Daily Notes: Rockies Prospect Friedrich Debuts

May 9, 2012

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

1. Featured Game: Colorado at San Diego, 15:35 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: Colorado at San Diego, 15:35 ET
Regarding Colorado’s Starting Pitcher
Making his major-league debut this afternoon for Colorado is left-handed and 25-year-old pitcher Christian Friedrich.

Regarding Who Is Christian Friedrich
Christian Friedrich was, at one point, a relatively celebrated prospect in the Rockies system — ranking third among Colorado minor leaguers, for example, in Baseball America’s 2009 Prospect Handbook.

Regarding Who Is Christian Friedrich, Part II
Entering the 2012 season, Friedrich was decidedly less celebrated, ranking 14th in the Colorado system, per Baseball America. And 15th, per our Marc Hulet. And 14th, according to John Sickels. And 17th, according to Rockies SB Nation blog Purple Row.

Regarding What Maybe Made Friedrich Less Interesting
Injuries, a little bit. Loss of velocity, a little. Lack of command.

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Regarding What Friedrich Is Doing So Far This Season
So far this season — his first in Triple-A — Friedrich has been excellent, actually, having posted this line through five starts: 30.0 IP, 8.10 K/9, 1.20 BB/9, 0.30 HR/9, 2.33 FIP.

Regarding What Friedrich Is Doing So Far This Season, Part II
Another thing Friedrich is doing this season, according to Bryan Kilpatrick of Purple Row, is commanding his pitches better and throwing his fastball at around 90 mph — which, both appear to be good signs for his future success.

In Terms of Who’s Facing Friedrich
In terms of who’s facing Friedrich tonight, it’s right-hander Anthony Bass (33.1 IP, 87 xFIP-, 0.5 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast
Per the results of our offseason crowdsourcing project, FanGraphs readers prefer San Diego Television (link).

Other Notable Games
New York NL at Philadelphia | 19:05 ET
Mets right-hander Dillon Gee (starting tonight) has been decidedly ace-like through five starts. Line: 32.0 IP, 21.0% K, 5.8% BB, 53.8% GB, 3.17 SIERA, 84 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR. He faces real-live ace Cliff Lee (23.0 IP, 66 xFIP-, 0.6 WAR), although the latter will be limited to just 75-80 pitches as he returns from an oblique injury.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL.

San Francisco at Los Angeles NL | 22:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
It’s a broadcast-off between Dave Flemming and ~~Jon Miller~~ Duane Kuiper (on San Francisco radio) and ~~Duane Kuiper~~ Jon Miller and Mike Krukow (on San Francisco television) and Vin Scully (in the part of your brain responsible for producing feelings of nostalgia).*

*As reader Paul notes below, the broadcast teams are different when NBC broadcasts the game.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL.

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 5.4.

Regard, a magnificent and sortable table:

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Johnny Cueto	CIN	5	4	6	5	9	MIL	Zack Greinke	13:10
Tim Hudson*	ATL	7	8	4	3	1	CHN	Paul Maholm	14:20
Christian Friedrich*	COL	9	9	8	5	8	SD	Anthony Bass	15:35
Brandon Morrow	TOR	6	6	5	3	3	OAK	Brandon McCarthy	15:35
Jake Peavy	CHA	6	5	6	5	6	CLE	Jeanmar Gomez	19:05
Dillon Gee	NYN	9	1	7	2	9	PHI	Cliff Lee	19:05
Jeff Niemann	TB	4	7	6	7	6	NYA	David Phelps*	19:05
Colby Lewis	TEX	4	10	4	5	2	BAL	Wei-Yin Chen	19:05
Ross Detwiler	WAS	6	1	5	1	6	PIT	Erik Bedard	19:05
Josh Johnson	MIA	7	4	5	7	2	HOU	Lucas Harrell	20:05
Ervin Santana	LAA	4	3	4	2	4	MIN	Carl Pavano	20:10
Jon Lester	BOS	4	5	5	9	4	KC	Bruce Chen	20:10
Kyle Lohse	STL	4	10	6	6	6	AZ	Wade Miley*	21:40
Drew Smyly	DET	8	2	5	4	3	SEA	Jason Vargas	22:10
Tim Lincecum	SF	6	4	5	5	5	LAN	Chad Billingsley	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.

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Paul

13 years ago

In the Bay area, the game is on NBC tonight, not Comcast.
So the the tv crew is Jon Miller/Mike Krukow and the radio crew is Kuip/Flemming