Daily Notes: Ft. Corey Kluber, AKA Mr. Appointment Television
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Featured Game: Cleveland at New York AL, 13:05 ET
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Featured Game: Cleveland at New York AL, 13:05 ET
Regarding This Post, Its Purpose
The purpose of this internet post is to alert the public to how right-hander Corey Kluber, a top-10 pitcher in May by strikeout rate and park-adjusted xFIP and SIERA, starts today for Cleveland against the New York Americans.
Regarding This Post, Another of Its Purposes
Another of this post’s urgent objectives is to announce — or, at least, state without ambiguity — that, so far as Corey Kluber is concerned, that it’s also entirely reasonable to address him by his gentleman’s sobriquet, Mr. Appointment Television.
Regarding That Sobriquet, Its Aptness
What makes total sense about referring to Corey Kluber as Mr. Appointment Television is that people are always, quite literally, making appointments to watch his starts. People will be like, “Look, Corey Kluber is starting at 1pm on Wednesday. I should make note of that in my [calendar/agenda of choice].”
Regarding That Claim, The Reader’s Possible Response to It
To the author’s suggestion that everyone is making appointments to watch Corey Kluber, it’s possible that the reader will respond by demanding evidence of some sort. He or she might be like, “Hey, how about some evidence, guy?”
Evidence
Here is the evidence requested of late by the hypothetical reader, from the author’s own personal electronic internet calendar (click to embiggen, naturally):
In Conclusion
In conclusion, here’s slow-motion footage of Corey Kluber from his most recent and rain-shortened start throwing a curveball to Kelly Johnson for a swinging strike and with a scoreboard materializing in front of him:
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our crowdsourcing project from the 2011-2012 offseason, FanGraphs readers prefer Cleveland Radio (link).
Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Pittsburgh at Atlanta | 12:10 ET
Wandy Rodriguez (62.1 IP, 105 xFIP-, 0.3 WAR) faces Julio Teheran (63.0 IP, 103 xFIP-, 0.5 WAR). The latter recorded the best start of his brief career — in terms of defense-independent marks, at least — in his most recent appearance, against Washington this past Friday (box). His line: 6.2 IP, 27 TBF, 9 K, 1 BB, 7 GB on 16 batted-balls, 1.89 xFIP.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Atlanta 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 5.2.
Note: the following table is entirely sortable.
| Away | SP | Tm. | Gm. | Tm. | SP | Home | Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wandy Rodriguez | PIT | 4 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 6 | ATL | Julio Teheran | 12:10 |
| Corey Kluber | CLE | 10 | 8 | 8 | 5 | 7 | NYA | CC Sabathia | 13:05 |
| Jacob Turner* | MIA | 6 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 7 | PHI | Cole Hamels | 13:05 |
| Bartolo Colon | OAK | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | MIL | Yovani Gallardo | 14:10 |
| Dylan Axelrod | CHA | 2 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 7 | SEA | Hisashi Iwakuma | 15:40 |
| R.A. Dickey | TOR | 9 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 1 | SF | Barry Zito | 15:45 |
| Matt Garza* | CHN | 6 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 2 | LAA | Jason Vargas | 19:05 |
| Dillon Gee | NYN | 5 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 5 | WAS | Dan Haren | 19:05 |
| Alex Cobb | TB | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | DET | Doug Fister | 19:08 |
| Jon Garland | COL | 1 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 8 | CIN | Johnny Cueto | 19:10 |
| Alexi Ogando | TEX | 3 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 7 | BOS | John Lackey | 19:10 |
| Freddy Garcia | BAL | 3 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 5 | HOU | Dallas Keuchel | 20:10 |
| P.J. Walters* | MIN | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 | KC | Jeremy Guthrie | 20:10 |
| Wade Miley | AZ | 5 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 6 | STL | Joe Kelly* | 20:15 |
| Jason Marquis | SD | 0 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 9 | LAN | Clayton Kershaw | 22:10 |
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.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
I’m obsessed with you too, Carson. ;D
This is an impostor! The real Corey Kluber would not use emoticons.
Thats right because he is old school and not a 20 something guy who has probably been using emoticons since before emoticon became a “word”.
You’re going to need more then 3 hours, is my guess.
How about just “Mr Appointment”. The “television” just makes it sound weird.
We wouldn’t want Carson to get weird now!
I just LOVE these Kluber updates–i am a converted Kluberite or a Klubeleiver
I miss us.
Kluber could have used that pitch to Johnson in the Hafner at bat. Ouch!
Read the articles. Got excited … start him and the guy is a dumpster fire. Ugh. Can barely get an out.
Unfortunately he is getting Klubbed.
Thanks for the advice. REALLY glad I picked this guy up. WRECKING my ratios single-handedly.
And yet he ends up with basically the same line as CC. Beware the Yankee stadium. Think for yourself.
