Daily Notes: Corey Kluber Shall Be Appreciated, Post-Haste

May 31, 2013

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

1. Featured, Free Game: Tampa Bay at Cleveland, 19:05pm ET
2. A Different Notable Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured, Free Game: Tampa Bay at Cleveland, 19:05pm ET
Regarding the Author’s Attention, What Has Come to It
It has recently come to the author’s attention that Cleveland right-hander and figurative saint among saints Corey Kluber is not universally appreciated by the teeming, gross, unlettered public.

Regarding the Public’s Shocking Oversight, The Author’s Response to It
Regarding the public’s failure to embrace the frequently transcendent and morally reputable Corey Kluber, the author is consumed by outrage, probably — or, if not outrage, then a feeling bearing some resemblance to outrage.

Regarding the Author, By What Else He’s Consumed
Regarding the author, there’s a non-zero chance that, besides outrage, that he’s also consumed by a particularly delicious goat cheese of which he partook earlier on Thursday evening (on which evening he wrote this post).

Regarding This Post, What’s Here and There Insofar as It’s Concerned
So far as this post is concerned about Corey Kluber, the author’s relationship to cheese, goat or otherwise, is likely neither here nor there.

Regarding Kluber, What’s Here and There Insofar as He’s Concerned
Insofar as Corey Kluber is concerned, what is both here and there regarding him are his park-adjusted xFIP as a starter (by which metric he ranks ninth among the 158 pitchers to have recorded 20-plus innings in that capacity) and his strikeout/walk rate differential (by which metric he ranks 10th among that same population), and also — if only for aesthetic purposes — the average horizontal movement on his curveball (which ranks, in fact, second among right-handed starters).

Action Footage: Corey Kluber’s Curveball
Here’s footage of Kluber’s curveball to Daniel Nava from last Sunday — which curve featured 11.9 inches of gloveside break:

Action Footage: More of Corey Kluber’s Curveball
Here’s footage of Kluber’s curveball to Dustin Pedroia from last Sunday — which curve featured even more (14.2 inches) gloveside break:

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our crowdsourcing project from the 2011-2012 offseason, FanGraphs readers prefer Cleveland Radio, probably (link).

A Different Notable Game
Baltimore at Detroit | 19:05 ET
Max Scherzer (68.1 IP, 66 xFIP-, 2.4 WAR) faces Miguel Gonzalez (48.0 IP, 110 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR). The former is currently second among all qualified pitchers and first among all qualified Tigers in strikeout rate, the latter distinction perhaps being the more impressive one given Detroit’s starting rotation.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit 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.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Wade Miley	AZ	4	4	5	5	7	CHN	Matt Garza*	14:20
Jon Lester	BOS	6	7	6	5	6	NYA	CC Sabathia	19:05
Johnny Cueto	CIN	8	6	7	7	5	PIT	Wandy Rodriguez	19:05
Max Scherzer	DET	10	7	7	10	3	BAL	Miguel Gonzalez	19;05
Yovani Gallardo	MIL	4	5	5	2	7	PHI	Cole Hamels	19:05
Matt Moore	TB	4	7	7	9	10	CLE	Corey Kluber	19:05
Shaun Marcum	NYN	5	6	5	0	6	MIA	Jacob Turner*	19:10
Stephen Strasburg	WAS	10	2	7	8	5	ATL	Julio Teheran	19:30
Wade Davis	KC	3	6	6	4	9	TEX	Derek Holland	20:05
Hisashi Iwakuma	SEA	8	5	4	2	0	MIN	Mike Pelfrey	20:10
Matt Cain	SF	4	5	6	2	9	STL	Shelby Miller	20:15
Clayton Kershaw	LAN	9	2	5	8	1	COL	Jon Garland	20:40
Dylan Axelrod	CHA	1	0	3	6	6	OAK	Bartolo Colon	22:05
Dallas Keuchel	HOU	4	3	3	5	0	LAA	Tommy Hanson	22:05
Chad Jenkins*	TOR	4	6	3	7	0	SD	Jason Marquis	22:10

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.

15 Comments

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Sarge6

10 years ago

I’m trotting Kluber out today against TB to hit my minimum IP before the weekend. I’d better not regret it.

-1

Carson Cistulli

Reply to Sarge6

Regarding your fantasy team, the author’s care for it.

Regarding your fantasy team. I do not care how well it does, or does not, do. I, the author, care only for the propagation of attention to the aesthetically pleasing repertoire that Corey Kluber provides his viewership.

Joe D.

Reply to Carson Cistulli

Regarding Carson’s Response, What I Will Add

Regarding Carson’s Response, I will add that, in terms of who does not care about Sarge6’s fantasy team, Carson Cistulli is but one of many individuals to whom that descriptor applies.

Regarding The Other Individuals Who Don’t Care, Who They Are

Regarding those other individuals who don’t care about Sarge6’s fantasy team, they are all around us. Indeed, they are our mothers and fathers, they are our sisters and brothers. It would not be an exaggeration to say they who do not care are too many to name individually, that it might be more efficient to list those who do care.

Regarding Those Who Do Care, Who They Are

They are Sarge6 and Sarge6 alone.

Regarding Doing This Right, Whether I Am

The author thinks most certainly *not*, but notes presently it is fun as hell to try.

Carson Cistullimember

This is a fake!

As if the author would condescend to use the first-person pronoun.

Pshaw!

Bluebird in Boulder

Regarding the impersonation of Carson Cistulli, the authors admission of guilt.

Regarding the impersonation of Mr. Cistulli, the author would like to express his regret for any confusion caused. He (i.e. the author) was attempting, in vain, to create a witty internet comment. To all, but especially Mr. Cistulli, the author offers his apologies.

Regarding the author’s response, this commenter’s reply.

Regarding the author’s response, it is apparent to this commenter that the author labors under the conceit that the author’s intent for the text is the sine qua non for this commenter’s engagement with the text. By which this commenter is to say, the author would have it that the author’s intent for the text is, mirabile dictu, the author’s ownership of the text against all others. But it is to be further observed by this commenter that more perniciously, the author presumes that the author’s intent for the text may be imposed, in hegemonic conceit, over the text’s concomitant sequelae, to wit, this commenter’s own text, with further text. Regarding those other commenters who seek to reinforce, with their own text, the author’s hegemony over the text vis a vis this commenter’s text, this commenter need only observe that imperialism necessarily depends for its sustenance on willing collaborators. This commenter concludes that this dialectic of text, counter-text, and counter-counter-text, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, is a tired and empty exercise (this commenter must parenthetically note, of course, that the exercise is not, by that, “meaningless,” as “meaningless” must, perforce, concede “meaning.”).

So I’m gonna head on over to Notgraphs to see if they’ve got any photoshops of Bill Buckner wearing a T-shirt that offers free moustache rides to the ladies. That kinda shit’s funny.