Daily Notes: Largely Concerning Two Notable Debuts

June 29, 2013

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

1. Two Debuts of Note
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Two Debuts of Note
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is mostly to inform the readership that two pitchers are scheduled to make their major-league debuts today (Saturday) — namely, Washington right-hander Taylor Jordan (against the New York Nationals) and Minnesota right-hander Kyle Gibson (home against the Kansas Citiers).

Regarding Taylor Jordan, Some Basic Information
As his draft position from 2009 indicates (when he was picked in the ninth round out of Brevard Community College), Jordan wasn’t necessarily the sort of prospect after which every team was clamoring. The Washington Post’s James Wagner suggests, however, that Jordan’s velocity had increased by 2011 — until such a time, that is, as the Florida native was forced to undergo Tommy John surgery. A successful recovery has allowed Jordan to sit at 94 mph with his fastball, according to Wagner, which pitch is paired by a considerably improved changeup (with examples of both available below).

Regarding Taylor Jordan, His Place on Various Prospect Lists
Jordan was almost entirely absent from preseason organizational prospect lists, ranking 27th out of the 32 players included on the Chris St. John’s consensus prospect list for the Nationals. MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo was more optimistic about Jordan than most, noting primarily the velocity and sinking action on the right-hander’s fastball.

Mildly Helpful Footage: Taylor Jordan Records a Strikeout in April
Here’s video footage of Taylor Jordan striking out Texas prospect Jake Skole on April 27th, accompanied by the author’s best guess as to pitch type, as follows. Fastball: 0:22, 0:54. Changeup: 0:06, 0:38 (?), 1:16 (!).

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Now Regarding Kyle Gibson, Some Basic Information
The 22nd-overall pick by Minnesota out of the University of Missouri in 2009, Gibson has appeared on Baseball America’s top-100 prospect list in three of the last four seasons since that draft. The season he didn’t (i.e. didn’t appear on BA’s top-prospect list) was preceded by Tommy John surgery. During his junior (and last) year at Mizzou, Gibson tied Max Scherzer’s school record for strikeouts in a season, at 131.

Regarding Kyle Gibson, His Place on Various Prospect Lists
Here’s where Gibson appeared this preseason on various and notable top-overall prospect lists:

Baseball America: 68th.
Baseball Prospectus: 64th.
Bullpen Banter: 79th.
Marc Hulet: 77th.
John Sickels: 62nd.

Mildly Helpful Video: Kyle Gibson’s Slider
Here’s footage of Kyle Gibson utilizing his slider to strike out Jordan Lennerton to end his (i.e. Gibson’s) May 8th start against Toledo:

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Arizona at Atlanta | 16:05 ET
Ian Kennedy (84.2 IP, 114 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR) faces Tim Hudson (96.2 IP, 96 xFIP-, 1.1 WAR). Of note: Hudson appeared on FanGraphs Audio earlier in the week, during which episode of the podcast he made some amusing comments about Young Tim Hudson.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Atlanta Radio, Perhaps.

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 5.7.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Taylor Jordan*	WAS	10	2	7	5	6	NYN	Dillon Gee	13:10
Ian Kennedy	AZ	4	3	5	7	6	ATL	Tim Hudson	16:05
Ad. Wainwright	STL	9	4	6	6	4	OAK	Jarrod Parker	16:05
Esmil Rogers	TOR	3	6	5	8	5	BOS	Felix Doubront	16:05
Joe Blanton	LAA	7	7	6	3	6	HOU	Jordan Lyles	16:10
Ubaldo Jimenez	CLE	5	7	3	1	1	CHA	Dylan Axelrod	16:10
Wade Davis	KC	5	5	7	2	10	MIN	Kyle Gibson*	16:10
Matt Cain	SF	6	7	5	9	3	COL	Jorge de la Rosa	16:10
Eric Stults	SD	4	8	5	0	7	MIA	Jacob Turner	19:10
Jeff Samardzija	CHN	10	5	7	4	5	SEA	Aaron Harang	19:15
Mike Leake	CIN	6	4	5	3	6	TEX	Nick Tepesch	19:15
Justin Verlander	DET	8	7	7	10	4	TB	Chris Archer	19:15
Donovan Hand*	MIL	6	5	7	7	9	PIT	Francis. Liriano	19:15
David Phelps	NYA	4	4	5	9	5	BAL	Zach Britton*	19:15
Cliff Lee	PHI	9	1	6	2	6	LAN	Hyun-Jin Ryu	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.