Episode 457
Dayn Perry is a contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and the author of three books — one of them not very miserable. He’s also the guest on this regrettable edition of FanGraphs Audio.

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 1 hr 11 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
Cincinnati at San Francisco | 22:15 ET
Johnny Cueto (116.0 IP, 77 xFIP-, 2.6 WAR) faces Madison Bumgarner (102.2 IP, 78 xFIP-, 2.1 WAR). An idle and largely superficial inspection of the latter’s player profile reveals that, despite having recorded over 800 innings and 15 wins, that Madison Bumgarner is still just 24 years old — and remains that way for another month-plus. A stirring accomplishment, that — and yet not enough to prevent the sun from expanding and swallowing earth whole in five billion years.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio or Television.

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San Diego right-hander Jesse Hahn, absent from probably every preseason top-100 prospect list everywhere, has produced four starts of considerably high quality in June — the first four starts, one notes, of Hahn’s entire major-league career. What follows is an interview conducted by the author (a noted dummy) with his own equally dumb self, for some reason, regarding the state of things with Jesse Hahn.

Managing editor of FanGraphs, Dave Cameron, encouraged you to write about Hahn today, suggesting something to the effect that he’s “your type of guy.” With the understanding that no one reading this really cares about you, specifically, explain what Cameron probably meant by that comment.

I believe what he was referring to is how I generally exhibit undue enthusiasm for the exploits of fringe-type prospects. Hahn, as one who was absent from the usual top-100 lists but who has produced results, matches that profile.

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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
Colorado at Milwaukee | 20:10 ET
Christian Friedrich (6.0 IP, 175 xFIP-, -0.1 WAR) faces Wily Peralta (95.1 IP, 94 xFIP-, 0.9 WAR). Despite having recorded the seventh-youngest average batters’ age among major-league clubs, Colorado has also produced the seventh-most park-adjusted runs. For this and other reasons — all of which the author would enthusiastically address over reasonably priced rakija at seaside caffe bar in Split — that same Rockies club features a perfect NERD score at the moment.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Milwaukee 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
Washington at Milwaukee | 14:10 ET
Stephen Strasburg (100.0 IP, 65 xFIP-, 2.8 WAR) faces Marco Estrada (89.2 IP, 112 xFIP-, -0.8 WAR). The latter has produced a strikeout-walk differential of 14.1 percentage points — a stat, that, which correlates highly with run prevention and a precise figure, that, which ranks 32nd among the league’s 95 qualified pitchers. What else Estrada has produced, however, is 24 home-runs allowed over 15 starts and ca. 90 innings. “Is there something wrong with Estrada? Ought the Brewers replace him with minor-leaguer Jimmy Nelson?” These are questions being asked by Americans today.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Milwaukee Radio.

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Episode 456
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he discusses, among various and sundry topics, Clayton Kershaw’s nearly perfect game.

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 39 min play time.)

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What follows represents an attempt by the author to utilize the projections available at the site to identify the five starting pitchers whose per-inning WAR projections have most improved since the beginning of the season.

For every pitcher, what I’ve done is first to calculate his preseason (PRE) WAR projection prorated to 150 innings, averaging together Steamer and ZiPS forecasts where both are available. What I’ve done next is to calculate the prorated WAR for every pitcher’s rest-of-season (ROS) WAR projection (again, using both Steamer and ZiPS when available). I’ve then found the difference in prorated WAR between the preseason and rest-of-season projection.

When I attempted a similar exercise two months ago, I used updated end-of-season projections instead of prorated rest-of-season ones. The advantage of the latter (and why I used it on last month’s edition of this post, as well) is that it provides the closest available thing to an estimate of any given player’s current true-talent level — which, reason dictates, is what one requires to best identify those players who have most improved.

Only those pitchers have been considered who (a) are currently on a major-league roster and (b) have recorded at least 20 innings at the major-league level and (c) are expected to work predominantly as a starter for the duration of the season. Note that Projection denotes a composite Steamer and ZiPS projection. PRE denotes the player’s preseason projection; ROS, the rest-of-season projection. Inning estimates for both PRE and ROS projections are taken from relevant pitcher’s depth-chart innings projection. Data is current as of Tuesday.

5. Tom Koehler, RHP, Miami (Profile)
Projection (PRE): 154 IP, 6.4 K/9, 4.1 BB/9, 1.0 HR/9, 4.56 FIP, -0.1 WAR
Projection (ROS): 81 IP, 6.7 K/9, 4.1 BB/9, 1.0 HR/9, 4.53 FIP, 0.1 WAR

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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
Pittsburgh at Tampa Bay | 19:10 ET
Jeff Locke (26.1 IP, 81 xFIP-, 0.7 WAR) at Chris Archer (86.0 IP, 95 xFIP-, 2.0 WAR). The former entered last week’s game against Cincinnati with one of the most appealing aesthetic profiles of any major-league starter. Despite striking out only two of the 22 batters he faced in that same contest (box), Locke threw roughly two-thirds of his 83 pitches for strikes, worked quickly, and still exited the game with a swinging-strike rate this season (12.0%) superior to Madison Bumgarner‘s and Max Scherzer‘s and Zack Greinke‘s and Michael Wacha‘s and Yu Darvish’s.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Tampa Bay 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
Boston at Seattle | 22:10 ET
John Lackey (103.1 IP, 82 xFIP-, 2.7 WAR) faces Felix Hernandez (113.1 IP, 60 xFIP-, 4.4 WAR). The difference between Hernandez’s WAR and that having been produced by second-placeman Yu Darvish is — as of very early Monday, at least — is equivalent to the difference between Darvish’s WAR and Nathan Eovaldi’s, the latter currently 30th among qualifiers by that measure. With regard to John Lackey, one finds that has has actually improved upon last year’s fielding-independent numbers, which numbers were considered a pleasant surprise after some dismal recent seasons care of the right-hander.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston Radio.

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