Daily Notes: Feat. Every Entirely Above-Average Repertoire

by
August 29, 2013

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

1. Every Entirely Above-Average Repertoire
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Every Entirely Above-Average Repertoire
Introduction
In yesterday’s edition of the Notes, the author published a leaderboard of the top-10 pitches this year so far in terms of runs prevented relative league average, with Clayton Kershaw‘s fastball finishing first by that measure and Kenley Jansen’s cutter making the list despite the reliever’s relative paucity of innings.

In the present edition of the notes, the author has endeavored to consider a different but related idea — in this case, not with a view towards finding the league’s best pitches, but rather of identifying those qualified starters who have the most complete repertoire, where “complete repertoire” is defined as one which includes pitches only of positive (i.e. good) run values.

One finds, by Kerhsaw’s omission alone, that the list here isn’t necessarily a proxy for a list of best starting pitchers. Still, there’s likely some value in identifying those pitchers who’ve had success with three or four pitches reliably.

Leaderboard: Every Entirely Above-Average Repertoire
Here are the seven qualified starters, the entirety of whose respective repertoires have produced positive pitch-type run values. FA is four-seam fastball. FT is two-seam fastball. FC is cut fastball. FS is split-finger fastball. SI is sinker. SL is slider. CU is curveball. CH is changeup.

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Name Team IP FA FT FC FS SI SL CU CH Total
Matt Harvey Mets 178.1 31.1 0.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.9 5.8 3.7 44.2
Jose Fernandez Marlins 152.2 13.1 1.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 18.3 2.3 35.4
Madison Bumgarner Giants 171.0 15.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10.1 0.8 4.9 31.2
Felix Hernandez Mariners 184.2 4.1 0.0 3.3 0.0 11.1 2.1 1.2 3.0 24.8
Hiroki Kuroda Yankees 166.1 0.9 0.0 0.0 3.7 5.3 4.3 0.4 0.0 14.6
Tim Hudson Braves 131.1 4.0 0.0 4.9 0.1 4.8 0.0 0.1 0.0 13.9
Jordan Zimmermann Nationals 170.2 3.2 1.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.5 1.3 2.2 10.0

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Milwaukee at Pittsburgh | 19:05 ET
Yovani Gallardo (140.2 IP, 103 xFIP-, 1.1 WAR) faces Gerrit Cole (78.0 IP, 91 xFIP-, 1.1 WAR). The latter has the seventh-best xFIP- among rookie pitchers with 20-plus innings as a starter — and appears to throw harder than every rookie who isn’t Danny Salazar.

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 5.4.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away   SP Tm. Gm. Tm. SP   Home Time
Bartolo Colon OAK 4 7 7 7 10 DET Max Scherzer 13:08
Jason Vargas LAA 3 7 6 10 7 TB Jake Odorizzi* 13:10
Bruce Chen KC 2 8 3 3 3 MIN Samuel Deduno 13:10
Ethan Martin PHI 3 0 4 6 6 NYN Carlos Torres* 13:10
Tom Koehler MIA 4 1 5 3 7 WAS Gio Gonzalez 19:05
Yovani Gallardo MIL 3 3 6 6 10 PIT Gerrit Cole 19:05
Chris Tillman BAL 5 9 6 9 4 BOS Jon Lester 19:10
Ubaldo Jimenez CLE 4 7 6 8 6 ATL Kris Medlen 19:10
Erasmo Ramirez SEA 7 4 6 4 5 HOU Jordan Lyles 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.





 

Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

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bdhudsonMember since 2016
12 years ago

Everything I read reminds me that I miss Matt Harvey.

4