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

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

Every Team Minus Its Best Player
Introduction
It is not uncommon, as the season comes to an end, for members of this, our sporting media, to debate the semantic niceties of the word valuable, in particular as it relates to each league’s Most Valuable Player award. The author has no intention of entering this very heated fray. As a thought experiment, however, what he’s done is this — namely, to publish below two tables, one for each league, of every team in the majors minus its best player, with the idea that each best player has been replaced by freely available talent.

The results? Various and sundry, as results often are. One finds that, without Miguel Cabrera, Detroit would presently be tied with Cleveland (or perhaps behind by a game) in the AL Central. One finds also that, sans Mike Trout, the Angels would most likely enter next year’s draft with the third-overall pick. One finds also-also that, were a replacement-level player to have substituted for Andrelton Simmons, that Atlanta would still currently hold a 10-game lead in the NL East.

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

1. Actionable Counsel from the Readership
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Actionable Counsel from the Readership
Introduction
In yesterday’s edition of these Notes, the author introduced a new calculation for Team and Game NERD scores for September — one designed, that is, to reflect the influence of the playoffs and playoff odds on the watchability of games during that month. While entirely the product of what one would regard as “the college try” — or at least “the prestigious boarding-school try” — the author’s methodology, like the author himself, was poorly conceived.

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

1. A Playoff Adjustment for NERD Game Scores
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Playoff Adjustment for NERD Game Scores
Introduction
The ongoing concern of the author — and the concern, probably, of at least one reader — is, each day, to watch a baseball game which might be best described as “rich and compelling.” For much of the season, such games are defined largely by the quality of the pitching matchup in question. Young and hard-throwing and quick-working and (ultimately) effective starters: this is the order of the day. If those pitchers’ opponents are some combination of productive and powerful and swift-footed, so much the better.

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

1. Sunday’s Notable Call-Ups
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Sunday’s Notable Call-Ups
Introduction
Yesterday (Sunday) represented the first day of roster expansion in the league, a period which is often accompanied by a considerable number of promotions for minor leaguers. Below is a haphazardly constructed of four notable players recalled on the first day of September.

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

1. Danny Salazar Early Afternoon in America
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Danny Salazar Early Afternoon in America
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to alert the present site’s readership to how young and hard-throwing matinee idol Danny Salazar is starting this afternoon for Cleveland (in Detroit) at 1:08pm ET.

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

1. High-Quality Games for All Your Baseball Needs
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

High-Quality Games for All Your Baseball Needs
Introduction
What the author takes for granted, so far as the reader is concerned, is that he or she is looking for a high-quality baseball experience with no muss and even less fuss. To that end, the author has prepared below a curated list of three of the day’s games.

St. Louis at Pittsburgh, 7:05pm ET
It’s not necessarily a fact, but probably should be, that more men died in the construction of these two cities, combined, than in all of World War I. Uncooperative, history is. What is a fact, however, is how both these clubs are presently deep within the agonizing throes of Playoff Hunt Fever, a condition so mysterious the CDC won’t answer the author’s daily phone calls about it that he’s been making for either three weeks or a month now.

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

1. Taijuan Walker to Debut on This Day in History
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Taijuan Walker to Debut on This Day in History
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce that today — a day which has, until now, belonged to the future, but which, in short order, will reside entirely in the past — that today right-handed Seattle prospect Taijuan Walker is scheduled to make his major-league debut at 8:10pm ET against the Houston Astros.

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

1. Every Entirely Above-Average Repertoire
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Every Entirely Above-Average Repertoire
Introduction
In yesterday’s edition of the Notes, the author published a leaderboard of the top-10 pitches this year so far in terms of runs prevented relative league average, with Clayton Kershaw‘s fastball finishing first by that measure and Kenley Jansen’s cutter making the list despite the reliever’s relative paucity of innings.

In the present edition of the notes, the author has endeavored to consider a different but related idea — in this case, not with a view towards finding the league’s best pitches, but rather of identifying those qualified starters who have the most complete repertoire, where “complete repertoire” is defined as one which includes pitches only of positive (i.e. good) run values.

