Daily Notes: Largely Concerning the Futures Game

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

1. Assorted Notes on the Futures Game
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Assorted Notes on the Futures Game
A Note on Right-Thinking People Everywhere, Their Opinions
It’s the opinion of right-thinking people everywhere that the Futures Game — which occurs tonight (Sunday) at 5pm ET — is the very best (and/or, perhaps, only tolerable) thing about the All-Star break and its attendant festivities.

A Note on Wrong-Thinking People Everywhere, Their Opinions
With regard to wrong-thinking people and their opinions, the author has considerably less to say — except that they (i.e. wrong-thinking people) are very likely responsible for the design and manufacture of the PT Cruiser.

The Futures Games, Some Information About It
The Futures Game, for those who are unacquainted with it, is a contest between the very best American-born and also other-country-born prospects in baseball. It is, for example, the medium by which the author was first introduced to the athletic stylings of an 18-year-old Mike Trout.

Video of a Thing Mike Trout Did
Here’s video of the double Mike Trout hit, for example, in the aforementiond 2010 Futures Game:

Starting Lineups for Tonight’s Game
Here, presented in the form of an internet table, are the starting lineups for tonight’s game:

Pos	US	World
SP	Jake Odorizzi, KC	Yordano Ventura, KC
C	Tommy Joseph, SF	Christian Bethancourt, ATL
1B	Jonathan Singleton, HOU	Jesus Aguilar, CLE
2B	Kolten Wong, STL	Jean Segura, LAA
3B	Mike Olt, TEX	Wilmer Flores, NYM
SS	Billy Hamilton, CIN	Jurickson Profar, TEX
LF	Michael Choice, OAK	Alfredo Marte, ARI
CF	Anthony Gose, TOR	Jae-Hoon Ha, CHN
RF	Wil Myers, KC	Oscar Taveras, STL
DH	Nick Castellanos, DET	Xander Bogaerts, BOS

Three Players With Whom the Reader Might Be Unacquainted
Here are three players from the above list with whom the reader might be unacquainted: Jesus Aguilar, Jae-Hoon Ha, and Alfredo Marte

Notes on Those Same Players
Here are brief notes on those same three players:

• Jesus Aguilar, 22, is a giant (listed at 6-3, 241) first-base prospect in the Cleveland system with good raw power but maybe little else. Here’s his line this season at High-A Carolina: 316 PA, .305/.389/.518 (.365 BABIP).

• Jae-Hoon Ha, 21, is an outfield prospect in the Chicago (NL) system. Originally signed as a catcher, he has, according to Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper, “developed into one of the best defensive outfielders in the system.” Here’s his line from Double-A Tennessee: 350 PA, .259/.326/.353 (.311 BABIP).

• Alfredo Marte, 23, is an outfield prospect in the Arizona system. His line at Double-A Mobile: 253 PA, .295/.368/.589 (.305 BABIP). Though his power appears to have arrived this year (15 HR), note that his home park, per StatCorner, allows home runs at a rate 25% higher than the Southern League average.

Broadcast Information
ESPN2, 5pm ET

Other Notable Games
Kansas City at Detroit | 13:05 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Right-hander Max Scherzer starts for Detroit. His line this season: 90.1 IP, 28.9% K, 8.1% BB, 38.4% GB, 3.08 SIERA, 78 xFIP-, 1.7 WAR. That’s the second-highest strikeout rate among the league’s century of qualified starters. Scherzer’s average fastball (93.8 mph) is the sixth-highest among that same group.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit Radio.

Los Angeles NL at Arizona |16:10 ET
Diamondbacks right-handed prospect Trevor Bauer, who starts this afternoon, has not had the proverbial — or even the literal — Great Success (7.1 IP, 158 xFIP-) as of yet. That makes neither he, nor the narrative surrounding him, any less appealing as of now, yet.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Arizona 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 5.3.

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
Everett Teaford*	KC	3	5	6	4	10	DET	Max Scherzer	13:05
James Shields	TB	8	4	8	4	7	CLE	Zach McAllister	13:05
Ryan Dempster	CHN	6	2	5	2	7	NYN	Jonathon Niese	13:10
Jair Jurrjens	ATL	0	8	3	5	6	PHI	Vance Worley	13:35
Jeremy Guthrie	COL	1	10	4	6	8	WAS	J. Zimmermann	13:35
Tim Lincecum	SF	7	4	7	4	7	PIT	A.J. Burnett	13:35
Zack Greinke	MIL	9	7	4	4	3	HOU	Jordan Lyles	14:05
Brett Cecil	TOR	3	7	3	5	2	CHA	Dylan Axelrod	14:10
Anibal Sanchez	MIA	7	3	6	10	5	STL	Joe Kelly	14:15
Wei-Yin Chen	BAL	4	2	5	5	6	LAA	Eric Hurley*	15:35
Johnny Cueto	CIN	6	3	4	5	4	SD	Jason Marquis	16:05
Felix Hernandez	SEA	8	3	5	4	4	OAK	Bartolo Colon	16:05
Chris Capuano	LAN	6	2	8	6	10	AZ	Trevor Bauer*	16:10
Cole DeVries	MIN	2	4	4	10	8	TEX	Roy Oswalt*	19:05
Ivan Nova	NYA	6	6	7	5	7	BOS	Jon Lester	20:05

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.