Daily Notes: Actual Ways in Which Tom Koehler Was the Best by Carson Cistulli 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: 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.