Daily Notes: An Arbitrary Endpoints Leaderboard Event
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. Arbitrary Endpoints Leaderboard: July Hitters So Far
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Arbitrary Endpoints Leaderboard: July Hitters So Far
The Arbitrary Endpoint Leaderboards, What They Are
The Arbitrary Endpoint Leaderboards represent an attempt to compensate for the influence of early season narratives, which — likely owing to a cogntive bias known as the primacy effect — are often quite powerful and can obscure more recent, notable performances. (Note: this was discussed — albeit not in great depth — recently in these same pages.)
The Arbitrary Endpoint Leaderboards, What Else They Are
The Arbitrary Endpoint Leaderboards also represent an opportunity for the author to build most or all of a post around what’s little more than a regular leaderboard from the present site, rendered into the form of an internet table.
What Ralph Waldo Emerson Would Say About That
Ralph Waldo Emerson, were he not unavailable at the moment, would likely say something like, “[A man] is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea.”
What the Author Would Argue
The author would argue that, a post such as this one, it’s basically the same thing as sweeping serenely into an infinite sea or whatever.
Leaderboard: July Hitters
Here are the leaders among field players, per WAR, in July so far:
| Name | Team | PA | wRC+ | BABIP | Fld | BsR | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andrew McCutchen | Pirates | 54 | 326 | .514 | -1.0 | 0.5 | 1.7 |
| Mike Trout | Angels | 58 | 273 | .472 | 1.1 | 0.5 | 1.6 |
| Neil Walker | Pirates | 57 | 253 | .583 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 1.4 |
| Michael Brantley | Indians | 51 | 253 | .429 | -0.7 | 0.4 | 1.2 |
| Ryan Zimmerman | Nationals | 54 | 225 | .353 | -0.4 | 0.1 | 1.0 |
| Kevin Youkilis | White Sox | 59 | 201 | .382 | 1.6 | -1.0 | 1.0 |
| Mark Teixeira | Yankees | 51 | 227 | .259 | 0.8 | -0.1 | 1.0 |
| Edwin Encarnacion | Blue Jays | 54 | 228 | .364 | -0.6 | 0.1 | 0.9 |
| Ian Desmond | Nationals | 36 | 245 | .409 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.9 |
| Miguel Cabrera | Tigers | 58 | 198 | .364 | -0.6 | -0.4 | 0.8 |
Today’s Notable Games
Philadelphia at Los Angeles NL | 15:10 ET
Many readers will have some interest in the fact that this game features excellent left-hander Cliff Lee versus other excellent left-hander Clayton Kershaw.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Television.
Houston at San Diego | 15:35 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Yasmani Grandal Status Update: 52 PA, .288/.288/.558 (.289 BABIP), 134 wRC+, 0.4 WAR.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Astros Television.
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 4.9.
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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ricky Romero | TOR | 3 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 5 | NYA | Hiroki Kuroda | 13:05 |
| Adam Wainwright | STL | 8 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 6 | MIL | Tyler Thornburg* | 14:10 |
| Cliff Lee | PHI | 9 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 9 | LAN | Clayton Kershaw | 15:10 |
| James McDonald | PIT | 6 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 1 | COL | Jeremy Guthrie | 15:10 |
| Wandy Rodriguez | HOU | 5 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | SD | Clayton Richard | 15:35 |
| Colby Lewis | TEX | 6 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 5 | OAK | Travis Blackley | 15:35 |
| C.J. Wilson | LAA | 4 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 8 | DET | Doug Fister | 19:05 |
| Chris Young | NYN | 0 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 8 | WAS | J. Zimmermann | 19:05 |
| Ian Kennedy | AZ | 6 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 8 | CIN | Mat Latos | 19:10 |
| Undecided | CHA | 5 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 8 | BOS | Felix Doubront | 19:10 |
| Justin Masterson | CLE | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 1 | TB | Jeremy Hellickson | 19:10 |
| Ryan Vogelsong | SF | 2 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 3 | ATL | Mike Minor | 19:10 |
| Josh Johnson | MIA | 7 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 10 | CHN | Jeff Samardzija | 20:05 |
| Tommy Hunter | BAL | 5 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 6 | MIN | Francisco Liriano | 20:10 |
| Kevin Millwood | SEA | 3 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 4 | KC | Bruce Chen | 20:10 |
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.
Chris Young’s combination of height and high probability of injury is not worth even 1 NERD?
Mark Teixeira is putting up a 227 wRC+ with only a .259 BABIP. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what power looks like.
Yeah, I was highly entertained by the fact that Neil Walker and Andrew McCutchen had essentially twice the BABIP of Teixeira and he is still on the leaderboard. Understandable because they are completely different types of players, but still funny to see.
I know you have explained how you calculate NERD scores, but when I see teams ATL 8 SF 3 and pitchers Mike Minor 3 and Ryan Vogelsong 2, I can’t imagine what those scores are actually measuring.
Surely, the Giants are a more interesting team than the Braves by far, rather than the other way around, and Ryan Vogelson is at least as interesting as Mike Minor.
I have to say that I find the Braves to be far more interesting than the Giants personally, mainly due to the fact the I find all their OF starters to be very entertaining to watch. The Giants, on the other hand, when Cain is not pitching, are the most boring team in baseball in my opinion.
This is coming from a Twins fan who, desperate all season for entertaining baseball, has watched quite a bit of both teams.
I think it would be interesting if it was |ERA-FIP| in the NERD score, not just ERA-FIP it’s just as interesting to see Vogelsong and Hellickson destroy their peripherals as to watch Lincecum underperform them.
Just and FYI, rookie Pedro Hernandez was called up to make the start for the White Sox tonight. He was acquired from the Padres in the Carlos Quentin deal. I’m not sure if this is his ML debut or not, but it’s definitely at least his 2012 debut.
What Georges Danton would say about Cistulli’s various inter-net tables, redundant subheadings, and other flights of fancy: il nous faut de l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace et la Fangraphs est sauvée.
(Please note that Danton would not actually say “accent aigu”, “period” or “HTML tag “)