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
Toronto at New York AL | TBA
Stroman (Season Debut) vs. Nova (74.0 IP, 115 xFIP-)
With their victory over the Yankees on Friday, the Blue Jays have put some metaphorical space atop the AL East between themselves and that same New York club. As for literal space, that remains mostly the same. In either case, what today represents, besides another encounter between two clubs competing for the division lead, is the season debut of beloved Toronto right-hander Marcus Stroman. This past February, Jeff Sullivan found that basically every pitch in Stroman’s repertoire is most similar to some kind of ace’s best pitch: Roy Halladay‘s sinker, Johnny Cueto‘s four-seamer, Jose Fernandez’s curveball, etc. A month later, Stroman had torn his ACL and was doubtful to return at all in 2015. The clear lesson: don’t permit Jeff Sullivan to render your name into print form.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto 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
Toronto at New York AL | 19:05 ET
Price (196.1 IP, 83 xFIP-) vs. Severino (35.1 IP, 94 xFIP-)
On account of how yesterday’s version of this same precise matchup — which was also that day’s most highly rated game — on account of how it was postponed, it follows that all of the remarks which appear in that edition of these scores remain relevant today. It’s a reflection of that repetition which humans must constantly endure, this postponement.

In conclusion, here is “Monday” by dead Italian polymath Primo Levi:

Is there anything sadder than a train
That leaves when it’s supposed to,
That has only one voice,
Only one route?
There’s nothing sadder.

Except perhaps a cart horse
Shut between two shafts
And unable even to look sideways.
Its whole life is walking.

And a man? Isn’t a man sad?
If he lives in solitude a long time,
If he believes time has run its course,
A man is a sad thing too.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.

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The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a couple years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition 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 the most current iteration of Kiley McDaniel’s top-200 prospect list and (b) absent from the midseason prospect lists produced by Baseball America, Keith Law, and John Sickels, and also (c) not currently playing in the majors. Players appearing anywhere on McDaniel’s updated prospect list 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
Toronto at New York AL | 19:05 ET
Price (196.1 IP, 83 xFIP-) vs. Severino (35.1 IP, 94 xFIP-)
Owing to how he’s afflicted by indolence and riddled with lethargy, the author hasn’t attempted to record such a thing. It appears, however, that tonight’s Blue Jays-Yankees game is the first encounter of the season in receipt of a perfect NERD score — NERD being the fake acronym applied by a younger version of the author to the flawed algorithm used to determine a baseball game’s aesthetic appeal. The reason for this game’s appeal, mostly: the respective proximities of each club both to the top of their division and also to each other. And secondly, too: the respective talents of Toronto left-hander David Price and New York right-hander Luis Severino.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto 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
New York NL at Washington | 19:05 ET
deGrom (169.0 IP, 78 xFIP-) vs. Strasburg (91.0 IP, 82 xFIP-)
After last night’s unsightly debacle — a game the club lost despite holding, at one point, something better than a 99% win expectancy — the Nationals are not unlike a friend who’s just recently learned of his wife’s multiple infidelities. Unavoidably, your first encounter with him after these revelations will be an uncomfortable and awkward one. Also, he might have to sleep on your couch. Likewise, observing the Washingtons this evening might be uncomfortable. And likewise, they might need to sleep on the 25 couches you have.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL Television.

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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
New York NL at Washington | 19:05 ET
Harvey (166.1 IP, 87 xFIP-) vs. Zimmermann (173.0 IP, 98 xFIP-)
A lot has to happen for the Washington Nationals — which club currently possesses playoff odds somewhere between 10% and 16%, depending on methodology — a lot has to happen for the Nationals to qualify for the postseason. Roughly one-fifth of it could happen tonight, however, as those Nationals — currently trailing the Mets by five games in the NL East — are scheduled to play that same Mets club tonight along the banks of the Anacostia. The other option, of course, is that Washington loses the game, thus rendering moot all hope.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL Television.

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Episode 593
Kiley McDaniel is both (a) the lead prospect analyst for FanGraphs and also (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he discusses notable September call-ups (such as current Dodgers prospect Corey Seager and former Dodgers one Hector Olivera), the significance of 17-year-old Red Sox pitcher Anderson Espinoza sitting at 95-99 mph, and also curiously proportioned/offensively gifted Dodgers prospect Willie Calhoun.

This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.

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 13 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
Baltimore at New York AL | 13:05 ET
Chen (160.2 IP, 101 xFIP-) vs. Pineda (128.1 IP, 70 xFIP-)
In addition to featuring (in the Yankees) one half of the league’s most tightly contested division — and also featuring (in Michael Pineda) the majors’ fifth-best starting pitcher by a non-negligible measure — what this game also represents is an opportunity to observe first-hand the Manny Machado Shortstop Experiment. Or, to observe it four times, at least — which is to say, the approximate number of fielding chances the average major-league shortstop receives per game.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Baltimore 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
Minnesota at Houston | 14:10 ET
Duffey (25.2 IP, 114 xFIP-) vs. Keuchel (192.2 IP, 68 xFIP-)
The first installment in this series was a legitimately entertaining one, featuring a combined 19 strikeouts from the starters, a bases-loaded diving catch by Byron Buxton to end the game, and the highest average leverage index among all Saturday’s contests by some margin — a fact illustrated somewhat unnecessarily by the table below.

Top-Five Average Leverage Indices, 9/5/15

	Game	aLI
1	MIN @ HOU	1.74
2	TEX @ LAA	1.36
3	TBR @ NYY	1.29
4	MIL @ CIN	1.25
5	LAD @ SDP	1.23

Can one guarantee that this afternoon’s encounter will offer the same combination of thrill and delight? Of course not. Indeed, as research shows, only three things are certain in this world: death, taxes, and uncles who, upon being asked to estimate the likelihood of such-and-such an event, declare that there are only two things which are certain this world.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston Television.

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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
Minnesota at Houston | 19:10 ET
Santana (65.0 IP, 120 xFIP-) vs. McCullers (89.2 IP, 88 xFIP-)
The abstract concept of Decency requires one, somehow finding him- or herself newly in receipt of a time machine, to employ that time machine to the end of traveling back to late-19th century Austria-Hungary and duly offing an infant Adolf Hitler. Following a similar course of action for child Pol Pot and child Stalin might also be regarded as good form. After the most notable of murderous tyrants have been treated thusly, however, one might also consider returning to April 4th of this year and explaining to the people that September 5th’s Twins-Astros game would have some relevance to the postseason landscape. Then, finally — after being derided openly by the public — capture Napoleon from a battlefield and introduce him to a modern water park in California.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston Television.

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