Daily Notes: The League’s Most Valuable Pitches So Far

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

1. The League’s Most Valuable Pitches So Far
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

The Best Pitches in the Majors So Far This Season
Introduction
It’s a fact as old as the sands of the deserts — or at least as old as the expensive laptops which utilize semiconductors fashioned from the silicon extracted from those sands — that, within the electronic pages of FanGraphs, one can find the run values relative to league average for every pitcher’s respective pitch types. The point is self-evident.

The bright idea which has stopped the reader in his tracks this morning, however — not unlike Paul on the Damascus Road, really — is to combine all the respective pitch-type run values into a single leaderboard, such that the public might better discern which pitches have been most valuable this season.

This step having been taken by the author during his breakfast, the reader is invited to find the results of same reproduced in the table below.

Leaderboard: Most Valuable Pitches in 2013, Thus Far
Here, according to pitch-type run values available here at the site, are the top-10 most valuable pitches so far this season relative to league average:

Rank	Name	Team	IP	Runs	Type
1	Clayton Kershaw	Dodgers	204.0	34.5	Four-Seam Fastball
2	Matt Harvey	Mets	178.1	31.1	Four-Seam Fastball
3	Yu Darvish	Rangers	168.0	30.5	Slider
4	Max Scherzer	Tigers	178.1	26.8	Four-Seam Fastball
5	Cole Hamels	Phillies	179.0	24.7	Changeup
6	Kenley Jansen	Dodgers	64.2	19.5	Cut Fastball
7	Jose Fernandez	Marlins	152.2	18.3	Curveball
8	Justin Masterson	Indians	182.1	18.3	Slider
9	Jose Quintana	White Sox	164.2	16.3	Four-Seam Fastball
10	Bronson Arroyo	Reds	168.2	15.6	Slider

Three Notes
• Of all the league’s pitches, Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw’s fastball has been the most valuable this season in terms of runs prevented relative to league average. For a number of reasons — the most basic of which is that Kershaw’s fastball is very good — this is unsurprising. Among those unsurprising reasons, however, is this: between 2009 and -12, Kershaw’s fastball was worth an average of +22.2 runs per season, a mark that would place sixth on this list by itself.

• Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen has thrown precisely 90 fewer innings than the next least prolific pitcher (Miami’s Jose Fernandez) on this list. This also isn’t particularly surprising: in both 2011 and -12, Jansen’s cutter was worth at least +12 runs.

• Here’s action footage of that same cutter — in this case, at 93 mph to Giancarlo Stanton for a strikeout on August 21st:

And here’s that same pitch in slow-motion:

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Los Angeles AL at Tampa Bay | 19:10 ET
Garrett Richards faces Chris Archer (95.1 IP, 108 xFIP-, 0.7 WAR). While the latter has received considerable attention, it’s actually the former (Richards) who’s posted both the better defense-independent numbers (85 vs. 108 xFIP-) and slightly higher average fastball velocity (95.0 vs. 94.8 mph, according to PITCHf/x) — this, with the caveat that Richards has thrown some number of innings in relief.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Tampa Bay Radio, Probably.

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 6.1.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Edwin Jackson	CHN	5	4	5	3	5	LAN	Ricky Nolasco	15:10
Martin Perez	TEX	7	3	7	4	9	SEA	Felix Hernandez	15:40
H. Alvarez	MIA	6	1	7	3	10	WAS	St. Strasburg	19:05
Tom Gorzelanny	MIL	6	4	6	6	7	PIT	Charlie Morton	19:05
Hiroki Kuroda	NYA	5	3	5	6	5	TOR	Todd Redmond	19:07
Dan Straily	OAK	5	7	6	7	7	DET	Doug Fister	19:08
Garrett Richards	LAA	8	8	7	10	5	TB	Chris Archer	19:10
Bud Norris	BAL	3	9	6	9	7	BOS	John Lackey	19:10
Justin Masterson	CLE	8	7	7	8	5	ATL	Paul Maholm	19:10
Cole Hamels	PHI	8	0	6	6	5	NYN	D. Matsuzaka*	19:10
Jarred Cosart	HOU	2	4	5	1	10	CHA	Chris Sale	20:10
Danny Duffy*	KC	7	8	5	3	3	MIN	Andrew Albers	20:10
Homer Bailey	CIN	9	3	8	3	9	STL	A. Wainwright	20:15
M. Bumgarner	SF	7	4	6	7	5	COL	Jhoulys Chacin	20:40
Robbie Erlin	SD	5	6	5	3	6	AZ	Wade Miley	21:40

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.