Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Los Angeles NL at Colorado | 20:40 ET
Hill (82.0 IP, 85 xFIP-) vs. Anderson (83.0 IP, 82 xFIP-)
There are a number of strong candidates for facilitating Baseball Pleasure on today’s schedule: this game in Colorado, for example, featuring a Dodgers club for which wins are particularly valuable right now; another game in San Francisco, featuring a Giants club for which wins are particularly valuable right now; and a third game in Baltimore, featuring a Blue Jays and Orioles club, both of which would find some value in a win. What this particular contest offers that the others don’t is a pair of left-handers (a) who have been quite effective and (b) about whom there’s still quite a bit to learn. Among his many virtues, Rich Hill throws a curveball that resembles no one else’s. As for Tyler Anderson, he invites comparisons to Clayton Kershaw — against Corinne Landrey’s will.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Radio.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Toronto at Baltimore | 19:05 ET
Estrada (137.1 IP, 107 xFIP-) vs. Miley (134.0 IP, 101 xFIP-)
Toronto and Baltimore currently feature the second- and fifth-greatest point adjustments to their respective NERD scores by way of the methodology explained tortuously further down in this post. What that means, practically speaking: their games are of greater consequence than other teams’ — this game, in particular, because each clubs’ divisional odds are directly influenced by the performance of the other club. There’s considerable urgency here, is the point, like an episode of a BBC detective series in which there’s considerable urgency.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Baltimore Television.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Minnesota at Toronto | 13:07 ET
Gibson (106.0 IP, 104 xFIP-) vs. Dickey (154.1 IP, 113 xFIP-)
By the coin-flip methdology used at this site — which seems to best represent how human minds conceive of postseason odds — both Toronto and Boston feature roughly an equal chance either of winning the division or securing a wild-card spot or of not qualifying for the postseason at all. With just a month or so left in the season, in other words, basically every outcome is equally possible. The consequences of each game are considerable. This is an example of one such game.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Minnesota at Toronto | 13:07 ET
Santana (140.2 IP, 99 xFIP-) vs. Stroman (161.0 IP, 78 xFIP-)
Toronto starter Marcus Stroman has produced the top strikeout- and walk-rate differential among the league’s 90 qualified August starters. What else he’s done is produce the fifth-best ground-ball rate among that same population. The result: a park-adjusted xFIP nearly 20% better than the second-best pitcher by that measure this month. The other result: a total of only six earned runs conceded by Stroman over his four August starts. The final result: the flourishing of Hope inside Canadian people.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Chicago NL at Los Angeles NL | 22:10 ET
Montgomery (74.2 IP, 83 xFIP-) vs. Norris (103.2 IP, 99 xFIP-)
Both Mike Montgomery and Bud Norris have pitched, for an extended period this season, in a relief role. Both have been traded to contenders, as well. Both have, — curiously, perhaps — been promptly inserted into the starting rotations of their new, theoretically better teams after arriving at those team. Both have, even more curiously, produced better strikeout- and walk-rate differentials — a metric which tends to be predictive of future success — in a starting and not relieving capacity. Why these similarities are important, the author can’t say. These human brains we all have gravitate to them, for some reasons. These feeble, human brains.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Television.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Baltimore at Washington | 19:05 ET
Jimenez (94.2 IP, 116 xFIP-) vs. Scherzer (174.0 IP, 82 xFIP-)
You probably didn’t expect to find that a late-August game started by Ubaldo Jimenez — who, for whatever his virtues, now possesses both below-average command and velocity — would be identified as the day’s most promising by an algorithm designed to identify such things. That said, you also didn’t expect your uncle Danny to remain on nodding terms with sobriety all the way till the end of your wedding reception, and yet that’s precisely what happened. These aren’t miracles, per se, but brief respites from a labyrinth of difficulties.

In this case, the main attraction is less Jimenez and more a combination of Max Scherzer (who’s built of electricity) and Jimenez’s club, the Orioles (whose postseason fate is among the least clear in the majors).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington Radio.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
San Francisco at Los Angeles NL | 22:10 ET
Cueto (173.2 IP, 85 xFIP-) vs. Hill (76.0 IP, 84 xFIP-)
With the exception of a five-pitch appearance on July 17, from which he was forced to depart because of a troublesome blister, left-hander Rich Hill hasn’t produced an actual start-start since July 7th, when he recorded 10 strikeouts in six innings against the Astros in Houston. Tonight marks not only his return to the mound after that extended furlough, but also his debut as a Dodger, by which team he was acquired at the trade deadline.

Hill’s most notable quality, of course, is the capacity to throw a curveball that replicates precisely — according even to scientists, probably — the dimensions of a Fibonacci spiral. Regard:

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Television.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
San Francisco at Los Angeles NL | 20:10 ET
Bumgarner (175.2 IP, 86 xFIP-) vs. Maeda (136.2 IP, 91 xFIP-)
There are those who will tell you — on the subject of this sport about which we all care — there are those who’ll say that “the name of the game is getting wins.” Couriers of misinformation, is what this lot are. Look in any reference text of your choice, and you’ll see: the name of the game is baseball. So neither believe them, nor accept the ride they’ve offered, because it could very likely end in the abduction of your person.

This isn’t to say, of course, that wins aren’t important. They represent a sort of currency. Collect a sufficient number of them and you — you, in this case, being a major-league baseball team and not merely one who’s attempting to escape the woeful burdens of the workday for a moment — and you can exchange them for admission into the postseason.

What’s notable about the Giants and Dodgers at the moment is that they possess an almost identical number of wins, the former with 68, the latter with one more than 68. And if the Giants win tonight, both clubs will possess one more than 68 wins — and both sit atop the NL West. The consequences of the game are considerable, in other words. We watch, our breath teeming with bate.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles Television.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Washington at Baltimore | 19:05 ET
Strasburg (145.1 IP, 79 xFIP-) vs. Bundy (75.0 IP, 104 xFIP-)
The Baltimore Catechism, a Catholic text used for relating the tenets of that religion to (predominantly) children, was introduced (according to no fewer than one internet sources) in 1885 at a gathering of American bishops known as the Third Council of Baltimore. Tonight, one finds a different council of Baltimore, involving not a collection of ecclesiastics, but rather two of the league’s most compelling starters and also one club (the Orioles) facing real consequences with every win and loss. A catechism is unlikely to be authored during the course of tonight’s proceedings, except in the broadest sense — and then maybe in even a slightly broader sense than that.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington Radio.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Stroman at Cleveland | 13:10 ET
Stroman (153.2 IP, 80 xFIP-) vs. Kluber (163.0 IP, 79 xFIP-)
In the great tradition of utilizing arbitrary endpoints to the end of supporting an offhand observation, here’s an observation on the topic of Marcus Stroman supported by data produced between arbitrary endpoints.

The observation: Toronto starter Marcus Stroman is a better pitcher now than before the All-Star break.

The supporting data, in the form of a table:

Stroman has produced a distinctly higher strikeout rate, lower walk rate, and even slightly improved ground-ball rate since early July. This is indisputable. What’s more disputable: the import of the All-Star break in this development. In point of fact, what has the author done besides merely examine Stroman’s splits and relate the contents of two different rows? Nothing. Nothing, is what the author has done.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

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