Daily Notes, Beginning with a Line by Chipper Jones
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. Featured Game: Washington at Atlanta, 16:05 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Featured Game: Washington at Atlanta, 16:05 ET
Regarding Who Pitches for Washington
Right-hander Stephen Strasburg (53.0 IP, 70 xFIP-, 1.8 WAR) pitches for them.
A Notable Comment Regarding Strasburg
Here’s a recent comment — notable because of who made it — regarding Strasburg:
Chipper Jones on #Strasburg: “He has the best stuff, the best repertoire of pitches that I’ve seen on any one single pitcher.” #Nats #MLB
— William Ladson (@washingnats) May 25, 2012
What We Can Say About the Aforementioned Repertoire
According to PITCHf/x, here’s Strasburg’s repertoire this season, accompanied by the average velocity and usage of each pitch:
• Four-Seam Fastball: 96.0 mph, 47.0%
• Two-Seam Fastball: 94.8 mph, 16.4%
• Curveball: 80.3 mph, 21.4%
• Changeup: 88.5 mph, 15.1%
What Else We Can Say About the Aforemented Repertoire
While it’s difficult to for us (read: the present author) to say objectively that Strasburg’s repertoire is the best in the league (or that Chipper Jones has ever seen), one thing we do know is that, according to pitch-type linear weights, none of his (i.e. Strasburg’s) pitches have ever profiled as below-average during his three years in the majors.
Additionally, A Third Thing We Can Say
A third thing we can say is, let’s trust Chipper Jones, how about.
A Note on the Camera Angle Here
Atlanta’s center-field camera angle is probably the best in the league. This is the first time Strasburg will have pitched in front of it this season — and only the second time he’s done so in his career (June 28th, 2010).
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs like Atlanta and Washington Radio about the same (link).
Other Notable Games
Toronto at Texas | 15:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
After posting very promising defense-independent numbers (15.4% K, 3.1% BB, 53.5% GB) through 10 starts and 63.2 innings last season, Henderson Alvarez, who starts for Toronto, has done less of that (7.3% K, 6.1% BB, 57.7% GB) through nine starts and 60.0 innings this one.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas Radio.
Milwaukee at Arizona | 22:10 ET
Right-hander Zack Greinke starts for the Brewers. Here’s some of his numbers, accompanied by their respective ranks among the league’s 121 qualified starters: 26.1% K (7th), 5.3% BB (21st), 50.0% GB (33rd), 2.59 SIERA (3rd), 2.3 WAR (2nd).
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Milwaukee 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 5.3.
Regard, a magnificent and sortable table:
| Away | SP | Tm. | Gm. | Tm. | SP | Home | Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clayton Richard | SD | 5 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 7 | NYN | Johan Santana | 13:10 |
| Max Scherzer | DET | 10 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 4 | MIN | Carl Pavano | 14:10 |
| Hend. Alvarez | TOR | 4 | 6 | 5 | 10 | 5 | TEX | Colby Lewis | 15:05 |
| Felipe Paulino | KC | 10 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 3 | BAL | Wei-Yin Chen | 16:05 |
| CC Sabathia | NYA | 8 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | OAK | Bartolo Colon | 16:05 |
| St. Strasburg | WAS | 10 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 5 | ATL | Mike Minor | 16:05 |
| Derek Lowe | CLE | 1 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 6 | CHA | Jake Peavy | 16:10 |
| Mad. Bumgarner | SF | 6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | MIA | Mark Buehrle | 16:10 |
| Jerome Williams | LAA | 4 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 7 | SEA | Felix Hernandez | 19:15 |
| Paul Maholm | CHN | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | PIT | Kevin Correia | 19:15 |
| Jeremy Guthrie | COL | 7 | 4 | 3 | 6 | CIN | Mike Leake | 19:15 | |
| Kyle Kendrick | PHI | 2 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 8 | STL | Jaime Garcia | 19:15 |
| David Price | TB | 9 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 5 | BOS | Josh Beckett | 19:15 |
| Bud Norris | HOU | 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4 | LAN | Chad Billingsley | 22:10 |
| Zack Greinke | MIL | 9 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 5 | AZ | Wade Miley | 22:10 |
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.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
More detail on Chipper’s quote:
“Jones called Strasburg a hybrid of Kerry Wood in his prime and Verlander, with a similar fastball and breaking ball. But the difference to Jones is how good Strasburg’s change-up is.
“Verlander’s got a good change-up, but his is a circle change that just kind of fades away,” Jones said. “(Strasburg’s) is a 90-plus mph split that falls off the table. When you’re going up there getting geared up for 95, 96 mph and he throws you 90 and the bottom drops out of it, it’s a pretty lethal combination.”
Link: http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-braves-blog/2012/05/25/chipper-says-strasburg-has-best-repertoire-hes-seen/?cxntfid=blogs_atlanta_braves_blog
I like how the size of the column shortens his name to “St. Strasburg.”
Dead horse beaten.
GUTHRIE pnerd : ?
Poor Guthrie. Nobody cares.
I think that PIT vs CHC game is the lowest game nerd score I’ve seen
I will not read all of these though
If NERD is supposed to measure how much enjoyment you get from watching a pitche,r ply his craft then how can Mark Buehrle possibly get a three? I attended a 3+ hour game between the White Sox and Indians last night featuring two young pitchers who frequently got swinging strikes and threw way to many balls that even Vlad would have taken. As the third inning started somewhere around 8PM local time I truly missed no 56. As Cleveland pitching somehow managed to walk Pierzynski and Viciedo back to back (back to back!) I felt consciousness fading.
Pitching to contact may be a four letter word around here, but I miss Mark Buehrle and his NERD of three.
People hae campaigned for pace to be added to the NERD scores. However, that would probably take a lot of work.
No kidding, the LA-Houston game today last nearly 4 hours and contained more than 10 walks. I’ve never been so bored watching a close game.
Yeah I really like the Braves CF angle but DAMMIT mlb.com only puts up a highlight video of the pitcher’s performance if he does well, and Strasburg’s 5 IP 4 ER wasn’t deemed good enough to put up.
Since a vertical view of the pitcher and batter doesn’t really take advantage of the widescreen view, I wonder if it would make sense to have two CF camera angles, one for lefties and one for righties. I like the typical angled view when a righty is pitching — it’s easy for me to tell the difference between a pitch that cuts and one that runs — but with LHPs I can’t distinguish the direction of movement. But, if they reversed the angle, I could get a good view of all pitchers.
I’d just like to know what Chipper thinks about married pitchers.
That doesn’t even make sense.