Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman 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
Washington at New York NL | 19:10 ET
Scherzer (52.0 IP, 78 xFIP-) vs. Syndergaard (46.1 IP, 60 xFIP-)
One doesn’t require an unusually complex and only modestly useful algorithm to identify this evening’s encounter between Max Scherzer and Noah Syndergaard as the day’s most compelling. That said, the world is populated by a number of things one doesn’t expressly require — and which persist nevertheless. Like an attractive Jøtul-brand cast-iron stove in the corner of the living room, for example. Or like a table constructed from gas pipe and reclaimed pallet wood that you bought on Etsy and really brings the kitchen together. In conclusion: industrial-chic mailbox, brushed-nickel floating house numbers, strikeouts, average fastball velocity, and primitive entry door with strap hinges.

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We’re back, with another one of these! Previous community polling topics have included front offices, ownerships, pitching coaches, general enthusiasm, and so on. Now I’m here to ask you about team chemistry. You know, that thing that’s impossible to measure, that thing that continues to be debated as if nothing has ever been settled, because nothing has ever been settled. That thing that exists — or doesn’t exist — mostly within a community that does not include yourself, because you yourself are not a major-league baseball player. How does your favorite baseball team get along? You don’t know. How do you think your favorite baseball team gets along?

I don’t know why I’m asking this now, exactly. It’s just coming out of curiosity, and I wouldn’t be any less curious tomorrow, or a week from now. But the timing, I suppose, isn’t bad — we’re deep enough into the season that teams should have personalities, but we’re not so deep everything will just be colored by wins and losses. Braves and Twins aside, everyone still gets to think they have a chance, so nothing has totally gone off the rails.

I do know I’ve been reading the Ben Lindbergh/Sam Miller book, and they’ve discussed chemistry prioritization and observation. I also read this post by Kate Preusser last week, and while that was specifically about the Mariners, it must’ve cemented the topic in my mind. I don’t want to talk about any particular team up front because I don’t want to bias any of the voting down below. But for something that gets talked about so often, I’m a little surprised we haven’t tried this before.

Don’t get me wrong — none of us actually know anything about team chemistry, for sure. I don’t think there’s even an agreed-upon definition. But we do get to observe how players interact, some of the time, and we get to read about more. So I think fans can get a certain sense of how the roster fits together. Whether there’s adequate leadership, whether there’s adequate support, whether there’s adequate interaction between all groups. What idea do you have about your favorite baseball team? Your idea might be wrong, but you might’ve also been wrong about the pitching coach, and I doubt that stopped you from voting back whenever that poll post went up. I’m just hunting for informed opinions. There’s information within informed opinions.

What I love about these poll posts is that they allow us to establish a context. Instead of saying, oh, this team seems to get along, or this team seems unhappy, we have an average, we have comparisons. It’s only by seeing the whole landscape that you can try to identify the standouts. This is why I could use your help! I sure as shoot couldn’t generate this data by myself. I need help from the community, so I can come back and analyze the voting a day or three from now.

You probably have a favorite team, or a couple favorite teams. You probably have some kind of mental definition of team chemistry. How good do you think is the chemistry of your favorite team? We can probably learn something from this. Even if we can’t, at least this is a few minutes you can distract yourself from thinking about the roiling sea of horrors that threatens to drown us all every day that we breathe.

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Episode 653
Dave Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs. During this edition of FanGraphs Audio he examines what the data reveal about slumps, injuries, etc — specifically looking at Yordano Ventura‘s fastball velocity and release point, and then Troy Tulowitzki’s contact rate on pitches in the zone and also exit velocity.

This episode of the program is sponsored by SeatGeek, which site removes both the work and also the hassle from the process of shopping for tickets.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 45 min play time.)

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Ben and Sam banter about Joey Votto, then discuss what they’d ask Rob Manfred if they knew he’d answer honestly.

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Sunday, in what was undoubtedly one of the coolest moments of his career that no one remembers, Ian Desmond slugged a lead-changing and eventually game-winning home run. Desmond homered off of a horrible pitch, and then he flipped his bat, which is funnier now.

I’m not convinced there’s anything to learn there. Most hitters would be able to punish a hanging two-strike curveball. Desmond last year probably would’ve been able to punish a hanging two-strike curveball. That being said, Desmond only saw a hanging two-strike curveball because he’d stayed alive in the at-bat. The previous pitch:

One pitch is one pitch, no more and no less. In isolation, it’s a normal-looking foul ball, and maybe Desmond fouls off the same ball a year ago. But a year ago, and even before, Desmond struggled against high fastballs. A year ago in particular, Desmond struggled against plenty of things. That’s why he wound up signing a one-year pillow contract toward the end of the offseason, but a month and a half in, now, Desmond is looking like a total success. Ian Desmond has helped the Rangers scoot back into first place.

