Daily Notes: Regressed Italian League Stats, For Some Reason
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Regressed Italian League Stats, For Some Reason
2. Video Footage: The Craig Kimbrel of Italy
Regressed Italian League Stats, For Some Reason
A man does not always know what he’s doing. Perhaps, in fact, he never knows what he’s doing.
Regardless of the precise frequency, what’s clear is that the author of this post — for reasons that have yet to be revealed — spent a considerable portion of Tuesday night first (a) copy-and-pasting Italian baseball league stats into an Excel file, and then (b) formatting and applying a simple regression to those same stats, so’s to produce the leaderboards one finds below — which is to say, SCOUT-type leaderboards for that same Italian baseball league
What’s a SCOUT-type leaderboard? A SCOUT leaderboard is essentially an attempt to — utilizing Russell Carleton’s excellent work on the reliability thresholds of various metrics — to produce something meaningful from small sample sizes. (Click here for more on that.)
Below are the final SCOUT leaderboards for the first division of the Italian Baseball League’s 2012 season, which appears to have taken place between late March and July. Ages are as of July 1st, 2012.
By way of reference, below are the teams in the IBL. It’s probably fair to say that each of these Italian cities is built atop a charming medieval hill.
BOL – Unipol Bologna
GOD – De Angelis Godo Knights
GRS – Grosseto Baseball
NET – Danesi Caffe Nettuno
PAR – Cariparma Parma
RIM – Rimini Baseball
RSM – T&A San Marino
NOV – Elettra Energia Novara 2000
SCOUT Leaderboard: Italian League Hitters
Below is the final SCOUT batting leaderboard for the Italian Baseball League. SCOUT+ is calculated using regressed home-run, walk, and strikeout rates, where 100 is average and above 100 is above average.
| Player | Team | Age | Pos | PA | xHR% | xBB% | xK% | SCOUT+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Danilo Sanchez | GOD | 31 | C | 172 | 3.8% | 13.4% | 10.5% | 160 |
| Osman Marval | PAR | 25 | C | 179 | 3.1% | 11.1% | 7.8% | 150 |
| Maximiliano De Biase | RIM | 37 | 1B | 159 | 1.8% | 11.1% | 5.7% | 139 |
| Joseph Mazzuca | RSM | 31 | 1B | 177 | 2.8% | 13.2% | 16.9% | 134 |
| Mario Chiarini | RIM | 31 | OF | 189 | 2.7% | 11.6% | 16.4% | 129 |
| Giuseppe Mazzanti | NET | 29 | CIF | 165 | 0.8% | 17.3% | 14.5% | 127 |
| Claudio Liverziani | BOL | 37 | OF | 180 | 2.4% | 13.5% | 18.9% | 127 |
| Juan Carlos Infante | BOL | 30 | SS | 196 | 1.7% | 11.2% | 11.7% | 125 |
| Lorenzo Avagnina | RSM | 31 | OF | 200 | 0.7% | 13.0% | 8.5% | 125 |
| Anderson Machado | PAR | 31 | SS | 114 | 2.0% | 14.4% | 21.2% | 120 |
SCOUT Leaderboard: Italian League Pitchers
Below is the final SCOUT pitching leaderboard for the Italian Baseball League. SCOUT- is calculated using regressed strikeout and walk rates where 100 is average and below 100 is above average.
| Player | Team | Age | Arm | IP | TBF | xK% | xBB% | SCOUT- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santo Hernandez | NET | 28 | RHP | 42.2 | 149 | 48.9% | 12.9% | 29 |
| Francisco Cruceta | RIM | 30 | RHP | 79.2 | 271 | 44.0% | 11.9% | 40 |
| Pete Sikaras | GRS | 33 | RHP | 64.0 | 214 | 40.7% | 10.9% | 46 |
| Rodney Rodriguez | RSM | 30 | RHP | 75.0 | 264 | 37.1% | 12.4% | 60 |
| Marcos Tabata | RIM | 26 | RHP | 36.2 | 124 | 33.5% | 11.8% | 69 |
| Jesus Matos | BOL | 37 | RHP | 84.1 | 269 | 30.1% | 9.2% | 71 |
| Chris Cooper | RSM | 33 | LHP | 75.1 | 240 | 30.0% | 9.5% | 72 |
| Ricardo Hernandez | NET | 24 | LHP | 89.1 | 295 | 30.5% | 10.4% | 73 |
| Juan Figueroa | NET | 37 | RHP | 77.0 | 255 | 31.0% | 11.0% | 74 |
| Tiago Da Silva | RSM | 27 | RHP | 81.2 | 262 | 27.5% | 9.4% | 79 |
Notes
• Four of the players listed here are included on Italy’s provisional roster for the World Baseball Classic: pitchers Chris Cooper and Tiago Da Silva, and outfielders Lorenzo Avagnina and Mario Chiarini.
• Catcher and top hitter Danilo Sanchez (of the Dominican Republic) was a member of the Detroit, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis organizations between 2001 and -07. He slashed .284/.361/.524, with 22 home runs in 399 plate appearances, for Detroit’s High-A Lakeland affiliate in the Florida State League — although, as was generally the case throughout his minor-league career, he was old (24) for the level. Baseball Reference has a surprisingly robust biographical entry for Sanchez at BR Bullpen.
• Over the last three seasons, Atlanta right-hander Craig Kimbrel has posted strikeout and walk rates of 45.3% and 9.9%, respectively. This past season, in the Italian League, Nettuno right-hander Santo Hernandez posted basically the same rates. Of note: according to Baseball Reference, Hernandez also pitched — and pitched well — for Camden of the independent Atlantic League this season, posting a 20:6 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 15.0 innings there.
Video Footage: The Craig Kimbrel of Italy
Here’s footage from this past season, it seems, of right-hander Santo Hernandez striking out three Rimini batters:
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Correction: Craig Kimbrel is the Santo Hernandez of the US