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
Boston at Toronto | 12:37 ET
Rubby de la Rosa (44.1 IP, 90 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR) faces Marcus Stroman (60.1 IP, 89 xFIP-, 1.4 WAR). So far as stately pleasure-domes are concerned, the one Kubla Khan decreed in Xanadu is obviously the most notable. It’s beyond dispute, this point. Tonight, however, Messrs. de la Rosa and Stroman conspire to render the Rogers Centre among those regarded as the next-most stately and pleasing. Cumulatively, the pair have thrown fewer than 200 career innings. Cumulatively, they’ve recorded an average fastball velocity of 94 mph this season. And, cumulatively, the two have produced a park-adjusted xFIP about 10% better than league average.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.

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The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced last April by the present author, wherein that same ridiculous author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own heart to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion in the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above both (a) absent from all of three notable preseason top-100 prospect lists* and also (b) not currently playing in the majors. Players appearing on the midseason prospect lists produced by those same notable sources or, otherwise, selected in the first round of the current season’s amateur draft will also be excluded from eligibility.

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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
San Diego at Chicago NL | 20:05 ET
Ian Kennedy (129.1 IP, 87 xFIP-, 2.3 WAR) faces Tsuyoshi Wada (113.2 IP, 25.9% K, 6.0% BB at Triple-A). That the latter has produced the second-best strikeout-walk differential among all qualified Triple-A pitchers is a matter of record. Precisely how he’s done that — as a 33-year-old who was considerably less effective last year in the minors and also throws just 90 mph — that’s a greater mystery. Wada’s major-league debut July 8th at Cincinnati was a success; he recorded a 3:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 19 batters over 5.0 scoreless innings (box).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Chicago NL Television.

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Recently, in these pages, Marc Hulet released his midseason top-25 prospect list — designed, that particular post, to sort out the best prospects in baseball according to overall future potential. What follows is a different thing than that — designed to identify not baseball’s top prospects, but rather the rookie-eligible players* who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). What it is not is an attempt to account for any kind of future value — for which reason it’s unlikely to resemble very closely those prospect lists such as that recently released by Hulet.

*In this case, defined as any player who’s recorded fewer than 130 at-bats or 50 innings — which is to say, there’s been no attempt to identify each player’s time spent on the active roster, on account of that’s a super tedious endeavor.

To assemble the following collection of 10 prospects, what I’ve done first is to calculate prorated rest-of-season WAR figures for all players for whom either the Steamer or ZiPS projection systems have produced such a forecast. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce approximately a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Owing to how the two systems are structured, the majority of the numbers which follow represent only the relevant prospect’s Steamer projection. Players eligible for the list either (a) enter their age-26 season or lower in 2014 or, alternatively, (b) were signed as international free agents this offseason.

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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
Miami at Atlanta | 19:10 ET
Jacob Turner (63.2 IP, 102 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR) faces Mike Minor (83.1 IP, 97 xFIP-, 0.2 WAR). Despite having produced almost a precisely league-average park-adjusted xFIP as a starter, the former was removed from the rotation in mid-June after conceding what might rightly be classified as an excess of runs. A reasonably successful month in the bullpen, however, has earned him a return to starter’s duties — the burdens of which role will someday crush his spirit, because every man’s respective burdens eventually crush him.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Atlanta Radio.

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Episode 464
Davey Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he does what he was born to do.

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 33 min play time.)

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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
Cleveland at Minnesota | 20:10 ET
T.J. House (45.0 IP, 89 xFIP-, 0.0 WAR) faces Kris Johnson (8.1 IP, 103 xFIP-, -0.1 WAR). The former, in his rookie season, has recorded both a park-adjusted xFIP (89 xFIP-) and strike rate (65.9%) nearly a standard deviation above the mean produced by those pitchers to have recorded 20-plus innings as a starter. While his low-ish arm slot (pictured below) isn’t ideal for neutralizing right-handed batters, he’s done so well enough over nine appearances (including eight starts) to record fielding-independent numbers superior to league average.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

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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
Los Angeles NL at St. Louis | 20:05 ET
Clayton Kershaw (96.1 IP, 46 xFIP-, 3.7 WAR) faces Carlos Martinez (63.0 IP, 100 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR). One will recognize the former as the pitcher to have produced the entirely best park-adjusted xFIP among all starters this season — a figure, his 46 xFIP-, that would represent the best such mark by a qualified starter since 2002 (i.e. as far back as that particular metric is available). Kershaw’s start at St. Louis’s Busch appears likely to be one of only two opportunities this whole season to observe the left-hander pitching in front of a straight-on center-field camera.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: St. Louis Radio.

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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
Seattle at Los Angeles AL | 21:05 ET
Felix Hernandez (144.1 IP, 63 xFIP-, 5.2 WAR) faces Garrett Richards (123.1 IP, 83 xFIP-, 3.2 WAR). After years of exhibiting very excellent armspeed and reasonable control in the minor and then major leagues, the latter has produced a laudable season to date, recording strikeout and walk and ground-ball rates all on the ideal side of average. Richards’ Angels and the opposing Seattlers both currently possess better than 15% odds of qualifying for the divisional series.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Seattle Radio.

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Episode 463
Mike Petriello is the founder of Dodgers Digest (née Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness) and a contributor to FanGraphs. He’s also the guest on this edition of the podcast, during which he summarizes the Brady Aiken situation from start to (nearly) finish.

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 35 min play time.)

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS