Daily Notes: Three Call-Ups Who Aren’t Matt Harvey

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

1. Actual Transaction News: Three Recent Promotions
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Actual Transaction News: Three Recent Promotions
Regarding What the Author Did Yesterday
Yesterday, the author meditated at some length upon the promotion of Mets right-handed pitching prospect Matt Harvey — which, on account of how Harvey struck out, like, 11 or a hundred Diamondbacks in his debut and posted a single-game xFIP of 1.45, that was probably pretty effing prescient of the author to do that.

Regarding What the Author’s Doing Today
Today, the author has what you might call — if you know how to speak even the littlest English — what you’d call a “full plate.” He’ll be editing the fantasy podcast he recorded Thursday afternoon with RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris; he has plans to record an episode of FanGraphs Audio with Dayn Perry at 1pm CT, maybe; and, later, he’s attending a Northwoods League game in Madison, Wisconsin, with actual, real-live friends who aren’t going against their well like you’re thinking they are.

What the Author’s Doing Today, Specifically
Today, the author — in terms of the Daily Notes, specifically — is examining three recent promotions of players different than Mets right-handed pitching prospect Matt Harvey.

Specifically, these players:

Player: Starling Marte, OF, PIT
Line: 431 PA, .286/.347/.500 (.344 BABIP) at Triple-A
Notes: Baseball America notes in their preseason Handbook, in which book they ranked him fourth among Pirates prospects, that the 23-year-old Marte is probably good enough defensively to push Andrew McCutchen to an outfield corner. That’s unlikely to happen immediately, if at all, but he would be very much a plus defender in left field, where he made his major-league debut Thursday night (box). Another thing he did Thursday night is hit a home run on the very first pitch he saw from Houston starter Dallas Keuchel — video footage of which event MLB.com has made available for the home audience (below). Note: our Marc Hulet has written this morning about adjustments Marte will likely need to make at the major-league level.

Player: Ryan Wheeler, 3B, ARI
Line: 399 PA, .351/.388/.572 (.388 BABIP) at Triple-A
Notes: With the DFA and subsequent trade to Tampa Bay of Ryan Roberts, Wheeler has emerged as the starting third baseman for Arizona, following his promotion a week ago from Triple-A Reno. Wheeler, 23, appears to have decent, if not extraordinary, plate discipline (6.5% BB, 16.8% K at Reno) and power potential (15 HR in a total hitter’s park). Furthermore, there’s some question — or, rather, the editors of Baseball America have questions — about Wheeler’s range at third, which shortcoming might limit him to corner utilitymandom.

Player: Jim Henderson, RHP, MIL
Line: 48.0 IP, 10.50 K/9, 4.13 BB/9, 0.38 HR, 2.91 FIP at Triple-A
Notes: It should give the reader some understanding of his career to date to learn that Henderson — who made his first major-league appearance Thursday, in relief against the Nationals (box) — was drafted by a team that no longer exists (i.e. Montreal) and hasn’t for eight years. Indeed, that he (i.e. Henderson) was taken in the 26th round out of non-baseball-powerhouse Tennessee Wesleyan College will continue to edify the reader’s understanding of Henderson’s pedigree. Still, according to Adam McCalvy, Henderson sits at around 93-97 mph. That he pitched a perfect inning in his debut is also noteworthy.

Today’s Notable Games
Philadelphia at Atlanta | 19:35 ET
Cole Hamels (133.2 IP, 83 xFIP-, 2.4 WAR) faces Ben Sheets (12.0 IP, 98 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR) in front of Atlanta’s excellent center-field camera.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Philadelphia or Atlanta Radio.

Chicago AL at Texas | 20:05 ET
Chris Sale (117.2 IP, 80 xFIP-, 3.9 WAR), second among all pitchers per WAR, faces Yu Darvish (116.0 IP, 91 xFIP-, 2.4 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas Radio.

Tampa Bay at Los Angeles AL | 22:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Current playoff odds, per CoolStandings: Tampa Bay, 19.5%; Los Angeles, 58.3%. (And, notably: Oakland, 57.0%!)

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Tampa Bay 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 4.3.

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
Lance Lynn	STL	8	9	4	0	2	CHN	Travis Wood	14:20
Aaron Cook	BOS	1	5	3	6	5	NYA	Phil Hughes	19:05
Jarrod Parker	OAK	5	5	4	0	4	BAL	Zach Britton*	19:05
Rick Porcello	DET	6	4	6	7	6	TOR	Carl. Villanueva	19:07
Kip Wells	SD	0	6	0	3	0	MIA	Carl. Zambrano	19:10
Cole Hamels	PHI	9	6	8	8	10	ATL	Ben Sheets*	19:35
Chris Sale	CHA	10	4	7	8	7	TEX	Yu Darvish	20:05
Jeff Karstens	PIT	6	4	3	4	4	HOU	Jordan Lyles	20:05
Josh Tomlin	CLE	4	4	3	3	6	MIN	Scott Diamond	20:10
Ross Detwiler	WAS	5	7	4	7	6	MIL	Michael Fiers	20:10
Bronson Arroyo	CIN	4	4	3	9	3	COL	D. Pomeranz	20:40
Jonathon Niese	NYN	7	3	6	8	6	AZ	J. Collmenter	21:40
Alex Cobb	TB	6	5	6	6	5	LAA	Dan Haren	22:05
Jeremy Guthrie	KC	1	7	1	3	3	SEA	Blake Beavan	22:10
Undecided	LAN	5	1	6	4	7	SF	Matt Cain	22:15

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.