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

1. Custom Leaderboard Event: Recently Traded Players
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Custom Leaderboard Event: Recently Traded Players
Regarding What This Is
The attentive reader — and, really, even the mostly impaired reader — will know that baseball’s trade deadline has recently passed. What follows, for the benefit of both types of readers — both the attentive kind and also the mostly impaired kind, too — is a custom leaderboard of all the players both (a) who were involved in a deadline trade this year* who also (b) have some sort of previous major-league experience.

*Wherein “deadline trade” is defined as any trade to have occurred between July 24th and 31st.

Hyperlink to the Leaderboard in Question
Click this hyperlinked text to navigate your web browser to the leaderboard in question.

Screenshot of Said Leaderboard
Here’s a screenshot of the hitters part of the aforementioned leaderboard (sorted by season WAR, entirely embiggenable via clicking):

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Table of Contents
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1. Expected wOBA Leaderboards: Almost All July
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Expected wOBA Leaderboards: Almost All July
A Brief Explanation of What This Is
In the not very distant past, I presented something in the Notes called “Expected wOBA,” itself essentially a version of Bradley Woodrum’s Fielding Independent wOBA but with regressed (as opposed to raw) home-run, walk, and strikeout rates — and a (somewhat haphazardly) regressed version of Woodrum’s updated xBABIP formula, as well — as the inputs.

The idea behind Expected wOBA is to estimate something like a player’s true talent over the course of X plate appearances, where X equals a relatively low number.

Expected wOBA Leaders: Almost All July
Here are the leaders in Expected wOBA (xWOBA, in this case) among all batters over almost all July — which is to say, all of July except for July 31st, on account of that’s when I ran the data. Note that anything beginning with an -x- has been regressed. Note also that, in the absence of actual research having been done on it, I’ve opted to regress stolen-base percentage to 100 plate appearances (as, unregressed, it gives undue credit to players who’ve stolen one base in, for example, just four plate appearances).

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

1. Featured Game: New York NL at San Francisco, 22:15 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: New York NL at San Francisco, 22:15 ET
What’s Notable About This Game
What’s notable about this game is how Mets right-hander Matt Harvey is starting it for the Mets.

Regarding Matt Harvey, Who That Is
Matt Harvey is the 23-year-old pitching prospect who, in his debut this past Thursday against Arizona, made love to the strike zone with his ample repertoire.

Regarding Harvey, His Line from That Arizona Start
Here’s Harvey’s line from that start against Arizona on Thursday (box): 5.1 IP, 23 TBF, 11 K, 3 BB, 3 GB on 9 batted-balls (33.3% GB), 1.73 xFIP.

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Table of Contents
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1. Updated Leaderboard Update: First-Rounders
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Updated Leaderboard Update: First-Rounders
Regarding What This Is
Last Monday, I provided a link to an updated version of the custom leaderboard I’d made available to readers about a week before that — a leaderboard of all the first-round picks from the recent draft (plus, because the author’s True Nature dictated it, Astros shortstop prospect Nolan Fontana and Angels infielder Sherman Johnson) to’ve made their professional debuts.

Regarding What This Is, Part II
What follows is an update of last week’s update, with three players added, as follow:

• Albert Almora, OF, Chicago (NL)
• Nick Travieso, RHP, Cincinnati
• Richard Shaffer, 3B, Tampa Bay

One Other Addition
Also added to the leaderboard is Rangers’ third-base prospect, taken 39th overall in the most recent draft, Joey Gallo — mostly on account of, as Baseball America’s Ben Badler notes, he’s hitting furiouser and furiouser.

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Table of Contents
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1. Featured Game: Tampa Bay at Los Angeles AL, 15:35 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Tampa Bay at Los Angeles AL, 15:35 ET
Regarding What the People Want
What the people want — mostly owing to the unstoppable force that is human biology — what the people want is to reproduce. Like, in a sexual way.

Regarding Another Thing the People Want
Another thing the people want — the second thing, really, when you think about it — is an array of bold predictions.

