Daily Notes: Detroit Prospect Crosby to Debut

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

1. Actual Transaction News: Yesterday’s Three Promotions
2. Featured Game: New York AL at Detroit, 19:05 ET (Free Game)
3. One Other Notable Game
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

Actual Transaction News: Yesterday’s Three Promotions
Yesterday’s Promotions
Three notable players were promoted to the majors yesterday: Atlanta shortstop Andrelton Simmons, Dodgers outfielder Alex Castellanos, and Cardinals right-hander Maikel Cleto.

For More Information on Two of Those Players
For more information on Simmons, read Ben Duronio’s piece from yesterday. For more on Castellanos, read this piece by Jackie Moore — also from yesterday.

For More Information on Cleto
For more information on Cleto, regard these three bullet points.

• Has a fastball that sits — in relief, at least — at around 98 mph.
• Control was an issue (13.8% BB in 71.1 IP) following promotion to Triple-A last season, but less so in lower minors (ca. 8% BB in 63.1 IP) before that.
• Has pitched very well at Triple-A Memphis this season. Line: 26.0 IP, 11.77 K/9, 3.12 BB/9, 0.69 HR/9, 2.85 FIP.

Cleto’s Role
Cleto will pitch in relief for the Cardinals.

Featured Game: New York Americans at Detroit, 19:05 ET
The Notable Thing That’s Happening
The notable thing that’s happening in this game is that 23-year-old left-handed pitching prospect Casey Crosby is making his major-league debut for Detroit.

Regarding Who Is Casey Crosby
Crosby is a pitcher who was ranked fourth overall among Detroit prospects by our Marc Hulet before for the season. And third by John Sickels. And fourth by Baseball America, in their preseason Prospect Handbook.

Notes on Crosby, Courtesy Marc Hulet
“Crosby has three promising pitches in a 90-95 mph fastball, curveball, and changeup but he needs to improve his command of all three. His control has also suffered from his aggressive timetable and missed development.”

Notes on Crosby, Courtesy John Sickels
“High ceiling, could develop into a number two starter if he can resolve control/command problems. Needs a good dose of Triple-A.”

Notes on Crosby, Courtesy Baseball America
“Crosby throws two- and four-seam fastballs, working at 92-94 mph with the ability to hit 96. His size helps him get good downhill plane, which leads to swings and misses and ground outs. His curveball flashes plus potential with sharp bite and depth, though at times it can get slurvy. He throws his changeup with good arm speed and sink. Crosby still needs to make significant strides with throwing strikes.”

Regarding What I Added to Hulet’s Notes Above
An Oxford comma, is what, between the words curveball and and — because, all things being equal, I endeavor to use punctuation named after important world universities.

Like What Else
Like the noted Bologna ellipsis and equally noted Sorbonne guillemets.

Like What Not Else
Like not the Mercer County dash.

Crosby’s Numbers
Here are Crosby’s numbers at Triple-A this season (through nine starts, it would seem): 50.2 IP, 10.13 K/9, 4.62 BB/9, 0.71 HR/9, 3.52 FIP.

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

Other Notable Games
Atlanta at Washington | 19:05 ET
Stephen Strasburg — scientifically proven by science to be baseball’s most interesting pitcher — starts for Washington. Some of Strasburg’s numbers so far this season: 58.0 IP, 29.9% K, 7.3% BB, 45.4% GB, 2.61 SIERA, 72 xFIP-, 1.7 WAR. Some other of his numbers, too: 96.0 mph average four-seam fastball, 11.2% swinging-strike rate, 23 years old.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington 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.

Note: the following Game Scores include the poorly conceived playoff-odds adjustment discussed in a recent edition of Daily Notes. Also note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Mike Minor	ATL	5	7	8	5	10	WAS	St. Strasburg	19:05
Mark Buehrle	MIA	3	4	5	4	3	PHI	Kyle Kendrick	19:05
Carl Pavano	MIN	4	2	2	4	1	CLE	Derek Lowe	19:05
CC Sabathia	NYA	8	5	9	4	10	DET	Casey Crosby*	19:05
Clay Buchholz	BOS	2	4	5	6	4	TOR	Hend. Alvarez	19:07
Wei-Yin Chen	BAL	3	5	7	5	8	TB	David Price	19:10
Adam Wainwright	STL	7	10	7	1	7	NYN	Johan Santana	19:10
Mike Leake	CIN	6	3	5	5	6	HOU	J.A. Happ	20:05
Bartolo Colon	OAK	4	2	4	6	7	KC	Felipe Paulino	20:10
Kevin Correia	PIT	0	1	0	6	0	MIL	Randy Wolf	20:10
Felix Hernandez	SEA	7	6	6	6	6	CHA	Jake Peavy	20:10
Chris Capuano	LAN	6	5	6	8	7	COL	Josh Outman*	20:40
Wade Miley	AZ	3	4	4	5	4	SD	Clayton Richard	22:05
Colby Lewis	TEX	5	10	5	3	4	LAA	Jerome Williams	22:05
Paul Maholm	CHN	2	4	4	5	7	SF	Mad. Bumgarner	22:15

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.