Daily Notes: Actual Ways in Which Tom Koehler Was the Best

May 25, 2013

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

1. Actual Ways in Which Tom Koehler Was the Best
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Actual Ways in Which Tom Koehler Was the Best
Introduction
Miami right-hander Tom Koehler made his second consecutive impressive start on Friday, recording a 2.79 xFIP over six innings of work versus the Chicago White Sox (box). Koehler was not Friday’s best starter in terms of overall run prevention; however, he was Friday’s best in no fewer than three other ways.

No. 1: Average Velocity Among Starters
As the following table indicates (taken from here), Tom Koehler recorded the highest average four-seam fastball velocity among all of Friday’s starters:

Rank	Name	Team	IP	vFA
1	Tom Koehler	Marlins	6.0	93.6
2	Jordan Zimmermann	Nationals	7.0	93.0
3	Tyler Chatwood	Rockies	6.0	92.8
4	Chris Tillman	Orioles	5.0	92.7
5	Justin Masterson	Indians	6.0	92.7

Here’s an example of Koehler’s fastball, thrown at 94 mph to Hector Gimenez in the fifth inning:

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No. 2: Curveball Run Value Among Starters
As this table indicates (taken from here), Tom Koehler also recorded the highest single run value via the curveball among all of Friday’s starters*:

Rank	Name	Team	IP	wCU
1	Tom Koehler	Marlins	6.0	1.6
2	John Lackey	Red Sox	7.0	0.6
3	Lance Lynn	Cardinals	6.0	0.4
4	John Danks	White Sox	6.0	0.3
5	Tommy Milone	Athletics	7.0	0.2

Here’s Koehler’s curveball, in this case to Dayan Viciedo for a fifth inning strikeout:

*That is, among all pitches classified as a curveball by MLB Gameday’s PITCHf/x algorithm. It’s possible that what Koehler was throwing in some instance might also be called a slider. In any case, the point is academic for our purposes: Koehler would have still tied Anibal Sanchez for highest slider value (link).

No. 3: This Fictional, Unnamed Metric
This final table indicates that Koehler was the best among all of Friday’s starters by this totally fictional and unnamed metric, as well, recording 14 of them, whatever they are:

Rank	Name	Team	IP	???
1	Tom Koehler	Marlins	6.0	14
2	Anibal Sanchez	Tigers	9.0	12
3	Lance Lynn	Cardinals	6.0	10
4	Tyler Chatwood	Rockies	6.0	7
5	John Lackey	Red Sox	7.0	4

Credit to Brooks Baseball for PITCHf/x data.

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Colorado at San Francisco | 16:05 ET
Juan Nicasio (46.1 IP, 117 xFIP-, 0.3 WAR) faces Barry Zito (50.2 IP, 116 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR). Nicasio’s fastball remains about 1 mph lower than last season on average — nor does it appear to be trending upward at the moment.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio or Television.

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 5.0.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Freddy Garcia	BAL	1	8	5	5	9	TOR	R.A. Dickey	13:07
Scott Kazmir	CLE	7	9	7	8	6	BOS	Jon Lester	13:35
Billy Buckner*	LAA	5	5	4	6	2	KC	Jeremy Guthrie	14:10
Juan Nicasio	COL	3	7	3	5	2	SF	Barry Zito	16:05
P.J. Walters*	MIN	4	3	5	8	6	DET	Doug Fister	16:08
Travis Wood	CHN	3	5	6	5	9	CIN	Homer Bailey	16:10
Vidal Nuno*	NYA	6	6	5	7	4	TB	Matt Moore	16:10
Jeff Locke	PIT	2	7	4	5	5	MIL	Mike Fiers*	16:10
Ricky Nolasco	MIA	4	0	5	0	8	CHA	Jake Peavy	19:15
A.J. Griffin	OAK	5	6	4	4	1	HOU	Lucas Harrell	19:15
Jonath. Pettibone	PHI	3	1	3	2	4	WAS	Dan Haren	19:15
John Gast*	STL	6	2	5	2	5	LAN	Ted Lilly*	19:15
Mike Minor	ATL	7	8	6	7	3	NYN	Dillon Gee	19:15
Andrew Cashner	SD	5	6	5	4	5	AZ	Wade Miley	22:10
Derek Holland	TEX	9	4	8	6	10	SEA	Felix Hernandez	22:15

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.