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

1. Featured Game: Miami at Arizona, 15:40 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Miami at Arizona, 15:40 ET
Regarding This Game, Why It’s Notable
This game between Miami and Arizona is notable mostly on account of it represents the major-league debut of top prospect Tyler Skaggs.

Regarding Tyler Skaggs, Who That Is
Tyler Skaggs is a 21-year-old left-hander (although, because of his July birthday, one currently in just his age-20 season) originally taken 40th overall by the Angels in 2009 from a California high school. He came to the Diamondbacks as part of the trade that sent Dan Haren to Anaheim in 2010.

Regarding Tyler Skaggs, His Place in Various Rankings
Our Marc Hulet ranked Skaggs 11th overall among all prospects in March and 11th overall among all prospects on his midseason top-50 list. Baseball America ranked Skaggs 13th overall on their preseason list and seventh on their midseason list. John Sickels of Minor League Ball ranked Skaggs 23rd overall in February and then 20th overall on his midseason review.

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

1. Update: Trade-Deadline Players
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Update: Trade-Deadline Players
Regarding What We Do Periodically
Periodically, in the Daily Notes, we become troublingly intimate with the idea of our own mortality and weep silently, inconsolably until the dawn light.

Regarding What Else We Do Periodically
Also periodically, in these Notes, we revisit the players who were traded at the July 31st deadline and make note of their performances since those trades.

Hyperlinks of Note
Click this hyperlinked text to see a custom leaderboard of all the players traded within a week of this year’s July 31st trade deadline. Click this other hyperlinked text for the pitchers who match that same description.

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

1. Featured Feature: Sunday’s Best Pitch, Probably
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Feature: Sunday’s Best Pitch, Probably
Regarding Sunday’s Best Pitch, What It Probably Was
Sunday’s best pitch was probably San Diego reliever Cory Burns‘ changeup, which he (i.e. Burns) threw 12 times and on which he (i.e. still Burns) induced seven swinging strikes (for a swinging-strike rate of 58.3%).

Regarding the Changeup, Its Swinging-Strike Rate Usually
The league-average swinging-strike rate on changeups is about 15%, according to Harry Pavlidis of the internet.

Regarding the Changeup, Its Best-Case Swinging-Strike Rate
Here are some pitchers (in no discernible order) with notable changeups and the swinging-strike rates of those same changeups this season:

• Stephen Strasburg, 27.4%
• Felix Hernandez, 15.0%
• Tim Lincecum, 23.6%
• Kelvin Herrera, 24.5%
• Cole Hamels, 28.4%

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

1. Today’s Two Featured Games
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Two Featured Games
Regarding a Thing That Happens
It is not uncommon, during a late-season game of some consequence, it’s not uncommon for an announcer to suggest that there is a “playoff-like atmosphere” within the relevant ballpark.

A Note on Two Games This Afternoon
Two games this afternoon, while unlikely to possess a “playoff-like atmosphere,” might at least offer a “playoff-ish-esque-like atmosphere” — which is to say, similar to playoff-like, just not as dramatic.

What One of Those Games Is
One of the games of note today is the Pittsburgh-St. Louis one at 2:15pm ET.

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

1. Featured Game: Chicago (NL) at Cincinnati, 19:10 ET
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Chicago (NL) at Cincinnati, 19:10 ET
Regarding This Game, Why It’s Notable
This game is notable on account of it features the major-league debut of Todd Redmond, who starts for the Reds.

Regarding Todd Redmond, Who That Even Is
Todd Redmond is a 27-year-old right-hander drafted originally by Pittsburgh in the 39th round of the 2004 draft out of St. Petersburg College. He was traded to Atlanta in 2008 and then again, about a month ago, to Cincinnati in exchange for Paul Janish.

Regarding Todd Redmond, His Numbers at Triple-A This Season
Here’s Todd Redmond’s Triple-A line at Triple-A this season: 134.2 IP, 8.4 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 1.1 HR/9, 3.62 FIP.

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

1. First-Round Leaderboard Update Update
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

First-Round Leaderboard Update Update
Regarding What This Is
Within the safe space that is these Daily Notes, it has become customary to publish, every so often, to publish a leaderboard of all the first-round picks from the 2012 draft (plus, because the author’s True Nature has dictated it, Astros shortstop prospect Nolan Fontana, Angels infielder Sherman Johnson, and Rangers third baseman Joey Gallo) to’ve made their professional debuts.

Regarding What This Is, Part II
What follows is an update of the first-rounders leaderboard, with five (!) players added, as follow:

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Table of Contents
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1. All the Teams Without Hope
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

All the Teams Without Hope
Woody Allen on Hope
Here’s a brief passage from Woody Allen’s book Without Feathers regarding hope:

How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not “the thing with feathers.” The thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.

Norm MacDonald on Hope
Here’s an excerpt from Norm MacDonald’s special Me Doing Standup, in which he discusses hope briefly — like around the 5:40 mark, mostly. (Note: this clip contains English swear words.)

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Table of Contents
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1. Three Notable Prospects Promoted to Double-A
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Three Notable Prospects Promoted to Double-A
Player: Dylan Bundy, RHP, Baltimore
Promotion: High-A Frederick to Double-A Bowie
Notes: Bundy’s 11 starts at High-A (54.1 IP, 63 K, 17 BB) were decidedly not as dominant as the eight he’d made before that at South Atlantic League affiliate Delmarva (during which he posted a 40:2 K:BB in 30.0 innings and conceded just five hits), but they were still excellent. Bundy made his Double-A debut Tuesday night. Here’s his line from that game (box): 5.0 IP, 3 K, 3 BB, 8:3 GO:FO. And here, courtesy David Driver at MiLB.com, is a brief note on what he (i.e. Bundy) threw: “Bundy relied on a fastball in the mid-90s but had trouble finding the zone with his curve[,] as two breaking pitches stayed high in the first two innings.”

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Table of Contents
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1. Three Important and Upcoming Dates
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Three Important and Upcoming Dates
Here are three essential dates for the reader’s impossibly stylish and totally leather-bound business agenda.

Tuesday, August 14th, Noon ET
According to the pitcher’s own father, 16th-overall pick Lucas Giolito makes his debut for the Washington Nationals Gulf Coast League affiliate — versus the Marlins affiliate in that same league. Giolito was considered a possible No. 1 pick in the 2012 draft until a sprained elbow this past spring complicated his status. The right-handed Giolito sat in the mid-90s with his fastball as a senior at Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles, according to Baseball America’s Nathan Rode, even hitting 100 mph at one point.

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

1. Parallel Universe: Every Team Minus Its Best Player
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Parallel Universe: Every Team Minus Its Best Player
Regarding Parallel Universe, Its Definition
Parallel universe is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as a “hypothetical self-contained separate reality in which Biff Tannen has become wealthy and corrupted, and changed Hill Valley into a chaotic dystopia.”

Regarding Parallel Universe, Another Possible Definition
Another possible definition of parallel universe is “a reality not entirely unlike the present one, except in which every major-league team’s best player has been replaced by a freely available one instead.”

Regarding That Second Definition
What this edition of the Notes considers is that second, less common definition of parallel universe.

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