Daily Notes: First-Round Leaderboard Update Update

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

1. First-Round Leaderboard Update Update
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

First-Round Leaderboard Update Update
Regarding What This Is
Within the safe space that is these Daily Notes, it has become customary to publish, every so often, to publish a leaderboard of all the first-round picks from the 2012 draft (plus, because the author’s True Nature has dictated it, Astros shortstop prospect Nolan Fontana, Angels infielder Sherman Johnson, and Rangers third baseman Joey Gallo) to’ve made their professional debuts.

Regarding What This Is, Part II
What follows is an update of the first-rounders leaderboard, with five (!) players added, as follow:

• Kevin Gausman, RHP, Baltimore
• Andrew Heaney, LHP, Miami
• Lucas Giolito, RHP, Washington
• Ty Hensley, RHP, New York AL
• Brian Johnson, LHP/C, Boston

Hyperlink to the Leaderboard in Question
Click this hyperlinked text to view the updated version of the first-rounders batting leaderboard (sorted by weighted runs above average), and this other hyperlinked text for the pitching leaderboard (sorted by FIP).

A Note on Joey Gallo
The aforementioned Joey Gallo is (a) leading everyone with (as of Thursday night) +24.3 wRAA and (b) at 17, is one of the youngest players on the aforelinked batting leaderboard.

A Second Note on Joey Gallo
Per SB Nation Texas Rangers site Lone Star Ball — per that site’s midseason community prospect rankings — Joey Gallo is ranked eighth among Rangers prospects.

A Third Note, Tangentially Related to Joey Gallo
Per that same site (i.e. Lone Star Ball), here are the Rangers’ first seven prospects (with percent of vote received in parentheses):

1. Jurickson Profar, SS (96%)
2. Mike Olt, 3B (85%)
3. Martin Perez, LHP (71%)
4. Leonys Martin, OF (50%)
5. Cody Buckel, RHP (42%)
6. Jairo Beras, OF (50%)
7. Joey Gallo, 3B (37%)

Today’s Notable Games
Arizona at Houston | 20:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Shortstop Tyler Greene, since being traded from St. Louis to Houston: 20 PA, 1 HR, 0 BB, 8 K, .545 BABIP.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston Television.

Tampa Bay at Los Angeles AL | 22:05 ET
The wild-card race, per Cool Standings, as of exactly midnight Central Time between Thursday and Friday:

American	W	L	PCT	GB	RS	RA	EXPW	EXPL	DIV	WC	POFF
Baltimore	64	54	.542	–	496	540	83.1	78.9	2.0	20.1	22.1
Tampa Bay	63	54	.538	0.5	477	435	86.4	75.6	7.5	44.4	51.9
Detroit	63	55	.534	1	546	521	86.9	75.1	28.5	30.4	58.9
Oakland	62	55	.530	1.5	469	444	85.5	76.5	11.5	32.1	43.5
Los Angeles	62	56	.525	2	554	510	84.7	77.3	8.2	28.0	36.2
Boston	58	61	.487	6.5	583	547	79.8	82.2	0.5	6.3	6.7
Toronto	55	63	.466	9	554	570	75.1	86.9	<0.1	0.6	0.6
Seattle	55	64	.462	9.5	465	474	76.3	85.7	0.1	1.0	1.1
Cleveland	54	64	.458	10	501	612	71.7	90.3	<0.1	<0.1	0.1
Kansas City	51	66	.436	12.5	483	536	71.5	90.5	<0.1	<0.1	0.1
Minnesota	50	67	.427	13.5	524	608	70.1	91.9	<0.1	<0.1	<0.1

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Tampa Bay 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 4.1.

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.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Tommy Hunter	BAL	4	1	6	4	10	DET	Justin Verlander	19:05
Franklin Morales	BOS	6	6	4	7	5	NYA	Phil Hughes	19:05
Johan Santana	NYN	6	2	3	6	5	WAS	Ross Detwiler	19:05
Yu Darvish	TEX	7	6	4	6	5	TOR	J.A. Happ	19:07
Travis Wood	CHN	2	1	1	4	4	CIN	Bronson Arroyo	19:10
Chris Capuano	LAN	6	1	4	7	4	ATL	Tommy Hanson	19:35
Wade Miley	AZ	7	7	3	4	0	HOU	Dallas Keuchel	20:05
Chris Sale	CHA	10	4	5	8	3	KC	Luis Mendoza	20:10
Vance Worley	PHI	5	5	4	8	6	MIL	Yovani Gallardo	20:10
James McDonald	PIT	5	5	6	9	5	STL	Jake Westbrook	20:15
Wade LeBlanc*	MIA	6	3	3	8	4	COL	Jeff Francis	20:40
Zach McAllister	CLE	7	3	6	6	6	OAK	Tommy Milone	22:05
Matt Cain	SF	7	4	4	6	1	SD	Ross Ohlendorf	22:05
James Shields	TB	8	4	7	8	4	LAA	Jered Weaver	22:05
Nick Blackburn	MIN	1	4	1	4	5	SEA	Hisashi Iwakuma	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.