Daily Notes, Feat. September’s True-Talent Leaders

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

1. True-Talent Leaderboards: September
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

True-Talent Leaderboards: September
Regarding What Is a True-Talent Leaderboard
A true-talent leaderboard, in this case, is the sort of board that features league leaders over the past month in regressed and defense-independent batting and pitching.

Regarding True-Talent Leaderboard, Its Use
A true-talent leaderboard, such as the ones that follows, is useful insofar as it allows one to see which players have excelled of late by those metrics which both (a) most directly inform run creation/prevention and (b) become reliable rather quickly.

A True-Talent Leaderboard, To What It’s Similar
It would be entirely fair to say that a true-talent leaderboard is similar to — even, perhaps, the exact same thing as — the SCOUT leaderboards the author has published in these Notes periodically (like, for this year’s minor-league leaders, for example, or for assorted summer college leagues). Click here to learn more about it.

True-Talent Leaderboard: September Hitters
Here are the top-10 batters for September, as determined by the methodology explained above (where a SCOUT+ of 100 is average and higher than that is above average):

Player	Team	PA	xHR%	xBB%	xK%	SCOUT+
Edwin Encarnacion	Blue Jays	101	4.1%	13.0%	15.3%	142
Jimmy Rollins	Phillies	125	4.2%	11.1%	14.7%	139
Miguel Cabrera	Tigers	124	5.2%	9.6%	19.5%	137
Chase Headley	Padres	122	4.6%	11.2%	19.1%	135
Adrian Beltre	Rangers	109	5.4%	6.7%	18.2%	132
Yadier Molina	Cardinals	106	3.4%	10.8%	12.6%	132
Adam LaRoche	Nationals	119	4.6%	8.8%	18.9%	128
Carlos Santana	Indians	120	3.3%	11.3%	14.7%	128
Yoenis Cespedes	Athletics	127	3.9%	9.5%	15.8%	128
Justin Smoak	Mariners	92	3.5%	10.4%	15.2%	127

True-Talent Leaderboard: September Pitchers (Overall)
Here are the top-10 pitchers for September, as determined by the methodology explained above (where a SCOUT- of 100 is average and lower than that is better than average):

Player	Team	IP	TBF	xK%	xBB%	SCOUT-
Craig Kimbrel	Braves	12.2	49	30.4%	7.8%	69
Kris Medlen	Braves	43.0	159	28.9%	6.7%	70
Cole Hamels	Phillies	38.0	157	28.0%	7.1%	74
Yu Darvish	Rangers	36.2	134	28.2%	7.5%	75
Wade Davis	Rays	13.0	50	28.9%	8.5%	76
Antonio Bastardo	Phillies	9.2	38	28.5%	8.2%	76
Max Scherzer	Tigers	29.0	111	27.3%	7.3%	77
Jake McGee	Rays	11.2	41	27.5%	7.7%	78
Marco Estrada	Brewers	37.2	146	26.5%	7.1%	78
Cliff Lee	Phillies	43.1	172	25.6%	6.2%	78

True-Talent Leaderboard: September Pitchers (Starters Only)
Here are the top-10 pitchers for September who made at least half of their appearances as starts — again, as determined by the methodology explained above (where a SCOUT- of 100 is average and lower than that is better than average):

Player	Team	IP	TBF	xK%	xBB%	SCOUT-
Kris Medlen	Braves	43.0	159	28.9%	6.7%	70
Cole Hamels	Phillies	38.0	157	28.0%	7.1%	74
Yu Darvish	Rangers	36.2	134	28.2%	7.5%	75
Max Scherzer	Tigers	29.0	111	27.3%	7.3%	77
Marco Estrada	Brewers	37.2	146	26.5%	7.1%	78
Cliff Lee	Phillies	43.1	172	25.6%	6.2%	78
Lance Lynn	Cardinals	29.1	121	26.6%	7.6%	80
Felix Doubront	Red Sox	33.1	145	28.0%	9.1%	80
Ervin Santana	Angels	29.1	119	26.2%	7.9%	82
Homer Bailey	Reds	44.2	167	25.1%	7.3%	83

