Daily Notes: Three Notable Promotions of Great Note

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

1. Three Notable Promotions
2. Notable MLB Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Three Notable Promotions
The Big News in the World
The big news in the world — besides the fact that you and I haven’t shuffled off this mortal coil — is that three notable prospects either (a) have just been or (b) are about to be promoted to the majors.

Who They Are
Here are the names of those three prospects. Names accompanied by facts. Facts enriched by notation.

Player: Trevor Bauer, RHP, ARI
Line: 93.0 IP, 11.23 K/9, 4.65 BB/9, 0.48 HR/9, 3.02 FIP* at Double- and Triple-A
Notes: While Bauer has not been officially promoted to the majors (so far as I can tell), Jack Magruder of FOX Sports Arizona — and probably a number of other sources — confirm that Bauer will be recalled on Thursday and also will start that day. If you’re reading these words, you’re likely familiar with Bauer. He was selected third overall in the 2011 draft out of UCLA. Our Marc Hulet ranked him first among Diamondbacks prospects entering the season. He (Bauer, not Hulet) has real ideas about pitching. Of course, if you’re not reading these words — are, for example, having them read aloud to you by an intern or manservant or something — then you don’t really need to know who Trevor Bauer is, probably.

Player: Martin Perez, LHP, TEX
Line: 84.1 IP, 5.23 K/9, 4.06 BB/9, 0.64 HR/9, 4.39 FIP at Triple-A
Notes: Perez is a very young (still just 21) left-hander who can throw in the mid-90s with two other pitches that grade out as average at worst. That makes him what is known to all the best and most important scouts as an Insta-Prospect. His rankings per Baseball America reflect that: BA ranked Perez second among Rangers prospects in their 2012 handbook. Here are their previous rankings for him: first (2011), third (2010), fifth (2009). Like BA, Hulet ranked him second in the Texas organization. Of note, however, is the lack of results for Perez, as borne out by the numbers you see above. He has been decidedly young for his levels, but he will still be that in the majors. Perez was officially recalled on Tuesday, although his role is unclear for the moment.

Player: Anthony Rizzo, 1B, CHN
Line: 284 PA, .342/.405/.696 (.357 BABIP) at Triple-A
Notes: Unlike Bauer and Perez, Rizzo has some major-league experience already, having recorded 153 plate appearances last year with San Diego, the team from which he was traded to Chicago in exchange (most notably) for right-hander Andrew Cashner. Rizzo was both recalled and also made his season debut on Tuesday, batting third and playing first base for the Cubs in their game against the Mets (box). He did well. To wit: 4 PA, 1 1B, 1 2B, 0 BB, 0 K. It’s unlikely Chicago would have recalled him not to play him, so it’s likely that he’ll take over first-base duties for the present, with Bryan LaHair (231 PA, .281/.364/.532, .370 BABIP, 136 wRC+ after play Tuesday) moving to the outfield.

*Multi-level FIP courtesy Minor League Central.

Notable MLB Games
Tampa Bay at Kansas City | 14:10 ET ***MLB.TV Free Game***
Left-hander Matt Moore (80.2 IP, 104 xFIP- 0.7 WAR) starts for Tampa Bay. Here’s a status update on his platoon splits, which managing editor Dave Cameron discussed at some length a couple of weeks ago. Against right-handed batters: 66.2 IP, 279 TBF, 27.2% K, 10.8% BB, 39.5% GB, 3.70 xFIP. Against left-handed batters: 14.0 IP, 72 TBF, 12.5% K, 13.9% BB, 42.9% GB, 6.71 xFIP.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Tampa Bay Radio.

Washington at Colorado | 20:40 ET
“Who is Edwar Cabrera?” is a reasonable question for anyone to ask. Fortunately, the internet has answers. Edwar Cabrera is, it appears, a 24-year-old left-hander who’s posted this line at Double-A Tulsa: 98.0 IP, 7.53 K/9, 2.11 BB/9, 1.38 HR/9, 4.31 FIP. He’s also, it appears, the sort of player who just missed Marc Hulet’s top-15 prospect list for the Rockies this preseason. According to Baseball America’s Matt Eddy, Cabrera has a fastball with some cut that sits at ca. 89-91 mph, a mediocre breaking ball, and “perhaps the best changeup in the Texas League.” He makes his debut tonight against the NL East-leading Nationals.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington 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
Zack Greinke	MIL	10	6	6	4	5	CIN	Homer Bailey	12:35
Ubaldo Jimenez	CLE	0	4	4	6	9	NYA	Andy Pettitte	13:05
Chris Sale	CHA	10	5	4	3	1	MIN	Nick Blackburn	13:10
Ricky Romero	TOR	2	7	6	6	7	BOS	Jon Lester	13:35
Matt Moore	TB	7	4	6	6	5	KC	Everett Teaford*	14:10
Jonathon Niese	NYN	7	1	7	3	10	CHN	Jeff Samardzija	14:20
Jarrod Parker	OAK	4	4	3	5	2	SEA	Kevin Millwood	15:40
Chad Billingsley	LAN	5	3	5	4	6	SF	Tim Lincecum	15:45
Jered Weaver	LAA	4	4	6	3	8	BAL	Jason Hammel	19:05
James McDonald	PIT	6	2	6	5	7	PHI	Raul Valdes*	19:05
Trevor Cahill	AZ	6	6	6	7	3	ATL	Tommy Hanson	19:10
Joe Kelly*	STL	6	10	5	2	7	MIA	Anibal Sanchez	19:10
Doug Fister	DET	7	4	7	10	9	TEX	Roy Oswalt*	20:05
Clayton Richard	SD	4	4	2	6	4	HOU	Lucas Harrell	20:05
J. Zimmermann	WAS	8	4	7	10	10	COL	Edwar Cabrera	20:40

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.