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With Starling Marte away on paternity leave, the Pittsburgh Pirates have called up prospect Alen Hanson from the minor leagues. Hanson was off to a fine start in Triple-A, slashing .288/.309/.398 with seven steals. He spent all of last season at the Triple-A level, too, and hit similarly well: .263/.313/.387 with 35 steals. Throw in that he’s primarily a middle infielder, and it’s clear Hanson had little left to prove in the minors.

If it feels like Hanson’s been on the prospect radar for ages, it’s because he has. Originally signed out of the Dominican way back in 2009, he began gracing top-100 lists after a .309/.381/.528 showing in Low-A back in 2012. Despite his lengthy minor-league tenure, Hanson still has youth on his side. He’ll will play the entire 2016 season as a 23-year-old. Read the rest of this entry »

If you look at Nick Castellanos‘ traditional statistics, you obviously will notice that something is different. His OPS is nearing 1.000 after messing around in the 700 level before. This was the kind of improvement we were hoping for! The wait is over!

If you look at the next level, things begin to muddy. Basically 40% of the third baseman’s balls in play have fallen for hits, compared to 33% in the past. His walks and strikeouts are about the same as his previously established levels, and his batted-ball spray, in terms of pulling versus going oppo, remain roughly the same, too. He’s added a few fly balls, as he’s cut his grounder rate nearly 40%, so we could call it a little bit of power growth plus a lot of luck, and call it a day.

But we’ve got another level of statistics now, and if we look into those numbers, we see the type of growth that seems sustainable, and points to a small step in approach that may lead to a giant leap in production — even if projection systems usually call for restraint in such situations, even for a 24-year-old.

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Over the last couple of years, we’ve talked a lot about the Kansas City Royals and the ability of certain teams to sustainably beat estimates like the BaseRuns expected records we publish on our standings page. Famously, the Royals have won far more games than our numbers thought they would — over the last three years, they’ve won 25 more games than their BaseRuns Win% would suggest — making two straight World Series appearances and winning last year’s fall classic along the way.

Interestingly, though, with less fan fare, Missouri’s other team has also been winning far more often than BaseRuns suggested was likely. Over the last three years, they’ve won 23 more games than their BaseRuns expected record, nearly as many as the Royals. Last year, they won 11 more games than expected on the strength of an historic clutch performance. As Ben Lindbergh noted in a Grantland piece last summer, the Cardinals pitching staff was insanely good at stranding runners last year, so their run prevention ended up being fantastic even as their pitchers routinely danced with danger.

Six weeks into 2016, however, the tables have turned. The Cardinals are just 20-18, already finding themselves eight games back of the Cubs in the NL Central, except BaseRuns thinks they should actually be 25-13, which would give them the second best record in all of baseball. A year after posting one of the largest positive differences between expected record and actual record, the Cardinals have already won five fewer games than expected, and if they continued at this pace, they’d post the largest negative differential for any team in a single season.

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Ben and Sam banter about a bad fun fact, David Ortiz, and retirement tours, then draft noteworthy moments from Sunday’s Rangers-Blue Jays brawl.

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We have a number of great ERA estimators on this site. FIP, xFIP, SIERA: choose your favorite, because they all have a place in attempting to better describe outcomes closer to a pitcher’s true talent over a given timeframe. Maybe you’re lazy, or maybe you’re different, but it can also be nice to have a dead simple one — which is where K-BB% comes in. If a pitcher is striking guys out and limiting walks, that’s a fundamentally positive thing, and it turns out K-BB% is actually the best in-season predictor of future performance out of all the ERA estimators on the site (though it’s still not a great predictor, to be honest). Unless a pitcher possesses a signature batted-ball profile, K-BB% represents a nice, handy way of feeling a little better about a guy if his ERA hasn’t been quite up to expectations. Or, you know, feeling worse about a guy whose ERA has been lower than what his peripherals seem to say it should be.

Which brings us to the current K-BB% leaderboard. A casual perusal yields these top-five worst K-BB% rates among qualified starters in the major leagues:

Negative? Negative! These guys all have pretty middling strikeout rates, and the top few have some serious control problems. Just in case you were wondering, no one ran a negative K-BB% among qualified starters last season. It makes sense, given that it’s a hard thing to do while still being allowed to pitch a lot of meaningful innings in majo- league baseball games. But Ventura is currently doing it, and his ERA is “just” 4.62! And yet this next table, of Ventura’s current FIP and xFIP ranks among qualified starters, seems relevant, given his current standing with strikeouts and walks: Read the rest of this entry »