Very Brief Notes
• Justin Smoak’s September (and, it seems, first day of October) was excellent: the Mariner first baseman walked more than he struck out (12:11 BB:K) while hitting five home runs in 92 plate appearances. Of course, little of what he did over the first five months of the season was cause for nearly so much optimism. “Which is the real Justin Smoak?” both Mariner fans and also maybe a private detective somewhere are asking.
• Atlanta reliever Craig Kimbrel had struck out 49.8% of batters faced through Tuesday — and even more than that (51.0%) in September/October. In nine August innings, he posted a negative xFIP (-0.24).
• Boston left-hander Felix Doubront posted a 21:3 strikeout-to-walk ratio over his last two starts (14.0 innings total) — in both cases, against one of the few teams (Baltimore) that had reason to be competitive over the final week-plus of the season. His final season line: 161.0 IP, 23.6% K, 10.0% BB, 43.7% GB, 3.84 SIERA, 92 xFIP-, 2.1 WAR.

Today’s Notable Games
Texas at Oakland | 15:35 ET
Bananas (a) are a herbaceous plant of the genus Musa and (b) is the correct term to describe this game. Texas and Oakland enter the last day of the regular season tied for first place in the AL West.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas Radio.

Boston at New York AL | 19:05 ET
Baltimore at Tampa Bay | 19:10 ET
A Yankees loss and Orioles win creates a tie atop the AL East — and the need for a one-game playoff (I think, still). (Note to self: examine the rules of baseball sometime.)

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston and Tampa Bay Radio.

Chicago AL at Cleveland | 19:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
As the author’s mother always told him: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, you’re probably watching a meaningless, season-ending White Sox and Indians game.”

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 3.1.

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.

As Kyle Lobner, proprietor of the internet’s Brew Crew Ball notes, Yovani Gallardo will not be pitching for Milwaukee today, replaced instead by 24-year-old right-hander Josh Stinson. Stinson’s line from Double-A Huntsville: 145.1 IP, 5.64 K/9, 4.40 BB/9, 0.43 HR/9, 4.27 FIP.

Other note: Cardinals right-handed prospect Shelby Miller will be making his first major-league start tonight.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Ben Sheets	ATL	4	6	4	4	8	PIT	A.J. Burnett	12:35
Cliff Lee	PHI	10	5	6	7	7	WAS	Edwin Jackson	13:05
Edgar Gonzalez	HOU	6	4	2	2	3	CHN	Travis Wood	14:20
Ryan Dempster	TEX	6	6	4	7	6	OAK	A.J. Griffin	15:35
Jeremy Hefner	NYN	5	2	2	4	5	MIA	Chad Gaudin*	16:10
Jered Weaver	LAA	4	7	2	3	3	SEA	Blake Beavan	18:40
Daisuk. Matsuzaka	BOS	3	4	3	7	6	NYA	Hiroki Kuroda	19:05
Gavin Floyd	CHA	4	4	2	2	4	CLE	David Huff*	19:05
Scott Diamond	MIN	5	5	3	4	6	TOR	Brandon Morrow	19:07
Chris Tillman	BAL	5	3	2	6	4	TB	Jeremy Hellickson	19:10
Jeff Francis	COL	5	6	3	7	5	AZ	Ian Kennedy	19:10
Ryan Vogelsong	SF	4	4	4	1	10	LAN	Clayton Kershaw	19:15
Undecided	DET	5	4	2	6	3	KC	Luis Mendoza	20:10
Andrew Werner	SD	6	6	4	9	6	MIL	Yovani Gallardo	20:10
Homer Bailey	CIN	6	4	4	9	5	STL	Undecided	20:15

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.