Daily Notes, Featuring a Daniel Straily Debut Event

by
August 3, 2012

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

1. The Briefest of Announcements
2. Featured Game: Toronto at Oakland, 22:05 ET ET
3. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
4. Today’s Complete Schedule

The Briefest of Announcements
The author will be attending the wedding of a good friend in Cambridge this weekend and then eating delicious seafood in Cape Cod after that. The mostly able Patrick Dubuque and Robert J. Baumann, both of NotGraphs, will cover the Notes on Saturday and Sunday (Dubuque) and then Tuesday and Wednesday (Baumann). Please treat them just as poorly as you would treat me.

Featured Game: Toronto at Oakland, 22:05 ET
Regarding This Game, What’s Notable About It
What’s notable about this game is how 23-year-old right-hander Daniel Straily is making his debut in it for Oakland.

Regarding Daniel Straily, Who That Is
Daniel Straily is a pitcher who posted a line very similar to this one at Double-A Midland this year: 85.1 IP, 11.39 K/9, 2.43 BB/9, 0.63 HR/9, 2.57 FIP. And a line almost precisely like this one at Triple-A Sacramento (also this year): 53.0 IP, 11.38 K/9, 2.38 BB/9, 0.51 HR/9, 2.20 FIP.

A Thing the Reader Might Enjoy About Daniel Straily
One thing the reader might enjoy about Daniel Straily is that, while he’s not particularly big (he’s listed at 6-foot-2), his heart is actually 10-feet tall.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

A Thing About Daniel Straily That Might Concern the Reader
A thing about Daniel Straily that might concern the reader is how Straily’s heart is about four feet taller than he (i.e. Straily) is.

Some Questions the Reader Might Be Asking
The reader might be asking now something like, “What happens to that other four feet of heart that Straily’s got? Like, where does he keep it? Can you see it through his jersey or something when he’s pitching? Is he in danger just of dy-ying at any moment?”

A Response to the Reader
A logical response to the reader is that Straily’s unusual medical condition represents at least one reason to watch this game.

An Actually Helpful Thing Regarding Straily’s Repertoire
Straily recently spoke, and gave a very thorough description of his repertoire, to MLB.com Andrew Pentis. Click this hyperlinked text to read that piece.

An Actually Amusing Comment, Courtesy Daniel Straily
From the Twitter feed of MLB.com’s Jane Lee:

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs readers prefer Toronto Radio (link).

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Cleveland at Detroit | 19:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Anibal Sanchez (127.0 IP, 92 xFIP-, 2.2 WAR) makes his second start at a Tiger. How will he ultimately compare to other pitchers who were traded at the deadline? That’s an actual question you can answer by referencing our custom leaderboard of recently traded players.

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 4.7.

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.

Away   SP Tm. Gm. Tm. SP   Home Time
Brad Hand* MIA 6 3 3 6 4 WAS John Lannan* 16:05
Josh Johnson MIA 7 3 5 6 8 WAS Gio Gonzalez TBD
Ian Kennedy AZ 6 8 7 5 8 PHI Joe Blanton 19:05
Justin Masterson CLE 5 3 5 4 7 DET Anibal Sanchez 19:05
Kevin Millwood SEA 3 4 4 7 9 NYA CC Sabathia 19:05
Tommy Hunter BAL 5 0 5 4 6 TB Matt Moore 19:10
Brian Duensing* MIN 3 4 4 5 7 BOS Felix Doubront 19:10
Wandy Rodriguez PIT 4 4 4 4 8 CIN Mat Latos 19:10
Arman. Galarraga* HOU 3 4 3 8 5 ATL Tim Hudson 19:35
Zack Greinke LAA 9 6 5 4 3 CHA Philip Humber 20:10
Matt Harrison TEX 5 8 3 7 1 KC Jeremy Guthrie 20:10
Randy Wolf MIL 3 8 5 10 5 STL Joe Kelly 20:15
Ryan Vogelsong SF 2 3 2 8 0 COL Jonathan Sanchez 20:40
R.A. Dickey NYN 10 4 5 6 5 SD Clayton Richard 22:05
Brett Cecil TOR 4 7 9 5 17 OAK Daniel Straily 22:05
Jeff Samardzija CHN 10 1 6 0 6 LAN Chad Billingsley 22:10

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.





 

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

24 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
MikeS
13 years ago

Actually, the Custom Leaderboard of Recently Traded Players will in no way help you to figure out how he (Sanchez) will ultimately compare to other pitchers who were traded at the deadline unless you are interested in his hitting skills. Which I assume you are not. If you inexplicably are, then you may be interested to know that he (still Sanchez)is a better hitter than (no relation, I think) Gaby Sanchez.

Even this information will be difficult to discern as he (still Sanchez (Anibel not Gaby)) is not on that particular list.

1