Regarding What the Author Is About to Provide
The author is about to provide, in this internet post, no fewer than one bold predictions in re Zack Greinke, the very talented right-hander who makes his debut for the Angels this afternoon following a recent trade that sent prospects Jean Segura, Ariel Pena, and Johnny Hellweg to Milwaukee.

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

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

Featured Games, Plural
Regarding What’s Happening Today
The thing that’s happening today is three pitchers who were recently traded are starting for the teams to which they were traded today.

Regarding What Makes That Notable
What makes that notable exactly is, like most things, beyond the purview of the author; however, were that same author to wax authoritative on the matter, he’d suggest that novelty had something to do with it — which is to say, the novelty of seeing this one player pitch for this other, different team.

An Additional and Related Explanation
It’s also possible that a player’s debut with a new team — especially when that player has been acquired in a midseason trade — allows the home audience the opportunity to gather information about, and begin to form opinions on, the success of the trade in question.

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Table of Contents
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1. Actual Transaction News: Three Recent Promotions
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Actual Transaction News: Three Recent Promotions
Regarding What the Author Did Yesterday
Yesterday, the author meditated at some length upon the promotion of Mets right-handed pitching prospect Matt Harvey — which, on account of how Harvey struck out, like, 11 or a hundred Diamondbacks in his debut and posted a single-game xFIP of 1.45, that was probably pretty effing prescient of the author to do that.

Regarding What the Author’s Doing Today
Today, the author has what you might call — if you know how to speak even the littlest English — what you’d call a “full plate.” He’ll be editing the fantasy podcast he recorded Thursday afternoon with RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris; he has plans to record an episode of FanGraphs Audio with Dayn Perry at 1pm CT, maybe; and, later, he’s attending a Northwoods League game in Madison, Wisconsin, with actual, real-live friends who aren’t going against their well like you’re thinking they are.

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

1. Featured Game: New York NL at Arizona, 21:40 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: New York NL at Arizona, 21:40 ET
Regarding This Game, Why It’s Notable
The thing that’s notable about this game is how it represents the major-league debut of Mets 23-year-old right-handed pitching prospect Matt Harvey.

Regarding Matt Harvey, Who That Is
Harvey was the Mets’ first-round pick (seventh overall) of the 2010 draft out of UNC — and was, before that, a third-round pick by the Angels out of a Connecticut high school (although he didn’t sign).

Regarding Matt Harvey, His Prospect Status
Harvey was ranked first among Mets prospects this past offseason by John Sickels of Minor League Ball and first by Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus and second (to Zack Wheeler) by our Marc Hulet and second (also to Zack Wheeler) by Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com and second (to Wheeler, again) by Baseball America.

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Table of Contents
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1. News About News About News
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

News About News About News
At Daily Notes, we don’t make the news — we copy and paste the news from other sources and then change maybe, like, every tenth word or whatever.

Oakland Prospect Choice Out for Season
Oakland outfield prospect Michael Choice was placed on the disabled list on Tuesday, and will miss the remainder of the 2012 season after suffering a broken hand from a hit-by-pitch on Saturday night, reports MLB.com John Parker. Choice, who was ranked second among Oakland prospects before the season by our Marc Hulet, produced one of the more impressive offensive performances of the Arizona Fall League, per a stat made up by the author. He was slashing .287/.356/.423 (.352 BABIP) in 402 plate appearances at Double-A Midland at the time of the injury.

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

1. All the Important Daniel Straily News
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

All the Important Daniel Straily News
Regarding What the People Want, Very Obviously
Despite the proximity of the trade deadline and, in fact, the myriad rumors concerning same, it’s obvious that what the people want is more Daniel Straily — that is, 23-year-old Oakland right-handed pitching prospect Daniel Straily — more Daniel Straily information news.

Daniel Straily Information News
In terms of Daniel Straily-related information news, here’s some of that: Straily pitched last night for Triple-A Sacramento against San Diego affiliate Tucson.

Straily’s Line from Said Start
Here’s Straily’s line from that start last night against Tucson (box): 6.0 IP, 22 TBF, 9 K, 1 BB, 0 HR, 3 H, 6:1 GO:AO.

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