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

1. Every Entirely Above-Average Repertoire
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Every Entirely Above-Average Repertoire
Introduction
In yesterday’s edition of the Notes, the author published a leaderboard of the top-10 pitches this year so far in terms of runs prevented relative league average, with Clayton Kershaw‘s fastball finishing first by that measure and Kenley Jansen’s cutter making the list despite the reliever’s relative paucity of innings.

In the present edition of the notes, the author has endeavored to consider a different but related idea — in this case, not with a view towards finding the league’s best pitches, but rather of identifying those qualified starters who have the most complete repertoire, where “complete repertoire” is defined as one which includes pitches only of positive (i.e. good) run values.

One finds, by Kerhsaw’s omission alone, that the list here isn’t necessarily a proxy for a list of best starting pitchers. Still, there’s likely some value in identifying those pitchers who’ve had success with three or four pitches reliably.

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

1. The League’s Most Valuable Pitches So Far
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

The Best Pitches in the Majors So Far This Season
Introduction
It’s a fact as old as the sands of the deserts — or at least as old as the expensive laptops which utilize semiconductors fashioned from the silicon extracted from those sands — that, within the electronic pages of FanGraphs, one can find the run values relative to league average for every pitcher’s respective pitch types. The point is self-evident.

The bright idea which has stopped the reader in his tracks this morning, however — not unlike Paul on the Damascus Road, really — is to combine all the respective pitch-type run values into a single leaderboard, such that the public might better discern which pitches have been most valuable this season.

This step having been taken by the author during his breakfast, the reader is invited to find the results of same reproduced in the table below.

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The Fringe Five is a weekly exercise (introduced in April) wherein the 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 this exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe. The author recognizes that the word has different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of this column, however — and for reasons discussed more thoroughly in a previous edition of the Five — the author has considered eligible for the Five any prospect who was absent from all of three notable preseason top-100 prospect lists.

That said, it should also be noted that in cases where the collective enthusiasm regarding a player’s talent becomes very fevered — like how the enthusiasm collectively right now for Philadelphia third-base prospect Maikel Franco has become very fevered, for example — that will likely affect said player’s likelihood of appearing among the Five, given that the purpose of the series, at some level, is to identify prospects who are demonstrating promise above what one might expect given their current reputations within the prospect community.

With that said, here are this week’s Fringe Five:

Mookie Betts, 2B, Boston (Profile)
This marks the sixth consecutive week in which Betts’ name has appeared within this column. During that interval, the author has considered often the second baseman’s various strengths, which include (a) excellent command of the strike zone, (b) more power than one might otherwise expect from a player listed at 5-foot-10 and 165 pounds, and (c) baserunning numbers which almost certainly suggest future above-average production in that regard. Despite having gone 0-for-2 on stolen-base attempts this past week, Betts more than compensated for it by his demonstration of the first two skills. Indeed, over his last 32 plate appearances, the 20-year-old has recorded three home runs and a 3:1 walk-to-strikeout ratio. Overall now, he’s posted walk and strikeout rates of 10.0% and 8.9%, respectively, in 190 plate appearances at High-A Salem, while also hitting seven home runs and succeeding on 17 of 19 stolen-base attempts. One is compelled to note, as well, his excellent slash-line at that level, as follows: .315/.386/.530 (.317 BABIP).

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

1. Danny Salazar Night in America
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Danny Salazar Night in America
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce — for the benefit of everyone in America — how young and hard-throwing Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar is starting tonight against Atlanta at 7:10pm ET.

Regarding Danny Salazar, Some Salient Facts
Some salient facts regarding Danny Salazar, presented by means of unordered list, are:

• He’s got the second-best xFIP- among all pitchers with 20-plus innings recorded as a starter; and

• He’s got the second-hardest fastball, on average, among that same population; and

• He throws a split–changeup that late fifth-century Christian theologian Pseudo-Dionysius anticipated probably in the composition of his Mystical Theology.

