Daily Notes: Feat. The Quite Very Effective Ubaldo Jimenez

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

1. The Quite Very Effective Ubaldo Jimenez
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

The Quite Very Effective Ubaldo Jimenez
A Note Regarding Ubaldo Jimenez
Yesterday, by way of previewing briefly yesterday’s MLB.TV Free Game, which game featured Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar, the author had occasion to produce the table below, which includes — or included as of yesterday, at least — the top-five starters by strikeout rate over the last month (minimum three starts).

To wit:

Rank	Name	Team	IP	TBF	K%
1	Ubaldo Jimenez	Indians	31.2	128	32.8%
2	Stephen Strasburg	Nationals	23.2	93	30.1%
3	Danny Salazar	Indians	19.1	77	29.9%
4	Jose Fernandez	Marlins	33.0	127	29.9%
5	Yu Darvish	Rangers	33.0	134	29.1%

One notes that Salazar’s name appears third on this particular sort of table. One notes, moreover, that teammate Ubaldo Jimenez’s appears atop the whole thing.

“Ubaldo Jimenez,” announces the reader. “I was under the impression that he’d become quite less effective than previously in his career.” To that point, the reader is entirely correct. After four consecutive seasons of better-than-average fielding-independent marks, Jimenez recorded a 121 xFIP- last year and career-low 17.8% strikeout rate.

Of late, however, Jimenez has pitched quite well, having now produced the fourth-best park-adjusted xFIP of all starters over the past month (min. three starts).

Graph: Ubaldo Jimenez’s Walk Rate by Month
In addition to his excellent strikeout rate, Jimenez has also demonstrated some improvement — through two September starts, at least — in command. Below is a chart demonstrating the development in his walk rate, by month, this season:

Action Graph: Ubaldo Jimenez’s Walk Rate by Month
For purposes mostly of amusement, here’s that same graph — except, in this case, slowly emerging from an image of the Cleveland skyline:

This Investigation of Ubaldo Jimenez, Its Relevance
The relevance of this discussion of Jimenez is how he’s starting tonight, at 7:10pm ET, at Chicago for a Cleveland team that retains about a 25% probability of qualifying for a wild-card spot.

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Kansas City at Detroit | 19:08 ET
Ervin Santana (191.0 IP, 91 xFIP-, 2.7 WAR) faces Doug Fister (186.0 IP, 89 xFIP-, 4.0 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit 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.

Note that these NERD scores are calculated using the methodology introduced recently and designed to account for the influence of playoff odds on the watchability of games. ***Unlike in recent iterations of this table, the author has adjusted the day’s NERD Game Scores such that, combined, they average 5.0.*** This allows said table to resemble more closely the Game Scores that have appeared here over the preceding four months.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Homer Bailey	CIN	10	1	4	0	2	MIL	John Hellweg*	13:05
CC Sabathia	NYA	6	1	4	0	5	BOS	Jon Lester	13:05
Bartolo Colon	OAK	4	5	10	5	10	TEX	Yu Darvish	13:05
Chris Tillman	BAL	5	1	3	0	5	TOR	Esmil Rogers	16:07
H. Alvarez	MIA	6	0	3	0	4	NYN	D. Matsuzaka*	16:10
Jacob Turner	MIA	3	0	3	0	7	NYN	Carlos Torres	TBD
Scott Baker*	CHN	5	0	9	7	10	PIT	Gerrit Cole	19:05
Cole Hamels	PHI	8	0	4	1	7	WAS	Gio Gonzalez	19:05
Ervin Santana	KC	7	1	4	0	6	DET	Doug Fister	19:08
Jered Weaver	LAA	4	0	2	0	4	HOU	B. Oberholtzer	19:10
Ubaldo Jimenez	CLE	5	5	6	0	2	CHA	Andre Rienzo	19:10
Robbie Erlin	SD	4	0	3	0	7	ATL	Kris Medlen	19:10
Matt Moore	TB	4	6	7	0	4	MIN	Andrew Albers	19:10
James Paxton*	SEA	7	0	10	8	9	STL	Michael Wacha	19:15
Roy Oswalt*	COL	6	0	3	0	6	AZ	Wade Miley	20:10
Tim Lincecum	SF	7	0	3	0	6	LAN	Ricky Nolasco	21:10

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.