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

1. The Top Minor-League Starters by kwERA
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

The Top Minor-League Starters by kwERA
Introduction
Minor-league regular seasons everywhere have come to their respective conclusions. What concerned readers want to know now — or, at least what the author is presently supposing they want to know — is which qualified minor-league pitchers have recorded the best fielding-independent numbers this year. Moreover, concerned readers are adding this caveat — namely, that they’re interested in a fielding-independent metric that accounts only for strikeout and walk rate, but not home runs, owing to how much more quickly the first two become reliable.

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

1. The Quite Very Effective Ubaldo Jimenez
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

The Quite Very Effective Ubaldo Jimenez
A Note Regarding Ubaldo Jimenez
Yesterday, by way of previewing briefly yesterday’s MLB.TV Free Game, which game featured Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar, the author had occasion to produce the table below, which includes — or included as of yesterday, at least — the top-five starters by strikeout rate over the last month (minimum three starts).

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

1. Chris Carter’s Record Strikeout Rate in Context
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Chris Carter’s Record Strikeout Rate in Context
Of late, the author has encountered more than one concerned internet citizen making a comment to the effect that Houston corner-type Chris Carter has recorded, thus far, the highest strikeout rate of any qualified batter in major-league history. Indeed, as the table below indicates — of the ten highest single-season strikeout rates since 1913 (i.e. the year since which we have contiguous strikeout data) — these concerned citizens are also generally honest ones.

To wit:

What one finds here is a collection of power hitters from the past 25 years, basically, who compensated for a lack of contact with power and/or patience. What one also finds is Dave Nicholson, who seems to have produced a 1.6 WAR in 1963 as a left fielder for the Chicago White Sox — and ultimately a career WAR of 1.7 in 1661 plate appearances.

If one’s ambition, however, is to determine the place of Chris Carter’s 2013 season in all of baseball of all time, one must consider his numbers relative to the context in which they’ve been recorded. For, as a brief inspection of the leaderboards at this site reveals, the 2013 season has produced the second-highest league-wide strikeout rate of the last 101 years.

With a view to examining which players have produced the most prolific strikeout rates relative to their peers, the author has first identified the league-average strikeout rate (strikeouts per plate appearance, that is) for every season since 1913. The author has then divided every qualified player’s seasonal strikeout rate (since 1913, as well) by the relevant league-average rate for that year. The result is an index stat, K-, which measures strikeout rate relative to league average, where a higher figure represents more striking out.

Here are the results of those calculations:

Three Notes
• Old brother both to Dom and Joe, center-fielder Vince DiMaggio is responsible for the most prolific strikeout rate of the last 100 years — not only recording the highest rate relative to league, but also having produced three of the ten-highest adjusted strikeout rates over that interval. While DiMaggio’s career rate of 19.7% is precisely average in 2013, it’s more than double the overall rate of 9.1% registered league-wide between 1937 and -46.

• By this methodology, Carter’s 2013 season is only the 66th-worst so far as strikeout rate relative to league is concerned. His index figure: a 187 K-.

• It’s very possible that a more responsible way of conducting a study such as this one would be to find the z-score for every player’s strikeout rate for every season since 1913. In addition to being the more responsible method, however, this would also be the considerably more time-consuming one.

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Cleveland at Chicago AL | 14:10 ET
Danny Salazar (37.0 IP, 71 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR) faces Hector Santiago (138.2 IP, 113 xFIP-, 1.5 WAR). Of some relevance to this matchup is the following table, which features the top-five starters by strikeout rate over the last month (minimum three starts):

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

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.

