Offseason Notes for November 7th


“Tear down this wall,” trade candidate David Wright said with his actions.

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

1. Assorted Headlines
2. SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
3. Notable Minor League Free Agents

Assorted Headlines
All the nerd that’s fit to print.

Mets Willing to Trade Wright
“We will listen on [David] Wright for sure,” a Mets official, cloaked in secrecy and/or an actual cloak, has told Joel Sherman of the New York Post. The 29-year-old third baseman, who batted .254/.345/.427 (.302 BABIP) in 447 plate appearances this season — good for a 118 wRC+ and, minus 10 or so runs for fielding, a 1.9 WAR — is due to make $15 million in 2012, with a club option for $16 million ($1 million buyout) for 2013.

Rockies Interested in Carroll
The Colorado Rockies have expressed interest in free-agent second baseman Jamey Carroll, Troy Renck of the Denver Post reports. Carroll has posted a wRC+ of 104 over each of the past two seasons and has been worth 4.7 WAR over that time while splitting time between short and second. He’ll turn 38 this offseason, as well, which suggests that down is the most likely direction for his production to go. At the moment, some combination of Jonathan Herrera, Chris Nelson, and Eric Young would play second for Colorado in 2012.

Zambrano Makes First Start in Winter League
Cub right-hander Carlos Zambrano made his first start in the Venezuelan Winter League on Sunday, MLB.com’s Carrie Muskat report. The Venezuelan native pitched 2.2 innings, striking out three and walking two of the 14 batters he faced. All four of the out recorded on balls in play were ground-ball outs. In related news, Dmitri Young appears to be one of Zambrano’s teammates.

SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
Batting Leaderboard
Here is the SCOUT batting leaderboard for the Arizona Fall League. SCOUT represents an attempt to derive something meaningful from small samples and is the average of a player’s standard deviations from the AFL 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 AFL 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
Robbie Grossman PIT 120 13.9% 15.2% 4.1% 0.90 0.69 0.53 0.71
Wil Myers KC 91 14.3% 18.3% 3.0% 0.99 0.19 0.05 0.41
Michael Choice OAK 70 10.8% 17.7% 4.2% 0.24 0.28 0.60 0.37
Jefry Marte NYN 76 11.6% 16.9% 3.5% 0.39 0.41 0.27 0.36
Bryce Harper WAS 79 10.4% 17.2% 4.1% 0.14 0.37 0.56 0.36
Joe Panik SF 72 9.7% 13.5% 2.9% 0.00 0.97 -0.01 0.32
Anthony Seratelli KC 58 12.9% 17.9% 2.7% 0.69 0.25 -0.11 0.28
Derek Norris WAS 68 12.4% 18.0% 2.9% 0.58 0.24 0.00 0.28
Jedd Gyorko SD 70 10.8% 17.7% 3.6% 0.24 0.28 0.30 0.27
Brodie Greene CIN 69 10.4% 16.5% 3.2% 0.14 0.48 0.15 0.26

Notes
The leaderboard remains largely unchanged from Friday’s edition, with the exception of Nationals catching prospect Derek Norris displacing Colorado minor-league third baseman Nolan Arenado from the top 10. Another home run and walk from Robbie Grossman during play on Friday moves him even further up the SCOUT charts.

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

Name Org G GS IP BF xK% xBB% Kz BBz SCOUT
Miguel De Los Santos TEX 7 4 22.0 90 27.9% 9.3% 1.22 -0.08 0.57
Bradley Boxberger CIN 9 0 11.1 47 26.1% 8.9% 0.96 0.01 0.48
Anthony Bass SD 5 4 18.2 81 23.8% 8.2% 0.61 0.17 0.39
Chris Carpenter CHN 9 0 11.2 47 24.2% 8.5% 0.68 0.09 0.38
Evan Reed FLA 9 0 11.2 46 24.3% 8.9% 0.70 0.00 0.35
Kevin Munson ARI 11 0 11.2 45 23.1% 8.6% 0.52 0.08 0.30
Tyler Lyons STL 5 5 19.2 81 23.1% 8.7% 0.51 0.05 0.28
Forrest Snow SEA 7 1 11.2 38 22.7% 8.7% 0.46 0.06 0.26
Aaron Loup TOR 10 0 14.0 60 21.8% 8.1% 0.32 0.18 0.25
Patrick Lehman WAS 9 0 10.2 51 21.7% 8.5% 0.30 0.10 0.20

Notes
• With his second dominant performance in as many starts, Texas prospect Miguel De Los Santos, 23, replaces Bradley Boxberger atop the SCOUT leaderboard. De Los Santos pitched five innings on Friday, recording seven strikeouts against no walks. In his last 10 innings, he has 15 strikeouts and no walks — the latter stat being of some significance for a pitcher who walked 11.5% of the batters he faced (4.4 BB/9) across three minor-league levels in 2011.
• Washington minor-leaguer Patrick Lehman, 25, appears in the top-10 pitching leaderboard for the first time, having recorded six strikeouts and no walks over his last three relief appearances (3.0 IP). Lehman had 45 strikeouts and only four walks in 49.2 innings between High- and Double-A this season. Both StatCorner and Minor League Central indicate that he was able to maintain ground-ball rates of better than 50% at both levels.

Notable Minor League Free Agents
Baseball America released, on Friday afternoon, a list of the 537 minor-league players who were granted free agency. These are players, generally speaking, who have either played in the minors for six years and aren’t on the 40-man roster or who signed a minor-league contract that has expired.

Here are some names that are notable for one reason or another:

Juan Miranda (Arizona), the mustachioed Clay Zavada (Arizona), Kenshin Kawakami (Atlanta), Matt Young (Atlanta), Jorge Cantu (Colorado), the embattled Jeff Allison (Florida), J.R. Towles (Houston), former major-leaguer’s son Koby Clemens (Houston), cutter-thrower-er Mark DiFelice (Milwaukee), Fernando Perez (New York NL), the Mark Prior (New York AL), the Kei Igawa (New York AL), former legitimate prospect Jeff Clement (Pittsburgh), former other legitimate prospect Andy Marte (Pittsburgh) former other-other legitimate prospect Brandon Wood (Pittsburgh), Max Ramirez (San Francisco), Adam Loewen (Toronto), the probably average major-leaguer Matt Antonelli (Washington).





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

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www.thehotteststove.com
12 years ago

Tyler Lyons!!!