Daily Notes: Presenting the Season Debut of NERD

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

1. Important Announcement: NERD Is Now Available
2. Featured Game: Arizona at Miami, 12:40 ET
3. All of Today’s Games

Important Announcement: NERD Is Now Available
Important Announcement
There’s an important announcement everyone needs to hear and it’s that NERD, in all its forms, is now available for the 2012 season.

Regarding What Is NERD
NERD is the result of an attempt to represent numerically the likely aesthetic appeal of a pitcher, team, game, etc. to the baseball nerd (i.e. you, reading this). Specifically, NERD is a score (on a 0-10 scale) given to pitchers, teams, games, etc. that’s calculated using metrics available here at the site. When pitcher and team scores are combined in game scores, it’s possible to approximate, with at least some accuracy, which games might be of greatest (or least) interest to the baseball nerd.

Regarding How NERD Is Calculated
The formulae for the various NERD scores for 2012 remain mostly unchanged from the iterations that appeared in the One Night Only game previews at the end of last season. Follow these links for the relevant information: Pitcher NERD (scroll down a little), Team NERD.

Regarding NERD Leaderboards
Readers will be able to view NERD leaderboards and laggardboards — along with some notes on minor changes to the weighting and calculation of NERD — in the season debut, this afternoon, of the Leaderboards of Pleasure.

Featured Game: Arizona at Miami, 12:40 ET
Regarding Why This Game Is Notable
This game is notable, most of all, because it represents the major-league debut, for Arizona, of left-handed pitching prospect Patrick Corbin.

What FanGraphs Says About Patrick Corbin
FanGraphs prospect analyst Marc Hulet ranked Corbin, 22, fifth in the Arizona system prior to the season, writing that “the southpaw has a solid repertoire — 87-92 mph fastball, slider, changeup — that plays up because of his ability to command all three pitches.”

What Baseball America Says About Patrick Corbin
Baseball America was slightly less optimistic regarding Corbin, ranking him ninth among Diamondbacks rookie-eligible minor leaguers in their preseason Prospect Handbook and profiling him as a future No. 4 starter.

What John Sickels Says About Patrick Corbin
Like Hulet, John Sickels ranked Corbin fifth in the Arizona system. Like Hulet, he also notes/noted that Corbin is less celebrated than other left-hander Tyler Skaggs, who also came to Arizona in the trade that sent Dan Haren to the Angels.

Regarding Patrick Corbin’s Line So Far This Year
This is Corbin’s line from Double-A Mobile so far this year: 27.0 IP, 8.33 K/9, 2.67 BB/9, 0.00 HR/9, 2.35 FIP.

Regarding Patrick Corbin’s ZiPS Projection
This is Patrick Corbin’s ZiPS projection (all innings as a starter): 6.22 K/9, 3.01 BB/9, 1.22 HR/9, 4.61 FIP.

On Who’s Pitching for Miami
Mark Buehrle pitches for Miami. Line: 27.1 IP, 14.7% K, 2.8% BB, 44.6% GB, 3.91 SIERA, 108 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR.

Regarding the Camera Angle at Marlins Park (Or Whatever It’s Called)
The center-field camera angle at Marlins Park (or whatever it’s called) is excellent. Here’s photographic evidence: merp.

Broadcast Information
Marlins Television at 12:40 ET (MLB.TV).

All of Today’s Games
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. Note that Game Scores are an average of Pitcher and Team scores with the latter weighted three times as heavily. Also note that the following table is, like, 110% sortable.

The average NERD Game Score for today is 4.9.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Patrick Corbin*	AZ	10	7	7	3	4	MIA	Mark Buehrle	12:40
Jason Hammel	BAL	8	5	6	7	4	NYA	Hiroki Kuroda	19:05
Chris Volstad	CHN	5	1	5	3	6	PHI	Vance Worley	19:05
Luke Hochevar	KC	3	9	5	3	6	DET	Duane Below*	19:05
Yu Darvish	TEX	5	10	5	5	4	TOR	Kyle Drabek	19:07
Tommy Milone	OAK	4	3	3	4	2	BOS	Clay Buchholz	19:10
James McDonald	PIT	1	2	4	8	7	ATL	Mike Minor	19:10
Felix Hernandez	SEA	6	3	4	7	1	TB	Jeremy Hellickson	19:10
R.A. Dickey	NYN	10	2	7	7	6	HOU	Bud Norris	20:05
Aaron Harang	LAN	5	5	5	8	5	COL	Juan Nicasio	20:40
Randy Wolf	MIL	0	6	4	6	7	SD	Joe Wieland*	22:05
Nick Blackburn*	MIN	3	5	4	2	5	LAA	C.J. Wilson	22:05

* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.