Daily Notes: First-Rounders Leaderboard Update
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. Updated Leaderboard Update: First-Rounders
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Updated Leaderboard Update: First-Rounders
Regarding What This Is
Last Monday, I provided a link to an updated version of the custom leaderboard I’d made available to readers about a week before that — a leaderboard of all the first-round picks from the recent draft (plus, because the author’s True Nature dictated it, Astros shortstop prospect Nolan Fontana and Angels infielder Sherman Johnson) to’ve made their professional debuts.
Regarding What This Is, Part II
What follows is an update of last week’s update, with three players added, as follow:
• Albert Almora, OF, Chicago (NL)
• Nick Travieso, RHP, Cincinnati
• Richard Shaffer, 3B, Tampa Bay
One Other Addition
Also added to the leaderboard is Rangers’ third-base prospect, taken 39th overall in the most recent draft, Joey Gallo — mostly on account of, as Baseball America’s Ben Badler notes, he’s hitting furiouser and furiouser.
Hyperlink to the Leaderboard in Question
Click this hyperlinked text to navigate your web browser to the updated update of this glorious and custom leaderboard.
Screenshot of Said Leaderboard
Here’s a screenshot (which one might click, perchance to embiggen) of said updated update — in this case, sorted by weighted batting runs above average:
A Note on Two Batters
The draft’s top two picks, Houston’s Carlos Correa and Minnesota’s Byron Buxton, have both made progress over the last week, raising their wOBAs from .255 and .231, respectively, to .311 and .326 — also respectively.
A Note on One Other Batter
Arizona prospect Stryker Trahan‘s data continues to be strangely absent from this leaderboard. Per Baseball Reference, however, the 18-year-old Trahan is slashing .279/.458/.488 with 29 walks, 22 strikeouts, and three home runs in 118 plate appearances in the Rookie-level Arizona League.
Other Notable Games
San Diego at Cincinnati | 19:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Probably Incorrect Prediction: the first-place Reds — with Zack Cozart, Billy Hamilton, and Didi Gregorius all in their system — will trade away a young shortstop before the July 31st deadline.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cincinnati Radio.
Detroit at Boston | 19:10 ET
The very enigmatic Max Scherzer (116.1 IP, 83 xFIP-, 2.0 WAR) pitches in front of the considerably above-average Boston camera.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit or Boston Radio.
Tampa Bay at Oakland | 22:05 ET
CoolStandings playoff odds: Tampa Bay, 23.6%; Oakland, 61.9%.
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 4.3.
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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ervin Santana | LAA | 3 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 7 | TEX | Roy Oswalt | 19:05 |
| Miguel Gonzalez | BAL | 1 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 5 | NYA | Freddy Garcia | 19:05 |
| Max Scherzer | DET | 10 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 3 | BOS | Clay Buchholz | 19:10 |
| Mark Buehrle | MIA | 4 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 4 | ATL | Tommy Hanson | 19:10 |
| Edinson Volquez | SD | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 7 | CIN | Mike Leake | 19:10 |
| Erik Bedard | PIT | 4 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 6 | CHN | Justin Germano* | 20:05 |
| Jose Quintana | CHA | 6 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | MIN | Cole DeVries | 20:10 |
| Bud Norris | HOU | 6 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | MIL | Marco Estrada | 20:10 |
| David Price | TB | 10 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 6 | OAK | A.J. Griffin | 22:05 |
| Trevor Cahill | AZ | 5 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 2 | LAN | Aaron Harang | 22:10 |
| Ricky Romero | TOR | 2 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 3 | SEA | Hisashi Iwakuma | 22:10 |
| Jeremy Hefner | NYN | 6 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 9 | SF | Ma. Bumgarner | 22:15 |
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.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
It quite suddenly occurs to me that you would find great pleasure in the literary stylings of Harry Stephen Keeler.
When I read “furiouser and furiouser”, my mind uncorked a memory of Forbisher from British author David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. The second thing my mind did was leap from Forbisher the amanuensis to the question of to whom is the Daily Notes author amanuensis? John Cleese? Bob Goldthwait?