Daily Notes: Adjusting NERD for the Playoffs, Already?

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

1. Reluctantly Featured Game: Houston at Colorado, 20:10 ET
2. MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
4. Today’s Complete Schedule, Adjusted for Playoff Odds

Reluctantly Featured Game: Houston at Colorado, 20:10 ET
What the Reader Is Likely Saying
The reader is likely saying — with regard to the selection of this game, featuring a pair of teams that are a total of ca. 20 games out of their respective division races — the reader is likely saying, “I protest!”

What a Different Sort of Reader Might Be Saying
A different sort of reader — one who’s not a member of England’s landed gentry, for instance — might be saying something more like, “I hate this author” or “This author’s an idiot” or “I hate this author’s face part of his face.”

Regarding All Those Comments
All those comments by all those fictional readers I just invented are probably reasonable.

What’s Going On
What’s going on is, is NERD (the blanket term for our very proprietary watchability scores) doesn’t know that the Rockies are already 14.5 games behind the Dodgers, and have less than a 5% chance of making the playoffs.

What to Do About That
One thing to do about that, obviously, is factor a playoff-odds adjustment into the NERD Game Scores.

What the Author Just Did About That
I factored a playoff-odds adjustment into the aforementioned NERD Game Scores. You can see that below, in the section marked “Today’s Complete Schedule, Adjusted for Playoff Odds.”

One Thing to Note
One thing to note is that Colorado’s starter, right-hander Alex White, is both rather young (23) and has demonstrated the skills that lead to run prevention. To wit: 23.2 IP, 15.7% K, 5.9% BB, 51.9% GB, 3.63 SIERA, 93 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs readers prefer Houston Television (link).

MLB.TV Free Game
Oakland at Minnesota | 14:10 ET
Scott Diamond, who continues to resemble an ace somehow (25.1 IP, 67 xFIP- 0.6 WAR), pitches for Minnesota.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Oakland Radio.

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 5.1.

Regard, a magnificent and sortable table:

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Cole Hamels	PHI	9	4	6	1	6	NYN	Jonathon Niese	13:10
Lance Lynn	STL	7	10	6	7	4	ATL	Tommy Hanson	13:10
Jor. Zimmermann	WAS	8	4	5	4	3	MIA	Carlos Zambrano	13:10
Bronson Arroyo	CIN	5	4	5	1	7	PIT	James McDonald	13:35
Doug Fister	DET	7	3	6	5	7	BOS	Felix Doubront	13:35
Travis Blackley*	OAK	6	3	6	2	8	MIN	Scott Diamond	14:10
Jeff Suppan	SD	0	3	2	3	4	CHN	Travis Wood*	14:20
Chris Sale	CHA	8	5	6	6	5	TB	Matt Moore	15:10
Wandy Rodriguez	HOU	5	6	6	7	6	COL	Juan Nicasio	15:10
Nathan Adcock*	KC	3	6	5	4	7	CLE	Josh Tomlin	16:05
Trevor Cahill	AZ	5	5	3	6	0	SF	Barry Zito	17:05
Tommy Hunter	BAL	4	6	5	6	5	TOR	Drew Hutchison	19:07
Kevin Millwood	SEA	2	5	5	10	5	TEX	Matt Harrison	20:05
Jordan Lyles*	HOU	6	6	7	7	8	COL	Alex White	20:10
Shaun Marcum	MIL	5	7	5	5	4	LAN	Aaron Harang	20:10
Phil Hughes	NYA	5	5	4	3	4	LAA	Jered Weaver	21:05

To learn more about Pitcher and Team NERD scores click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.

Today’s Complete Schedule, Adjusted for Playoff Odds
Here are today’s games, adjusted for the playoff odds (per Cool Standings) of each team. Essentially, a team gets credit for being closer to 26.7% (the generic playoff chances for all teams when the season begins).* The methodology of the adjustment likely isn’t ideal, but it appears to produce decent results.

*Or, at least, as was the case in 2011. A switch to 33% probably wouldn’t alter the following numbers very greatly.

Note: the right-most column (marked “POFF”) reflects each game’s playoff-odds adjustment.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	POFF
Cole Hamels	PHI	9	4	8	1	6	NYN	Jonathon Niese	1.7
Lance Lynn	STL	7	10	6	7	4	ATL	Tommy Hanson	0.1
Jor. Zimmermann	WAS	8	4	6	4	3	MIA	Carlos Zambrano	0.8
Bronson Arroyo	CIN	5	4	5	1	7	PIT	James McDonald	0.0
Doug Fister	DET	7	3	8	5	7	BOS	Felix Doubront	1.9
Travis Blackley*	OAK	6	3	4	2	8	MIN	Scott Diamond	-1.7
Jeff Suppan	SD	0	3	0	3	4	CHN	Travis Wood*	-2.1
Chris Sale	CHA	8	5	6	6	5	TB	Matt Moore	-0.2
Wandy Rodriguez	HOU	5	6	6	7	6	COL	Juan Nicasio	-0.1
Nathan Adcock*	KC	3	6	6	4	7	CLE	Josh Tomlin	0.8
Trevor Cahill	AZ	5	5	4	6	0	SF	Barry Zito	1.1
Tommy Hunter	BAL	4	6	6	6	5	TOR	Drew Hutchison	1.4
Kevin Millwood	SEA	2	5	3	10	5	TEX	Matt Harrison	-1.4
Jordan Lyles*	HOU	6	6	7	7	8	COL	Alex White	-0.1
Shaun Marcum	MIL	5	7	3	5	4	LAN	Aaron Harang	-1.4
Phil Hughes	NYA	5	5	6	3	4	LAA	Jered Weaver	1.5