More like Mr. Inconistent. Here is the reason why (my previous post): He is one of the league leaders in opposing hard contact against 36% while the opposing soft contact against is a mere 15%. In other words, Kluber’s only good when the bat does not make contact with the ball. For whatever reason, when batters do make contact, they are able to square up very well. Thus, his BABIP against is likely to remain elevated. This truly puts to the test the K/BB ratio (among the league leaders) and hard contact (among the league trailers) — resulting in random and widely varying results.
Where are these hard and soft contact rates coming from?
Baseball HQ (Ron Shandler) is where I get them, but I think they get them from Baseball Info Solutions (Bill James).
Where does Rick Porcello rank in this metric? Since he is bachelor number 2 in fangraphian ignore-his-results-look-at-the-peripherals love.
This would still fly in the face of a lot of DIPs research. Basically no pitcher over a long period has significantly elevated hr/fb or babips.
And how was the Gardner homer today? A typical Yankee Stadium job?
Just checked. From 2004-2013, of all major league pitchers with over 100 innings, Kluber has the 4th worst babip allowed. Right behind Billy Buckner at 3 and Manny Parra at 4. And the top 30 (or bottom 30) is littered with meh pitchers. Dana Eveland, Joe Mays, Sidney Ponson, Vance Worley. Felipe Paulino in there. Kevin Brown perhaps the best, and he was a worm-killer I believe.
Right now I’d still think it’s small sample size and likely the high K pct etc. suggests he is better than his results.
Rick Porcello sits at 26% hard contact. However, there are three things in play for Porcello:
1. He has a higher GB % than Kluber (57% vs. 44%). So, even if the balls are hit hard, they are less likely to get loft.
2. His defense is terrible. I suspect this is the main reason for Porcello’s elevated BABIP. If/when he gets traded to a good defensive team, I would suspect that is when his BABIP will normalize.
3. As noted on this site (http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/rick-porcellos-latest-tease/), Porcello has changed his pitch mix. He is relying less on his terrible slider and more on his good curve. Thus, he is getting many more strikeouts this year. As Jeff Sullivan points out, when statistical changes are accompanied with pitch-mix changes, there is something interesting there worth watching.
As for Garner’s homer, I do not know. The stats are given for the year, not each hit.
I saw a replay of Gardner’s homer. Not a Yankee Stadium job – it was way out.
I’m wishing I had skipped this appointment, Carson.
Okay, turned out to be pretty decent after the first two innings. Unfortunately the first two innings still count. We’ll see how things go in his next start.
Mr. Root Canal Appointment.
I gotta be honest…I am getting tired of this regarding fad.
So, you have little regard for it?
Any system that ranks Barry Zito last in watchability is obviously broken in some way. His at-bats alone should put him near the top.
Carson, how dare you mislead these fantasy baseball managers by not fully informing them that you cannot predict the future!
Well, when you hype a guy for a week and a half and go so far as to call him “Mr. Appointment Television”, it’s only natural that you’re going to get a little grief when he gets bombed.
Definitely beats Burch Smith on the watchability scale.
You bite your tongue, sir!
I kid. Still rooting for both of them. Can’t wait for Brian Flynn’s call-up!
Well, I’ve got Kluber on my Yahoo team, but he’s on the bench today. I won’t start anyone but a true elite pitcher in Yankee Stadium, that’s just asking for a whuppin’. Of course, I kept running Wade Davis out there every start until 2 weeks ago, so what do I know?
Started poorly but still ended with a respectable line minus the runs. 1 BB, 8K, 7H in 6 innings.
What really is interesting, as others have pointed out, is his BABIP. He’s logged over 100 major league innings and is running at a .345 BABIP. His minor league BABIP is similarly well above .300.
Makes for a strange pitcher. Terrific K/B but batters seem to hit him hard when they make contact which probably means he’ll continue to underperform his FIP and xFIP.
Tough outing for him today but he still racked up the strikeouts. I’m currently trading Kluber and Heyward for Jordan Zimmerman. Close call but if Kluber is really Mr. Appointment Television here on out, I almost expect him to outperform the other two…
Don’t do that.
More like dis-appointment television. See what I did there? I took “appointment” (i.e. meeting time or event), and made it to “disappointment” (i.e. giving up 6 f-ing runs!!!)
This probably doesn’t mean much, but the Tigers hit tons of line drives against him in his start I watched in Detroit. Their hits weren’t merely fining holes or dropping in just past the infield. The hitter were squaring up on pitches in the strike zone. Even Alex Avila had a good game iirc.
From what I saw, hitters were sitting on his fastball and he needs to be off the plate more with his pitches. He’s on the plate too often and at least needs to pitch a little lower. Still a work in process, he looks close though. these stats don’t tell you everything.