Daily Notes: It’s Yu Darvish Night in America
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. Brief Previews for Select Games
2. Lightly Annotated Video: Darvish’s Repertoire
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Milwaukee Radio
Brief Previews for Select Games
Here are very brief previews for four of today’s games — each including the preferred television feed of FanGraphs readers, per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project. (Information on probable pitchers from MLB.com.)
Miami at Philadelphia | 13:05 ET
This is Monday’s lone early game (to be followed, at 16:10 ET, by C.J. Wilson‘s Angels debut against Nick Blackburn and the Twins). Here’s an update on Phillies second baseman Freddy Galvis: he’s only struck out twice (in 12 plate appearances), but is 0-for-8 on batted balls, giving him a line of .000/.091/.000 (.000 BABIP), .061 wOBA, -67 wRC+. Starters: Anibal Sanchez and Cole Hamels.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Miami.
Chicago AL at Cleveland | 19:05 ET
White Sox left-hander Chris Sale makes his first career start tonight, after posting a 2.1 WAR and 71 xFIP- in 94.1 relief innings over the last two seasons. Sale’s spring was a promising one: he recorded a 28:4 K:BB in six starts and 28.0 innings. Of interest will be to what degree the 24-year-old uses his changeup, a pitch he threw 9.0% of the time last season, but which will likely be of some benefit against right-handers. Sale faces Cleveland right-hander Josh Tomlin — and also all the hitters on Cleveland, too, as that’s how baseball works.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland.
Boston at Toronto | 19:07 ET
Right-hander Henderson Alvarez makes his first regular-season start of 2012, after putting up an 84 xFIP- last season in 63.2 innings. Of note: among the 184 starters with 50-plus innings in 2011, Alvarez had the lowest walk rate, at 3.1%. Despite averaging 93.3 mph on his fastball, his strikeout rate (15.4%) was also rather low. Reports from spring training indicate that Alvarez, who turns 22 on April 18th, was throwing his slider with more frequency — with a view, one assumes, to inducing more whiffs. Rookie left-hander Felix Doubront makes the start for Boston after earning a spot in the rotation this spring.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston.
Seattle at Texas | 20:05 ET
Famous offseason signing Yu Darvish makes his major-league debut for the Rangers tonight. He ended spring training with a 21:8 K:BB in just 15.0 innings. Steamer projects Darvish to post a 4.01 ERA, 7.4 K/9, and 2.9 BB/9. ZiPS is slightly more optimistic: 3.62 ERA, 7.8 K/9, 2.1 BB/9. Right-hander Hector Noesi, acquired from the Yankees in the trade that sent both Michael Pineda and Jose Campos to the Yankees, starts for the M’s.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Seattle, Barely.
Lightly Annotated Video: Darvish’s Repertoire
Per the PITCHf/x data at Brooks Baseball, Darvish threw seven different pitches this spring. In order of frequency they were as follows: four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter, slider, curve, changeup, and splitter. It’s possible that there’s some error here in terms of classification, but it’s also a fact that Darvish’s repertoire is diverse.
Here’s video from a March 30th appearance during which Darvish struck out 11 Rockies. In said video, we see what appears to be Darvish’s fastball (at 0:08, 0:19, 0:28, 0:34, 0:48, 1:11, 1:19, 1:57), slider (0:55, 1:06), curve (1:28, 1:47), and splitter (1:39). Note that a couple of those fastballs might be two-seamers, but, given the angle of the camera and absence of velocity readings, it’s hard for this author to tell.
Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Milwaukee Radio
Recently, we released the results of our television broadcaster rankings — itself the product of reader crowdsourcing that started in late November. Now, FanGraphs is asking readers to rate the radio broadcast teams for all 30 major-league clubs (Click here for more on this project.)
Please note that today we’re crowdsourcing the Brewers radio broadcast from last season — to help serve as a baseline of sorts for the other 29 broadcast teams. We’ll publish a ballot for Uecker and new radio addition Joe Block during the season sometime, to give fans a chance to become acquainted with the latter.
Rate other teams: Washington / Toronto / Texas / Tampa Bay / Seattle / San Francisco / San Diego / St. Louis / Pittsburgh / Philadelphia / Oakland / New York (NL) / New York (AL) / Minnesota.
Carson, the link to the Pittsburgh ballot is broken.
You have been of great help!
May you and your progeny live to old age!
In watching that Darvish video, he got a lot of strikeouts looking–is that something that’s going to be a problem I wonder as people learn his repertoire and aren’t so fooled by them anymore?
If you’re watching on a PS3 might I recommend the Philly Radio broadcast. Head and shoulders above either TV broadcast.
Indeed. Just checked the current number on the balloting for the Philadelphia radio team: they’re considerably higher than the TV team received.
INTERESTING NOTE:
Darvish grabs the back of his head after every strikeout. I think I’m on to something here.
He’s getting updated information from satellite control
Joe Block is terrible. Bring back Cory Provus. That is all.
Does anyone know if the PS3 app works for mlb.tv’s free game of the day?
I’m 99% sure it does. I pay for MLB.tv so I can’t test but I know when I pull up the app the free game is labeled similar to the iOS app where you can watch the free game.
Carson,
Please hire someone to write The Morning After this year. I came to rely on it last year, and without it I have fallen into the deepest pit of despair found in the Western Hemisphere. May I suggest Joe Posnanski?