Daily Notes: Facts Regarding Danny Salazar After 23 Innings

August 21, 2013

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

1. Facts Regarding Danny Salazar After 23 Innings
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Facts Regarding Danny Salazar After 23 Innings
Introduction
With his start on Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Americans, Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar has now recorded 23.0 innings in the major leagues this season (and also ever, one finds) — i.e. three innings above the haphazardly selected 20-inning threshold a pitcher must pass in order to qualify for NERD*.

Salazar debuts today on the NERD leaderboard** with perfect score of 10 — and, moreover, has recorded the highest raw score (i.e. not adjusted for the 0-10 scale) among the 217 qualified pitchers. What follows is a brief examination of those factors which have most directly contributed to Salazar’s success both in terms of run prevention and at invoking sensations of awe within the bosoms of every spectator.

**For more on NERD, see below.
**Click here to see current NERD scores for all pitchers.

Defense-Independent Pitching
The young and hard-throwing Salazar has recorded a 66 xFIP- thus far, the second-best figure among the population in question. His 2.63 xFIP is 2.2 standard deviations better than the mean.

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Swinging-Strike Rate
The recently promoted and hitherto successful Salazar has recorded a 14.8% swinging-strike rate thus far, the best such mark among the relevant population and presently 3.5 standard deviations greater than average.

Overall Strike Rate
The probably valiant and also inspirational Salazar has thrown 68.3% of all his pitches for strikes, the fifth-highest rate among starters with 20-plus innings and precisely 2.0 standard deviations among the mean of 63.4%.

Velocity
The conspicuously talented and damned sensational Salazar has thrown his fastball at an average velocity of either 96.4 mph (according to BIS data) or 95.9 mph (according to PITCHf/x) — either first or second among all starters, depending, and more than 2.0 standard deviations above the mean, either way.

Split-Changeup
The powerful and arresting Salazar’s split-changeup ranks probably first or somehow better than first among all pitches, if this animated GIF — of Peter Bourjos stiking out last night — is any indication:

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Cleveland at Los Angeles AL | 19:05 ET
Justin Masterson (175.2 IP, 82 xFIP-, 3.1 WAR) faces Jerome Williams (125.0 IP, 109 xFIP-, -0.3 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland 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 4.9.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Alex Wood	ATL	10	8	7	7	4	NYN	Jon Niese	13:10
Jake Westbrook	STL	0	3	3	4	6	MIL	Tom Gorzelanny	14:10
Hisashi Iwakuma	SEA	7	4	5	6	4	OAK	A.J. Griffin	15:35
Felix Doubront	BOS	4	9	4	5	1	SF	Barry Zito	15:45
Gerrit Cole	PIT	10	7	7	6	3	SD	Ian Kennedy	18:40
Justin Masterson	CLE	8	7	6	8	4	LAA	Jerome Williams	19:05
Juan Nicasio	COL	3	7	5	0	9	PHI	Cliff Lee	19:05
J. Hellickson	TB	4	9	5	9	3	BAL	Wei-Yin Chen	19:05
R.A. Dickey	TOR	9	6	6	3	5	NYA	Adam Warren*	19:05
Kevin Correia	MIN	2	3	5	7	9	DET	Anibal Sanchez	19:08
Bran. McCarthy	AZ	5	3	4	3	4	CIN	Mike Leake	19:10
Zack Greinke	LAN	5	3	5	1	6	MIA	Nathan Eovaldi	19:10
Erik Bedard	HOU	1	4	4	3	8	TEX	Derek Holland	20:05
Ross Ohlendorf	WAS	5	2	4	5	2	CHN	Jake Arrieta	20:05
Andre Rienzo	CHA	2	2	3	7	2	KC	Jeremy Guthrie	20:10

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.