Daily Notes: The Top Prospect-Age Hitters by FIB*

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

1. The Top Prospect-Age Hitters by FIB*
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

The Top Prospect-Age Hitters by FIB*
Introduction
Minor-league regular seasons everywhere have come to their respective conclusions. Last week, before the author had become a really big deal and moved to Europe, he published a leaderboard of the top-10 qualified minor-league pitchers by kwERA (i.e. an ERA estimator derived entirely from just strikeout and walk rates).

Today, despite the fact that he’s a really big deal now and lives in Europe, the author has condescended to publish a second leaderboard — in this case, of the top-10 qualified minor-league hitters by FIB*, or Fielding Independent Batting (Asterisk). What FIB* isn’t is the same metric introduced to readers by Bradley Woodrum about two years ago. That one, called Fielding Independent Batting, but without the very integral asterisk, accounts for xBABIP and is presented as an index stat, like wRC+. What FIB* is is a batting metric calculated almost precisely like FIP, except then placed on the same scale as wOBA*.

*The equation, in full: [(HR*12 + BB*3 – K*2) * .141] + .3267.

Leaderboard: The Top Prospect-Age Hitters by FIB*
FIB* is a wOBA estimator which accounts only for home runs, walks, and strikeouts and was popularized — to the degree that it’s popular, at all — by the author just, like, 30 seconds ago. Below are the top-10 qualified prospect-age minor-league hitters by FIB* this season. (Note: batters who made zero appearances above rookie-level ball have been excluded, as have all Mexican League hitters, because their numbers are super loco.)

Three Notes
• Were he a year or two younger, San Diego minor-league first-baseman/catcher Robert Kral, 24, would actually appear atop this entire list, after having produced a .426 FIB* on the strength of a Cal League season during which he hit 13 home runs and recorded walk and strikeout rates of 18.5% and 15.0%, respectively.

• It’s entirely possible that Angels outfield prospect Zachary Borenstein, playing in his age-22 season, deserves more attention for his offensive skills. There’s also a non-zero change that he, like other hitters (including Robert Kral, above), benefited from the offensive environment of the California League.

• To that point, it should be noted that the calculation of FIB* in this instance makes no allowances either for park or league.

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Detroit at Minnesota | 20:10 ET
Justin Verlander (206.1 IP, 95 xFIP-, 4.5 WAR) faces Mike Pelfrey (146.2 IP, 114 xFIP-, 2.0 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit 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.

Note that these NERD scores are calculated using the methodology introduced recently and designed to account for the influence of playoff odds on the watchability of games. ***Unlike in recent iterations of this table, the author has adjusted the day’s NERD Game Scores such that, combined, they average 5.0.*** This allows said table to resemble more closely the Game Scores that have appeared here over the preceding four months.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Wei-Yin Chen	BAL	4	0	6	3	6	TB	Chris Archer	15:10
Marco Estrada	MIL	7	0	4	0	7	ATL	Mike Minor	19:10
Aaron Harang	NYN	4	0	6	2	8	CIN	Johnny Cueto	19:10
Roy Halladay	PHI	2	0	3	0	7	MIA	Nathan Eovaldi	19:10
Jordan Lyles	HOU	4	0	9	6	7	TEX	Derek Holland	20:05
Charlie Morton	PIT	6	2	7	0	8	CHN	Jeff Samardzija	20:05
Justin Verlander	DET	7	0	3	0	1	MIN	Mike Pelfrey	20:10
J.A. Happ	TOR	1	0	2	0	5	CHA	Jose Quintana	20:10
Tanner Roark*	WAS	7	0	9	4	9	STL	Adam Wainwright	20:15
A.J. Griffin	OAK	5	0	4	0	7	LAA	Garrett Richards	22:05
Brandon McCarthy	AZ	6	0	3	0	4	SD	Eric Stults	22:10
Yordano Ventura*	KC	9	0	5	0	5	SEA	Brandon Maurer	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.