Regarding Pseudo-Dionysius, How He’d Describe Salazar’s Split-Change
Were he to describe Danny Salazar’s split-change, fifth-century Christian theologian Pseudo-Dionysius would likely feel compelled to employ some or all of the following phrases:

• “Darkness which is beyond light”; and

• “Unknowing which is enshrouded under all that is known and all that can be known”; and

• “The superessential Radiance”; and

• “A science both vast and minute”; and

• “The summit of the divine ascent.”

Regarding the Present Author, How He’d Describe Salazar’s Split-Change
Were he to describe Danny Salazar’s split-changeup, the author would plagiarize Pseudo-Dionysius, probably.

Action Footage: All of Danny Salazar’s Most Recent Strikeouts
Here’s video of all Danny Salazar’s seven strikeouts from his most recent start, against the Los Angeles Angels:

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
San Diego at Arizona | 20:40 ET
Ian Kennedy (149.1 IP, 113 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR) faces Undecided. The latter of those names (i.e. Undecided) would almost certainly be forbidden by Danish naming conventions.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Arizona Radio, Perhaps?

Today’s Complete Schedule
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. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.2.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Nathan Eovaldi	MIA	7	1	5	3	5	WAS	R. Ohlendorf*	19:05
Kyle Lohse	MIL	4	3	4	6	3	PIT	Jeff Locke	19:05
Andy Pettitte	NYA	5	3	3	6	0	TOR	J.A. Happ	19:07
Tommy Milone	OAK	4	7	6	7	6	DET	J. Verlander	19:08
C.J. Wilson	LAA	4	8	6	10	6	TB	R. Hernandez	19:10
Wei-Yin Chen	BAL	3	9	5	9	4	BOS	Felix Doubront	19:10
Danny Salazar	CLE	10	7	9	8	10	ATL	Alex Wood	19:10
Kyle Kendrick	PHI	3	0	4	7	5	NYN	Jon Niese	19:10
Paul Clemens*	HOU	5	4	4	1	5	CHA	Jose Quintana	20:10
James Shields	KC	5	8	4	4	2	MIN	Kevin Correia	20:10
Mat Latos	CIN	8	3	6	3	5	STL	Joe Kelly	20:15
Yusmeiro Petit*	SF	7	4	4	7	1	COL	Chad Bettis	20:40
Ian Kennedy	SD	4	6	5	3	5	AZ	Undecided	21:40
Travis Wood	CHN	3	5	6	3	10	LAN	C. Kershaw	22:10
Derek Holland	TEX	8	3	7	4	7	SEA	H. Iwakuma	22:10

To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.

Episode 375
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 the mediocrity of the LA Angels and the consequences of same.

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 43 min play time.)

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

1. Best Performances of the Northwoods League
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Best Performances of the Northwoods League
Introduction
Last week in the Notes, the author published a pair of final leaderboards for, and produced some superfiecial notes regarding, the Cape Cod League — i.e. the nation’s most prestigious collegiate wood-bat summer league. The present edition of the Notes represents a very similar exercise — except, in this case, for what is generally regarded as the second-most prestigious/competitive wood-bat summer league, the Northwoods League.

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

1. A Version of Roy Halladay to Return Today
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Version of Roy Halladay to Return Today
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this weekend post is to establish, for the benefit of his employers, the author’s commitment to producing a great quantity of content if not necessarily a superior quality of it.

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

1. Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey Face-à-Face
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey Face-à-Face
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to alert the bespectacled readership to how very talented Detroit right-hander Max Scherzer faces very talented New York (Nationals) right-hander Matt Harvey this (Saturday) afternoon at 4:05pm ET in Queens, New York — a rencontre of such significance that one must employ French words to describe it.

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Episode 374
Dayn Perry is a contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and the author of three books, now — one of them serviceable and one of them, against all odds, something more than serviceable. He answers questions submitted by the vulgar and teeming masses in this Question Time 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 7 min play time.)

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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

1. The Actual Daisuke Matsuzaka to Pitch Today
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

The Actual Daisuke Matsuzaka to Pitch Today
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce how former Seibu and Boston right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka will start for the New York Nationals tonight (Friday) at 7:10pm ET.

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