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.





Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

16 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
BBBB
11 years ago

The Rockies and Edwar Cabrera are 10’s? Bold

Well-Beered Englishman
11 years ago
Reply to  BBBB

And absent an*, Edwar Cabrera is a 10 as a matter of objective, sacred truth, writ for all eternity, rather than a daily sermon-thought by our handsome, discretionary shepherd.