief, with WAR per every 60 innings:

Notes
• All averages are simple averages — that is, not weighted by plate appearances or innings pitched.

• As noted with regard to Kris Medlen on the U.S. team, it’s entirely possible that the Dominican will utilize Alexi Ogando (any Esmil Rogers, too, maybe) in a starting role — despite the fact that he’s classified as a reliever by the criteria used here.

• Relative to the provisional U.S. team, this version of the Dominican squad trails, on average, in hitting (by 0.4 WAR), starting pitching (by 1.0 WAR), and relief pitching (by 0.3 WAR).

Video: The Only Footage You’ve Maybe Seen of Kelvin Herrera
It’s possible that the reader isn’t entirely familiar with Kansas City and Dominican Republic reliever Kelvin Herrera, whose fastball sat at 97-98 mph this season, according to PITCHf/x.

Here’s footage exclusively of Herrera’s fastball:

And this video gives a sense of Herrera’s changeup (at the 0:08 and 0:15 marks), which is also a plus pitch:

Status Update: All the Caribbean Leagues
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — begins on February 1st. In the meantime, each individual league is in the midst of its own respective playoff series.

Here’s where in the midst of the playoffs each of them is.

Dominican Winter League
After a 3-2 defeat on Monday of Aguilas (box), Escogido now leads the best-of-nine championship series (against Aguilas) four games to zero. Young and talented Pittsburgh outfielder Starling Marte plays for Escogido.

Mexican Pacific League
The league’s best-of-seven championship series begins tonight (Tuesday) between Obregon and Mexicali. Obregon’s Barbaro Canizares (formerly of the Atlanta system) posted the league’s top regressed offensive numbers. Mexicali features Marco Duarte and Michael Benacka, the MPL’s best starter and reliever, respectively, by a similar method.

Puerto Rican League
Right-hander Javier Vazquez’s team, Caguas, enters Tuesday with a 2-1 lead over Mayaguez in the best-of-seven PRL championship series. Of note on Mayaguez: Minnesota prospects Eddie Rosario and Kennys Vargas, and also Cuban-born Dodger outfielder Yasiel Puig.

Venezuelan Winter League
Lara and Magallanes are poised to meet, it appears, in the VWL’s championship series. Luis Jimenez (of both Lara and, recently, Toronto) was the league’s best hitter. Magallanes, meanwhile, features major leaguers Elvis Andrus and Pablo Sandoval, among others. FanGraphs Audio guest and top-10 hitter Chris Nowak was a fixture on the team at one point, but doesn’t seem to have played of late.