Offseason Notes for December 5th

by
December 5, 2011


The Hilton Anatole, site of this year’s Winter Meetings, has gargoyles on the inside.

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

1. Assorted Headlines
2. SCOUT Leaderboards: Australian Baseball League
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Boston Television

Assorted Headlines
Winter Meetings Begin in Dallas
If, for instance, you’d lost power, like, three weeks ago and have just now gotten it back and the first site to which you pointed your browser is FanGraphs, then allow me to inform you that (a) Jose Reyes signed with the Marlins and (b) the Winter Meetings begin today at Dallas’s Hilton Anatole.

Ramirez Files for Reinstatement
Manny Ramirez applied for reinstatement to Major League Baseball, Ronald Blum of the Associated Press reports. Also, it appears as though Ramirez’s 100-game suspension would actually be reduced to 50 after sitting out nearly all of last season.

Martinez Retires, Continues to Say Whatever He Wants
Pedro Martinez recently made his retirement from baseball official. Even more recently he talked to Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald.

SCOUT Leaderboards: Australian Baseball League
Introduction
The Australian Baseball League (ABL), now in its second year, started its season in the beginning of Novemeber. While there appear to be a number of Australian-born players, there are also a number from affiliated baseball in the states, American independent leagues (IND), and Japan (NPB).

Batting Leaderboard
Here is the SCOUT batting leaderboard for the Australian Baseball League (ABL). SCOUT represents an attempt to derive something meaningful from small samples and is the average of a player’s standard deviations from the ABL mean in three important (and regressed) stats: walk rate, strikeout rate, and home-run rate. (Click here for more on SCOUT. SCOUT leaderboards for the Arizona Fall League appear here on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Leaderboards for the Venezuelan and Dominican Winter Leagues appear on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively.)

Name Org PA xBB% xK% xHR% BBz Kz HRz SCOUT
Justin Huber IND 84 12.4% 15.3% 2.1% 0.90 0.36 0.06 0.44
Tyler Collins DET 84 10.4% 13.3% 2.4% 0.45 0.62 0.22 0.43
Brian Burgamy IND 69 10.5% 15.1% 2.5% 0.48 0.39 0.26 0.38
Ty Morrison TB 72 10.9% 13.4% 1.8% 0.56 0.61 -0.06 0.37
Mitchell Graham FA 57 8.0% 12.6% 2.9% -0.09 0.72 0.46 0.36
Brad Harman FA 53 8.7% 17.1% 2.9% 0.06 0.14 0.47 0.22
James Jones SEA 58 10.5% 16.4% 1.9% 0.47 0.22 -0.02 0.22
Boss Moanaroa BOS 82 9.0% 13.5% 1.7% 0.13 0.59 -0.09 0.21
Alex Burg SF 59 7.4% 16.3% 3.2% -0.22 0.23 0.61 0.21
Joel Naughton PHI 44 8.6% 14.8% 2.0% 0.03 0.43 0.02 0.16

Notes
Mitchell Graham is a 25-year-old shortstop who’s struck out half as many times (two) as he’s homered (four) so far in the ABL. Graham appears to have played in the Phillies organization at some point, and to have played in the Golden Baseball and Dutch Leagues at some point after that. Curiously, he posted an 11:42 BB:K in ca. 152 plate appearances last year in the ABL — i.e. decidedly not as a good this year.

Pitching Leaderboard
For pitchers, SCOUT is the average of a player’s standard deviations from the ABL mean in (regressed) strikeout and walk rate.

Name Org G GS IP BF xK% xBB% Kz BBz SCOUT
Mike McGuire PHI 5 4 25.1 102 29.3% 8.4% 1.55 -0.02 0.77
Dae-Sung Koo FA 7 0 8.1 38 22.6% 8.1% 0.57 0.04 0.31
Ryan Beckman PIT 6 0 9.0 35 21.7% 7.9% 0.44 0.07 0.25
Chris Oxspring DET 6 2 21.0 88 22.4% 8.6% 0.54 -0.06 0.24
Steven Kent ATL 8 0 14.1 59 22.0% 8.3% 0.48 0.00 0.24
Yohei Yanagawa NPB 5 5 24.1 106 24.1% 10.1% 0.80 -0.36 0.22
Steven Chambers FA 4 3 17.1 65 20.5% 7.5% 0.27 0.16 0.21
Alex Maestri IND 4 3 23.1 99 21.0% 7.9% 0.34 0.08 0.21
Brian Grening IND 9 0 16.2 75 21.4% 8.2% 0.40 0.01 0.20
Ryohei Isaka NPB 2 2 10.2 45 21.1% 8.2% 0.36 0.02 0.19

Notes
• Mike McGuire, 25, is a 6-foot-7 person who pitched at High-A for Philadelphia this season after starting his professional career with Cleveland. He’s striking out a lot of oppositing batters, it appears. His K numbers in the minors have been more modest, in the low-20%s.
• Ryan Beckman, 21, is probably the closest thing to a prospect on this list, given how he spent the season in an age-appropriate minor league, throwing 52.0 innings of relief for Pittsburgh’s High-A Florida State League affiliate.
• A Brisbane Bandit fan blog answers the question the world is asking — namely, “Who the hell is Steven Chambers?”

Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Boston Television
This offseason, FanGraphs is asking readers to rate the broadcast teams for all 30 major-league clubs. (Click here for more on this project.)

Rate other teams: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore.





 

Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

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matt w
12 years ago

Request: On future Australian Baseball League SCOUT leaderboards, can the innings threshold be set to “exactly the number of innings Rinku Singh has pitched”?

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