NERD Game Scores: Buxton & Lindor Separate Debut Events

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Seattle at Houston | 14:10 ET
Elias (58.0 IP, 108 xFIP-) vs. McCullers (31.0 IP, 71 xFIP-)
While the major-league debuts of Byron Buxton and Francisco Lindor are entirely notable, it’s also true that watching an entire game merely to the end of observing a single position player ultimately provides a poor return on one’s leisure investment. Consider: a single batter records, on average, only four or five plate appearances per game. Defensively, a shortstop (like Lindor) makes about four or five plays per game, while a center fielder (such as Buxton) makes fewer than three usually. As such, neither Buxton nor Lindor are likely to feature prominently in more than 10 of the roughly 75 total plate appearances that compose a nine-inning contest — less than 15% of the whole event, in other words. What reason dictates, instead, is that the viewer ought to watch the young and talented Lance McCullers pitch for the young and talented Houston Astros while monitoring the Cleveland and Minnesota games for the relevant at-bats within them.

This is merely one application of what might or might not be called hedonic arithmetic.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Seattle Radio.

Two Brief Notes
Debut Events: Byron Buxton, Francisco Lindor
Both Minnesota’s Byron Buxton and Cleveland’s Francisco Lindor are expected to record their major-league debuts this afternoon. The former was ranked first among Twins prospects this offseason by Kiley McDaniel and second overall — behind only Kris Bryant — among all prospects everywhere. The latter was ranked first and 14th, meanwhile, among organizational and league-wide prospects, respectively.

Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features the same Seattle and Houston clubs discussed above, and can be accessed by means of this hyperlinked text.

Complete Schedule
Here’s the complete and very sortable table for all of today’s games. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and also the rest of the internet. Note that the calculations both for team and game NERD scores have changed recently to better integrate playoff odds into same. Read more about those changes here, if you’re the sort of person accustomed to making poor life decisions.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Corey Kluber	CLE	10	8	7	5	3	DET	Alfredo Simon	13:08
Mi. Foltynewicz	ATL	7	2	5	5	6	NYN	Dillon Gee	13:10
Chris Sale	CHA	10	0	5	5	3	TB	Nate Karns	13:10
Jorge de la Rosa	COL	6	3	5	6	3	MIA	Dan Haren	13:10
Adam Warren	NYA	2	7	4	5	4	BAL	Mike Wright	13:35
Cole Hamels	PHI	7	1	5	7	5	PIT	A.J. Burnett	13:35
Marco Estrada	TOR	4	8	6	4	9	BOS	Ed. Rodriguez	13:35
Roenis Elias	SEA	4	4	7	10	10	HOU	Lance McCullers	14:10
Max Scherzer	WAS	10	6	6	3	6	MIL	Taylor Jungmann*	14:10
Chris Young	KC	1	7	4	4	4	STL	John Lackey	14:15
Phil Hughes	MIN	5	2	3	4	2	TEX	Nick Martinez	15:05
Sonny Gray	OAK	7	4	6	8	5	LAA	Matt Shoemaker	15:35
Rub. de la Rosa	AZ	9	5	7	5	7	SF	Chris Heston	16:05
Mike Bolsinger	LAN	5	6	6	3	8	SD	James Shields	16:10
A. DeSclafani	CIN	4	5	6	7	7	CHN	Jon Lester	20:08

* = Fewer than 10 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.