The nucleus accumbens plays an important role in our experience of pleasure.

I, Carson Cistulli, am quoting myself when I say that I read a book not to find its meaning, but to find my happiness. I’m also basically quoting myself when I say that I watch a baseball game for mostly the same reason.

While team allegiance is clearly a powerful motivator in any fan’s interest in a particular game/player/team, there are also some games/players/teams that transcend merely regional ties. Jose Bautista‘s offensive dominance, for example, is captivating. Roy Halladay’s precision and efficiency on the other side of the pitcher-batter confrontation is also great and will suffice. Josh Collmenter possesses a pitching motion devised by Norse trickster god Loki. And so on.

The Leaderboards you see here represent the author’s attempt to isolate those traits which most appeal to the learned baseballing fan and to identify which players, teams, etc possess them most bountifully.

Below are bolded headings on which you can click to bring yourself right to a specific leaderboard. Otherwise, don’t be afraid to go wildwildwild and just browse your way through the present post.

Note: to read last week’s edition, click here.

1. Team NERD Leaderboard (Traditional)
2. Team NERD Leaderboard (Playoff-Adjusted)
3. Team NERD Leaderboard (Betterly Playoff-Adjusted, Maybe)
4. Underrated Player Leaderboard
5. Least Underrated Player Leaderboard
6. Pitcher NERD Leaderboard
7. Player NERD Leaderboard

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Mike Trout!

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. Six heart-stopping game previews.

2. Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of this weekend’s games.

3. A brief note: please excuse the tardiness of the present edition of One Night Only. Sometimes a guy is at SABR 41 in Long Beach, CA. Sometimes that same guy’s, like, “Wait? What time is it?”

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You’re gonna have a TV Party tonight.

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. Expanded previews for seven or eleven games or something.

2. Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of this mid-week’s games.

3. An accidental half-essay on watching taped games.

Note: the Team NERD scores used in this edition of One Night Only are the playoff-adjusted variety introduced in this week’s Leaderboards of Pleasure.

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Business Graph with arrow showing profits and gains.

Last week in these electronic pages, we unveiled an exercise in absurdity known as Leaderboards of Pleasure. Simply put, the LOPs (as they will forever be called by our descendants and their descendants after them) are a complement to Paul Swydan’s excellent Power Rankings, which appear here each Monday. Except instead of trying to say anything substantive about any player or team’s absolute ability, the LOPs consolidate a number of the site’s “watchability”-type stats (including all versions of NERD).

The present document, then, is the most recent installment of these Leaderboards. For those who read last week’s edition, the format of this one should be familiar, except for one edit — namely, the addition of a playoff-adjusted Team NERD. You can read more about it below, but, essentially, this metric is the same as Team NERD but includes an adjustment for the degree to which a team is in the playoff hunt or not.

Also, there’s this change: bolded headings on which you can click to bring yourself right to a specific leaderboard.

Behold:

1. Team NERD Leaderboard
2. Team NERD Leaderboard (Playoff Adjusted)
3. Underrated Player Leaderboard
4. Pitcher NERD Leaderboard
5. Player NERD Leaderboard

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Episode Eighty
In which the guest is a real-live Harvard Man.

Headlines
The Harvard Sports Analysis Collective — Learned About!
The New York Times, Its Quality — Hotly Debated!
Crested Blazers — Hella worn!

Featuring
David Roher, Co-President, Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective

Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio on the flip-flop. (Approximately 45 min play time.)

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Actual Rich Harden tattoo.

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. Expanded previews for six of the weekend’s bumpinest games.

2. Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of this weekend’s games.

3. The superlative adjective bumpinest, apparently.

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Episode Seventy-Nine
In which the talents of the guest aren’t taken for (ahem) granted.

Headlines
The Making of a Giants Fan — Explored!
McCovey Chronicles — What Up with That?!?
Buster Posey — Objectified!
Peyote — Mentioned More Than Once!

Featuring
Grant Brisbee, Great American Writer, McCovey Chronicles and Baseball Nation

Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio on the flip-flop. (Approximately 60 min play time.)

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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There’s no reason to fear change.

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. Previews for six games, all of them (i.e. the previews) aimed equally at the heart and the head.

2. Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every game between Tuesday and Thursday.

3. This Programming Note:

What you see here, reader, is a three-day, working-week edition of One Night Only. I understand that this (a) represents a change and also that (b) change is frightening; how-ev-er, it’s the opinion of this author that games might (I say might!) be sufficiently previewed in two weekly (i.e. a Tuesday and Friday one) editions, thus freeing same author (in this case, Carson Cistulli) to more ably divert his attentions to other baseball-related splendors*.

*Like, for example, the stupid-excellent interview with Grant Brisbee of McCovey Chronicles that’ll be appearing at this site later today.

Because we’re looking into the future, of course, it’s possible that the slate of games for Thursday will change in the interim. As such, I will likely revisit this post over the course of its relevance — and will invite the readership to utilize the comments section to chastise me duly for failing to do same.

We’re in this together, reader. Not in a sexy way, necessarily. But also: sort of in a sexy way.

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What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s a-happening.

As part of his ongoing efforts to bring light into the hearts of every man, woman, and child on this great and stupid planet, Mr. Paul Swydan submits to these pages each Monday the very able FanGraphs Power Rankings. Using a combination of calculations and spells, Swydan attempts to distill and render into electronic print the successes and failures of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams.

Swydan’s work is invaluable — both Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the Slap Chop guy agree. But here’s what people like: lists and rankings. And, after those lists and rankings are digested, what they like is more frigging lists and rankings. Which, that’s what I wanna talk about right now.

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Chauncey Gardner, of no relation to Brett.

This edition of One Night Only contains:

1. Expanded previews for the exact perfect number of games.

2. Very proprietary Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of this weekend’s myriad games.

3. Equal parts shabby and chic.

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