Daily Notes, With the Best Offensive Call-Ups So Far

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

1. Three Best September Call-Ups So Far: Hitters
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Three Best September Call-Ups So Far: Hitters
Regarding What’s Possible
It’s entirely possible that one might wonder to himself — out of idle curiosity, perhaps, or with a view to improving his keeper-league fantasy team or because he’s the author of a widely-hailed Daily Notes column — it’s entirely possible that such a person might wonder which of the Septebmer call-ups has performed most ably since his promotion earlier this month.

The Results of Such a Consideration, What They’d Look Like
Were one to consider the above consideration for a a medium-length of time, his results would probably look very similar to the ones below.

Three Best September Call-Ups: Hitters
Here are the three best field players among the league’s recently promoted. Each of the following both (a) entered 2012 with rookie eligibility and (b) has recorded plate appearances in September only. Note that “best” is defined not by WAR alone, but also, owing to the paucity of the samples, by regressed offense (represented by SCOUT+, where 100 is average and greater than 100 is above average).

Player: Adam Eaton, OF, ARI
MiLB Line: 562 PA, .381/.456/.539 (.432 BABIP), 167 wRC+ at Triple-A Reno
MLB Line: 83 PA, .232/.361/.406 (.255 BABIP), 103 WRC+, 120 SCOUT+, 0.7 WAR
Note: Eaton, 23, has been the starting center fielder for most of August with Chris Young injured. He has little power — hitting, for example, only seven home runs, in almost a full season’s worth of plate appearances in the PCL this year — but above-average speed and excellent control of the strike zone: after posting a 53:68 walk-to-strikeout ratio in Reno, he’s actually walked more than’s struck out (13 BB, 12 K) while batting leadoff exclusively.

Player: Pete Kozma, SS, STL
MiLB Line: 500 PA, .232/.292/.355 (.251 BABIP), 64 wRC+ at Triple-A Memphis
MLB Line: 54 PA, .298/.358/.596 (.353 BABIP), 159 wRC+, 106 SCOUT+, 0.6 WAR
Note: For as negatively affected as Kozma’s line was by batted-ball results at Memphis, it’s been that positively affected by the same during his brief time in the minors. The 24-year-old has proved to be a more-than-capable substitute in the absence of starting shortstop Rafael Furcal. Kozma made about two-thirds of his starts at second base at Triple-A, with the recently promoted Ryan Jackson getting the majority of starts there at short, but his (i.e. Kozma’s) defense appears to have been largely without incident so far in September. (Note: Kozma actually debuted this season on August 31st, to which the author declares, “Pffft!”)

Player: Tyler Cloyd, RHP, PHI
MiLB Line: 21 PA, .308/.438/.385 (.500 BABIP), 142 wRC+ at Triple-A Lehigh Valley
MLB Line: 12 PA, .111/.333/.111 (.125 BABIP), 48 wRC+, 106 SCOUT+, 0.1 WAR
Note: Tyler Cloyd has only had 12 plate appearances as a major leaguer. Also, Tyler Cloyd is a pitcher. Still, he demonstrated a peculiar ability to draw walks in the minors this season (four of them in just 25 plate appearances) and has done the same thing in a very limited sample so far in the majors (3 BB in 12 PA). Given the low offensive replacement level for pitchers, basically any sort of production is above-average production. (Note: Like Kozma, Cloyd also debuted at the end of August, to which the author declares “Pffft!” times two.)

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Oakland at Texas | 20:05 ET
Tommy Milone (179.1 IP, 98 xFIP-, 2.3 WAR) and Yu Darvish (184.2 IP, 86 xFIP-, 4.8 WAR) are both (a) fascinating for reasons you already understand and (b) starting this game for the teams for which they play.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas 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 4.1.

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.

*As commenter Calm Like A Bomb notes below, Josh Collmenter will start in Tyler Skaggs‘ place today.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Corey Kluber	CLE	7	2	5	4	6	CHA	Francis. Liriano	14:10
Bruce Chen	KC	4	6	5	5	7	DET	Anibal Sanchez	19:05
Aaron Laffey	TOR	1	4	0	2	3	BAL	Joe Saunders	19:05
Ross Detwiler	WAS	5	7	5	6	9	PHI	Cole Hamels	19:05
Nathan Eovaldi	MIA	4	4	5	6	10	ATL	Kris Medlen	19:10
Mike Fiers	MIL	6	9	5	4	7	CIN	Johnny Cueto	19:10
Wandy Rodriguez	PIT	4	4	3	2	7	NYN	Collin McHugh*	19:10
David Price	TB	10	6	5	5	4	BOS	Clay Buchholz	19:10
Tommy Milone	OAK	6	6	6	7	9	TEX	Yu Darvish	20:05
Jaime Garcia	STL	9	8	5	4	5	HOU	Lucas Harrell	20:05
Phil Hughes	NYA	5	7	2	4	2	MIN	Esmer. Vasquez*	20:10
Chris Rusin	CHN	5	2	3	7	5	COL	J. de la Rosa*	20:40
Josh Beckett	LAN	5	1	3	7	5	SD	Edinson Volquez	22:05
Erasmo Ramirez	SEA	9	4	7	8	8	LAA	Zack Greinke	22:05
Tyler Skaggs	AZ	2	7	3	4	7	SF	Tim Lincecum	22:15

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.