Archive for Daily Notes

Daily Notes: Best Performances of the Northwoods League

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

1. Best Performances of the Northwoods League
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Best Performances of the Northwoods League
Introduction
Last week in the Notes, the author published a pair of final leaderboards for, and produced some superfiecial notes regarding, the Cape Cod League — i.e. the nation’s most prestigious collegiate wood-bat summer league. The present edition of the Notes represents a very similar exercise — except, in this case, for what is generally regarded as the second-most prestigious/competitive wood-bat summer league, the Northwoods League.

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Daily Notes: A Version of Roy Halladay to Return Today

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

1. A Version of Roy Halladay to Return Today
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Version of Roy Halladay to Return Today
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this weekend post is to establish, for the benefit of his employers, the author’s commitment to producing a great quantity of content if not necessarily a superior quality of it.

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Daily Notes: Feat. Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey Face-à-Face

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

1. Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey Face-à-Face
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey Face-à-Face
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to alert the bespectacled readership to how very talented Detroit right-hander Max Scherzer faces very talented New York (Nationals) right-hander Matt Harvey this (Saturday) afternoon at 4:05pm ET in Queens, New York — a rencontre of such significance that one must employ French words to describe it.

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Daily Notes: The Actual Daisuke Matsuzaka to Pitch Today

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

1. The Actual Daisuke Matsuzaka to Pitch Today
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

The Actual Daisuke Matsuzaka to Pitch Today
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce how former Seibu and Boston right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka will start for the New York Nationals tonight (Friday) at 7:10pm ET.

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Daily Notes: Best Performances of the 2013 Cape Cod League

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

1. Best Performances of the Cape Cod League
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Best Performances of the Cape Cod League
Introduction
The 2013 iteration of the Cape Cod League — the collegiate, wood-bat summer league responsible for approximately a third of the most recent draft’s first-round picks (and a similar percentage of the first ten rounds’ picks) — concluded last Thursday. This most recent Tuesday, the author found that last year’s top Cape League batters have posted a collective 125 wRC+ in their first exposure to professional ball; the top pitchers, a collective 2.93 FIP.

Below are the final SCOUT leaderboards for this year’s top Cape League hitters and pitchers — and notes concerning same. (All data courtesy Pointstreak.)

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Daily Notes: Facts Regarding Danny Salazar After 23 Innings

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

1. Facts Regarding Danny Salazar After 23 Innings
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Facts Regarding Danny Salazar After 23 Innings
Introduction
With his start on Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Americans, Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar has now recorded 23.0 innings in the major leagues this season (and also ever, one finds) — i.e. three innings above the haphazardly selected 20-inning threshold a pitcher must pass in order to qualify for NERD*.

Salazar debuts today on the NERD leaderboard** with perfect score of 10 — and, moreover, has recorded the highest raw score (i.e. not adjusted for the 0-10 scale) among the 217 qualified pitchers. What follows is a brief examination of those factors which have most directly contributed to Salazar’s success both in terms of run prevention and at invoking sensations of awe within the bosoms of every spectator.

**For more on NERD, see below.
**Click here to see current NERD scores for all pitchers.

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Daily Notes: Professional Stats of Last Year’s Cape Leaders

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

1. Professional Stats of Last Year’s Cape Leaders
2. Danny Salazar Night in the Americas, Maybe
3. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

Professional Stats of Last Year’s Cape Leaders
Introduction
The 2013 iteration of the Cape Cod League — the collegiate, wood-bat summer league responsible for approximately a third of the most recent draft’s first-round picks (and a similar percentage of the first ten rounds’ picks) — concluded this past Thursday. Tomorrow, the author will publish the SCOUT* leaderboards for this year’s Cape League hitters and pitchers. For the purposes of this edition of the Notes, however, what the author has done is to create a custom leaderboard featuring the top-10 hitters and pitchers from last year’s Cape League, according to that same methodology.

*The (poorly) regressed defense-independent index stat devised by the author.

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Daily Notes: Danny Salazar Night in the Americas

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

1. Danny Salazar Night in the Americas
2. Promotion Watch 2013: Xander Bogaerts
3. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

Danny Salazar Night in the Americas
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce — such that residents of the Americas (plural) be made aware — to announce that today is Danny Salazar Night in all their respective countries.

