NERD Game Scores: Johnny Cueto Referendum Event
Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.
Most Highly Rated Game
Kansas City at Toronto | 19:07 ET
Cueto (130.2 IP, 92 xFIP-) vs. Hutchison (108.0 IP, 100 xFIP-)
In reality, the present game receives a NERD score of 7 — which is to say, tied with a pair of other games on tonight’s schedule and actually a point behind the Angels-Dodgers game featuring Clayton Kershaw. Unaccounted for by the metric’s haphazardly derived algorithm, however, is how Johnny Cueto’s start for Kansas City this evening represents his debut for that club following a noteworthy deadline trade. In reality, projecting Cueto’s performance over the course of the season is a matter largely of weighting and combining data from his past performances — of which sort of mathematical alchemy Steamer and ZiPS are the product. Owing to how the dumb human mind works, however, this start — for better or worse — will function as a referendum on the wisdom of Dayton Moore’s decision to acquire Cueto at all. (Until Cueto’s next start, at least, at which point the process will repeat itself.) Accordingly, what the author has done is to alter indiscriminately the game score for this contest — to alter it sufficiently such that it becomes the most highly rated game.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.