Daily Notes, With Rousing Facts About No. 9 Hitters

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

1. Rousing Facts About No. 9 Hitters
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Rousing Facts About No. 9 Hitters
Regarding Dan Straily’s Wednesday Start, One Thing About It
The attentive reader will likely be aware by now that Oakland right-hander and emitter of soft, warm light Dan Straily’s Wednesday start was not — neither in the strictest sense of the phrase, nor even in the more liberal sense of it — was not what one’d call a “rousing success.” While he (i.e. Straily) managed to post a 5:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio for the game, he also only induced two grounders of the 16 batted-balls he conceded (box). That he allowed four home runs is likely the product of unusually bad luck/bad pitches, but none of the home runs was decidedly cheap, either.

Regarding Dan Straily’s Wednesday Start, Another Thing
The other thing about Dan Straily’s Wednesday start is that there will be no further discussion of it in this edition of the Notes — except insofar as to how it relates to the home run he (i.e. Straily) conceded to Chris Iannetta.

Regarding Chris Iannetta’s Home Run
After Chris Iannetta’s second-inning home run, the Oakland television broadcast team suggested something to the effect that conceding a homer to the No. 9 hitter is an unfortunate thing to have happen. While likely true, it’s also the case that Chris Iannetta is not a very typical No. 9 hitter. Indeed, he’s posted a career 100 OPS+ (and a 101 wRC+), while the average No. 9 hitter in the American League has posted a 76 OPS+ this season, for example — and posted the exact same figure last year.

What the Author Wondered
The author wondered — at first idly, but then slightly less idly — the author wondered who was batting ninth for the various American League teams this year, and who among them might be the best.

What the Author Found
Using Baseball Reference’s batting-order pages, the author found the 14 players who’d started in the ninth spot most often for their respective teams.

What the Author Did Right After That
After finding these Official No. 9 Hitters, the author made a custom leaderboard including same — a custom leaderboard that can be accessed by clicking this hyperlinked text and which looks very much like this (click to embiggen):

Findings
A brief inspection of the custom leaderboard in question reveals that Craig Gentry leads all Official No. 9 Hitters both in park- and league-adjusted batting (that is, wRC+) and also WAR — and also WAR per 600 plate appearances (at 8.4, with Brendan Ryan’s 3.8 WAR/600 a distant second).

Another Thing, Though
Another thing, though, is how what a batter has done over the course of a season is different from what we might call that player’s “true talent” — which, “true talent” is maybe the thing about which we’re curious in this case.

What the Author Did Next
To identify the most “talented” of the AL’s Official No. 9 Hitters, I found the ZiPS rest-of-season projections for the above-named 14 batters. Here are those same batters, in a sortable table, accompanied by projected rest-of-season plate appearances, wOBA, WAR, and WAR per 600 plate appearances:

Name	Team	PA*	wOBA	WAR	WAR/600
Craig Gentry	Rangers	118	.318	0.8	4.1
Bobby Wilson	Angels	66	.287	0.3	2.7
Mike Aviles	Red Sox	156	.311	0.7	2.7
Brendan Ryan	Mariners	144	.277	0.6	2.5
Alcides Escobar	Royals	199	.315	0.8	2.4
Russell Martin	Yankees	157	.315	0.6	2.3
J.P. Arencibia	Blue Jays	163	.312	0.6	2.2
Cliff Pennington	Athletics	177	.288	0.6	2.0
Jamey Carroll	Twins	152	.294	0.5	2.0
Gordon Beckham	White Sox	186	.296	0.5	1.6
Ramon Santiago	Tigers	99	.284	0.2	1.2
Jack Hannahan	Indians	115	.279	0.2	1.0
Elliot Johnson	Rays	117	.289	0.2	1.0
Robert Andino	Orioles	149	.284	0.1	0.4

Findings
In this case, Gentry still leads all No. 9 hitters in wOBA and WAR and WAR/600 — although his lead in wOBA here is certainly less considerable than in the to-date 2012 leaderboard. From a pure hitting perspective, any one from Alcides Escobar, Russell Martin, J.P. Arencibia, or Gentry could have a case made for him as the best of this group. Gentry and Escobar (about whose defense ZiPS is probably too pessimistic) are likely the best overall players from this group.

More Findings
From this list we find three catchers, four mostly second baseman, one third baseman, five shortstops, and a center fielder.

One Other Observation
Craig Gentry has neither batted ninth, nor played at all, since August 2nd. Either Mike Olt or Mitch Moreland has occupied the nine hole in the six games hence. Josh Hamilton has played center field for those same six games.

Today’s Notable Games
Miami at New York NL | 12:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Josh Johnson (133.1 IP, 89 xFIP-, 3.5 WAR) opposes R.A. Dickey (153.1 IP, 79 xFIP-, 3.9 WAR), which is better than a kick in the face.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL Television.

San Francisco at St. Louis | 13:45 ET
According to NERD, the infallible watchability metric devised by the author, a game that includes Adam Wainwright (138.1 IP, 77 xFIP-, 3.2 WAR) pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals is the closest thing at the moment to an entirely watchable tandem of team and pitcher.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio (although, note: the San Francisco feed might not utilize the excellent St. Louis center-field camera).

Kansas City at Baltimore | 19:05 ET
Highly rated shortstop prospect Manny Machado has been recalled from Double-A Bowie and will make his major-league debut for Baltimore tonight, reports MLB.com’s Britt Ghiroli.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Baltimore 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 Game Scores include the poorly conceived playoff-odds adjustment discussed in a recent edition of Daily Notes. Also note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Josh Johnson	MIA	7	2	5	3	10	NYN	R.A. Dickey	12:10
Hiroki Kuroda	NYA	6	7	6	5	8	DET	Doug Fister	13:05
Hend. Alvarez	TOR	4	6	5	4	6	TB	Matt Moore	13:10
Mad. Bumgarner	SF	9	4	9	10	9	STL	Adam Wainwright	13:45
Joe Saunders	AZ	3	7	5	5	4	PIT	Wandy Rodriguez	16:05
Felix Doubront	BOS	7	5	2	3	0	CLE	Ubaldo Jimenez	19:05
Will Smith	KC	4	7	3	0	5	BAL	Wei-Yin Chen	19:05
Mike Leake	CIN	7	4	3	1	3	CHN	Chris Volstad	20:05
Jor. Zimmermann	WAS	8	5	4	5	5	HOU	Lucas Harrell	20:05

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