Note that these NERD scores are calculated using the methodology introduced recently and designed to account for the influence of playoff odds on the watchability of games. ***Unlike in recent iterations of this table, the author has adjusted the day’s NERD Game Scores such that, combined, they average 5.0.*** This allows said table to resemble more closely the Game Scores that have appeared here over the preceding four months.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Danny Salazar	CLE	10	3	6	0	3	CHA	Hector Santiago	14:10
Jake Arrieta	CHN	1	0	9	10	6	PIT	Charlie Morton	19:05
Kyle Kendrick	PHI	3	0	4	0	10	WAS	St. Strasburg	19:05
Jason Hammel	BAL	2	1	2	0	5	TOR	Todd Redmond	19:07
Bruce Chen	KC	2	1	3	0	6	DET	Justin Verlander	19:08
Brad Hand*	MIA	5	0	3	0	5	NYN	Jon Niese	19:10
Hiroki Kuroda	NYA	5	4	6	0	7	BOS	John Lackey	19:10
Ian Kennedy	SD	4	0	3	0	7	ATL	David Hale*	19:30
Dan Straily	OAK	5	5	10	5	7	TEX	Derek Holland	20:05
Jason Vargas	LAA	3	0	2	0	6	HOU	Dallas Keuchel	20:10
Mat Latos	CIN	8	1	4	0	4	MIL	Kyle Lohse	20:10
Chris Archer	TB	5	7	7	0	2	MIN	Kevin Correia	20:10
Hisashi Iwakuma	SEA	7	0	10	9	9	STL	Adam Wainwright	20:15
Tyler Chatwood	COL	6	0	3	0	5	AZ	Brandon McCarthy	21:40
Madis. Bumgarner	SF	8	0	5	0	10	LAN	Clayton Kershaw	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.

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

1. A Brief Timeline of the Corey Kluber Society
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Brief Timeline of the Corey Kluber Society
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce a meeting — in this case, at 8:10pm ET today (Thursday) — of the Corey Kluber Society.

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

1. A Brief Guide to Yusmeiro Petit’s Start Today
2. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Brief Guide to Yusmeiro Petit’s Start Today
Introduction
In his most recent start, on September 6th against Arizona, 28-year-old Giants right-hander and former half-prospect Yusmeiro Petit retired the first 26 opposing batters he faced en route to a one-hit shutout of the Diamondbacks (box). Notably, this wasn’t even Petit’s most impressive recent start, so far his defense-independent marks are concerned: on September 1st, also against Arizona, he produced a 1.59 single-game xFIP in 6.0 innings (box).

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Table of Contents
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1. A Graph Regarding Baserunning vs. Defense
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Graph Regarding Baserunning vs. Defense
Introduction
Last (Monday) night, while inspecting the team leaderboards available at the present site, the author noted to his own self how the Seattle Mariners, while having produced a not entirely woeful batting line this season, had also recorded very much one of the league’s worst cumulative position-player WARs.

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Table of Contents
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1. A Leaderboard with Yusmeiro Petit’s Name in It
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Leaderboard with Yusmeiro Petit’s Name in It
Belabored Introduction
At a point in the not very distant past, right-hander Yusmeiro Petit was an actual, if slightly confounding, prospect, having compiled a 429:75 strikeout-to-walk ratio and 2.76 ERA in 346.0 minor-league innings through his age-20 season, during which season he recorded the large majority of his innings at Double-A. That he produced such high strikeout rates with a fastball that sat at 88-90 mph (or perhaps even lower) was regarded as a minor mystery. In any case, he appeared on Baseball America’s top-100 prospect list in both 2005 and 2006 — itself no small accomplishment.

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

1. Top Games for All the People
2. Today’s Complete Schedule

Top Games for All the People
Introduction
Nothing debilitates the bespectacled reader like serious bodily injury. Beyond that, however, nothing debilitates like the prospect of having to choose which game to watch leisurely from one’s couch. The author has hopefully done something to combat these grievous conditions by providing below the curated list of today’s top games.

New York NL at Cleveland, 1:05pm ET
Last Saturday, Cleveland had something not unlike a 10-15% chance of making the playoffs in some capacity (i.e. by winning the division or qualifying for the wild-card game). Science informs us that those odds are much closer to 50% at the moment. “Life can change by upwards of 40 percentage points,” is the universal message one derives from these recent events. Impossible to ignore with regard to this game is how young and hard-throwing Danny Salazar is starting it for Cleveland.

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

1. Much-Awaited Return of the Corey Kluber Society
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Much-Awaited Return of the Corey Kluber Society
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce a meeting — in this case, at 6:05pm ET today (Saturday) — of the Corey Kluber Society.

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

1. Statistical Update on 2013’s First-Round Picks
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Statistical Update on 2013’s First-Round Picks
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce that the author has updated the custom leaderboard featuring every first-round pick from the most recent draft both to have signed and also played for an affiliate of the relevant drafting team.

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