Daily Notes: Three Recently Traded Pitchers to Debut

July 28, 2012

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

1. Featured Games, Plural
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Games, Plural
Regarding What’s Happening Today
The thing that’s happening today is three pitchers who were recently traded are starting for the teams to which they were traded today.

Regarding What Makes That Notable
What makes that notable exactly is, like most things, beyond the purview of the author; however, were that same author to wax authoritative on the matter, he’d suggest that novelty had something to do with it — which is to say, the novelty of seeing this one player pitch for this other, different team.

An Additional and Related Explanation
It’s also possible that a player’s debut with a new team — especially when that player has been acquired in a midseason trade — allows the home audience the opportunity to gather information about, and begin to form opinions on, the success of the trade in question.

Regarding Those Pitchers, When They’re Playing Tonight
Here are the three recently traded pitchers in question, accompanied by the start times of their respective games and largely unhelpful comments.

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Pitcher: Anibal Sanchez, Detroit
Game: At Toronto, 13:07 ET
Largely Unhelpful Comment: The Tigers begin Saturday 1.5 games behind the White Sox in the AL Central. The clubs’ WAR records (White Sox, 52.3-46.7; Tigers, 54.7-45.3) suggest the Tigers have been stronger on the team-level, however.

Pitcher: Wandy Rodriguez, Pittsburgh
Game: At Houston, 19:05 ET
Largely Unhelpful Comment: The addition to the rotation of Rodriguez gives the Pirates four starters that would be something better than a liability in a seven-game series: James McDonald (125.2 IP, 99 xFIP-, 2.0 WAR), A.J. Burnett (115.0 IP, 90 xFIP-, 1.8 WAR), Erik Bedard (100.0 IP, 104 xFIP-, 1.4 WAR), and Rodriguez himself (130.2 IP, 100 xFIP-, 1.8 WAR).

Pitcher: Nathan Eovaldi, Miami
Game: Vs. San Diego, 19:10 ET
Largely Unhelpful Comment: Though his strikeout rate (14.1%) has actually been below average this season, there’s also the possibility that a pitcher with Eovaldi’s fastball velocity (94.3 mph this year so far) could become an ace at any moment. On that note: Eovaldi set his season high for strikeouts (seven) and posted a single-game 1.55 xFIP in his most recent start, this past Sunday at the Mets (box).

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Oakland at Baltimore | 19:05 ET
The A’s have the fifth-best park-adjusted offense in the majors in July, with a 114 wRC+. Their team leaders this month (link): Josh Reddick (88 PA, 161 wRC+, .344 BABIP, 1.1 WAR), Coco Crisp (77 PA, 173 wRC+, .393 BABIP, 1.0 WAR), and Yoenis Cespedes (85 PA, 165 wRC+, .373 BABIP, 0.6 WAR).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Oakland or Baltimore 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 4.3.

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
Joe Kelly	STL	5	9	6	0	10	CHN	Jeff Samardzija	13:05
Anibal Sanchez	DET	8	4	7	7	5	TOR	Henderson Alvarez	13:07
Jon Lester	BOS	7	5	7	6	9	NYA	CC Sabathia	16:05
Chad Billingsley	LAN	7	1	4	4	0	SF	Barry Zito	16:05
Bruce Chen	KC	4	6	2	3	3	SEA	Kevin Millwood	16:10
Bartolo Colon	OAK	4	5	3	0	4	BAL	Tommy Hunter	19:05
Wandy Rodriguez	PIT	5	4	3	4	4	HOU	Armando Galarraga*	19:05
Justin Masterson	CLE	5	4	3	3	5	MIN	Samuel Deduno*	19:10
Joe Blanton	PHI	8	6	5	8	3	ATL	Mike Minor	19:10
Ross Ohlendorf	SD	2	6	2	3	6	MIA	Nathan Eovaldi	19:10
Jordan Zimmermann	WAS	8	7	4	7	3	MIL	Randy Wolf	19:10
Philip Humber	CHA	3	4	4	8	5	TEX	Matt Harrison	20:05
Johnny Cueto	CIN	6	4	5	9	7	COL	Christian Friedrich	20:10
Chris Young	NYN	0	3	3	7	6	AZ	Ian Kennedy	20:10
Matt Moore	TB	6	5	6	6	4	LAA	C.J. Wilson	21:05

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.