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Daily Notes: Feat. Analysis from the Author’s Unsporting Friend

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

1. Analysis from the Author’s Unsporting Friend
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Analysis from the Author’s Unsporting Friend
The author, as he writes this, is presently sitting across a breakfast table from a former grad-school companion — one (a) who is a very good and talented friend, but (b) whose knowledge of baseball appears entirely confined to the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term in office.

What follows is a small collection of that same friend’s thoughts on the game, in the order which they (i.e. those thoughts) appeared:

On the 1988 World Series
“I hope Kirk Gibson’s leg is alright.”

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Daily Notes: Largely Concerning Jenrry Mejia’s Start Today

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

1. Largely Concerning Jenrry Mejia’s Start Today
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Largely Concerning Jenrry Mejia’s Start Today
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is mostly to announce that Mets right-hander Jenrry Mejia both (a) has been excellent thus far in his return to the majors and (b) is pitching tonight (Saturday) at 8:40pm ET.

Regarding Mejia’s Performance to Date
Through four starts and over 24.1 innings, the 23-year-old Mejia has recorded strikeout and walk rates of 22.5% and 3.1%, respectively — marks which would place him 23rd and first overall, also respectively, among 91 qualified starters. His ground-ball rate of 57.5%, moreover, would be second-best among that same population.

A Haphazard Comparison Involving Jenrry Mejia
Here’s a haphazardly selected statistical comparison between Mejia and another pitcher (in this case, Adam Wainwright) whom the author noticed has a similar profile — in this case, featuring each pitcher’s defense-independent performance over the last month:

Name Team IP K% BB% GB% vFA (pfx) xFIP-
Jenrry Mejia Mets 24.1 22.5% 3.1% 57.5% 92.3 65
Adam Wainwright Cardinals 36.0 22.2% 6.3% 58.2% 91.3 76

Mejia and Wainwright, Another Similarity
Beyond some statistical similarities over the past month, what Mejia and Wainwright also have in common is that each throws a fastball with cutting action about one-third of the time.

Action Footage: Jenrry Mejia’s Slider
Here’s action footage from Mejia’s August 8th start against Colorado of the right-hander striking out Corey Dickerson on an excellent slider:

Mejia Dickerson SL SS K

Slower Action Footage: That Same Slider
And here’s slower action footage of that same pitch:

Mejia Dickerson SL SS K SLOW

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Houston at Los Angeles AL | 21:05 ET
Dallas Keuchel (114.0 IP, 90 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR) faces Garrett Richards (93.2 IP, 88 xFIP-, 1.1 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston 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 5.8.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away   SP Tm. Gm. Tm. SP   Home Time
Trevor Cahill AZ 5 3 4 7 3 PIT Jeff Locke 16:05
Hiroki Kuroda NYA 5 3 6 9 8 BOS John Lackey 16:05
Joe Kelly STL 4 3 4 5 3 CHN Travis Wood 16:05
Chad Bettis* COL 8 7 6 9 3 BAL Bud Norris 19:05
Clayton Kershaw LAN 10 3 5 0 3 PHI Kyle Kendrick 19:05
Wade Davis KC 4 7 6 7 7 DET Doug Fister 19:08
Chris Sale CHA 10 1 7 3 7 MIN Andrew Albers* 19:10
Mat Latos CIN 8 3 5 4 4 MIL Yovani Gallardo 19:10
Matt Cain SF 5 5 5 1 7 MIA Hend. Alvarez 19:10
J.A. Happ TOR 0 5 4 10 6 TB R. Hernandez 19:10
St. Strasburg WAS 10 2 8 8 8 ATL Mike Minor 19:10
Felix Hernandez SEA 10 4 8 3 8 TEX Martin Perez 20:05
Jenrry Mejia NYN 10 7 7 6 3 SD Edinson Volquez 20:40
Ubaldo Jimenez CLE 3 7 5 6 6 OAK Dan Straily 21:05
Dallas Keuchel HOU 7 4 7 7 7 LAA Garrett Richards 21:05

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.