Daily Notes: Feat. Every Entirely Above-Average Repertoire
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.
| 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.
Everything I read reminds me that I miss Matt Harvey.