One finds, by Kerhsaw’s omission alone, that the list here isn’t necessarily a proxy for a list of best starting pitchers. Still, there’s likely some value in identifying those pitchers who’ve had success with three or four pitches reliably.

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

1. The League’s Most Valuable Pitches So Far
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

The Best Pitches in the Majors So Far This Season
Introduction
It’s a fact as old as the sands of the deserts — or at least as old as the expensive laptops which utilize semiconductors fashioned from the silicon extracted from those sands — that, within the electronic pages of FanGraphs, one can find the run values relative to league average for every pitcher’s respective pitch types. The point is self-evident.

The bright idea which has stopped the reader in his tracks this morning, however — not unlike Paul on the Damascus Road, really — is to combine all the respective pitch-type run values into a single leaderboard, such that the public might better discern which pitches have been most valuable this season.

This step having been taken by the author during his breakfast, the reader is invited to find the results of same reproduced in the table below.

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

1. Danny Salazar Night in America
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Danny Salazar Night in America
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce — for the benefit of everyone in America — how young and hard-throwing Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar is starting tonight against Atlanta at 7:10pm ET.

Regarding Danny Salazar, Some Salient Facts
Some salient facts regarding Danny Salazar, presented by means of unordered list, are:

• He’s got the second-best xFIP- among all pitchers with 20-plus innings recorded as a starter; and

• He’s got the second-hardest fastball, on average, among that same population; and

• He throws a split–changeup that late fifth-century Christian theologian Pseudo-Dionysius anticipated probably in the composition of his Mystical Theology.

Regarding Pseudo-Dionysius, How He’d Describe Salazar’s Split-Change
Were he to describe Danny Salazar’s split-change, fifth-century Christian theologian Pseudo-Dionysius would likely feel compelled to employ some or all of the following phrases:

• “Darkness which is beyond light”; and

• “Unknowing which is enshrouded under all that is known and all that can be known”; and

• “The superessential Radiance”; and

• “A science both vast and minute”; and

• “The summit of the divine ascent.”

Regarding the Present Author, How He’d Describe Salazar’s Split-Change
Were he to describe Danny Salazar’s split-changeup, the author would plagiarize Pseudo-Dionysius, probably.

Action Footage: All of Danny Salazar’s Most Recent Strikeouts
Here’s video of all Danny Salazar’s seven strikeouts from his most recent start, against the Los Angeles Angels:

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
San Diego at Arizona | 20:40 ET
Ian Kennedy (149.1 IP, 113 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR) faces Undecided. The latter of those names (i.e. Undecided) would almost certainly be forbidden by Danish naming conventions.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Arizona Radio, Perhaps?

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. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.2.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Nathan Eovaldi	MIA	7	1	5	3	5	WAS	R. Ohlendorf*	19:05
Kyle Lohse	MIL	4	3	4	6	3	PIT	Jeff Locke	19:05
Andy Pettitte	NYA	5	3	3	6	0	TOR	J.A. Happ	19:07
Tommy Milone	OAK	4	7	6	7	6	DET	J. Verlander	19:08
C.J. Wilson	LAA	4	8	6	10	6	TB	R. Hernandez	19:10
Wei-Yin Chen	BAL	3	9	5	9	4	BOS	Felix Doubront	19:10
Danny Salazar	CLE	10	7	9	8	10	ATL	Alex Wood	19:10
Kyle Kendrick	PHI	3	0	4	7	5	NYN	Jon Niese	19:10
Paul Clemens*	HOU	5	4	4	1	5	CHA	Jose Quintana	20:10
James Shields	KC	5	8	4	4	2	MIN	Kevin Correia	20:10
Mat Latos	CIN	8	3	6	3	5	STL	Joe Kelly	20:15
Yusmeiro Petit*	SF	7	4	4	7	1	COL	Chad Bettis	20:40
Ian Kennedy	SD	4	6	5	3	5	AZ	Undecided	21:40
Travis Wood	CHN	3	5	6	3	10	LAN	C. Kershaw	22:10
Derek Holland	TEX	8	3	7	4	7	SEA	H. Iwakuma	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.