NERD Game Scores: Experiment from the NERD Laboratory

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman 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.

Attempting to represent numerically the probable appeal of baseball games, already an absurd enterprise, becomes even more absurd at the end of the season. It stands to reason that a spectator would prefer, all things being equal, to watch a game that offers postseason implcations to one that doesn’t offer them. After that, though, there are questions of preference that are likely too subtle to account for and then express in a single number.

Like, for example, what’s more compelling: a game that features two clubs, each with a very low (but still extant) probability of reaching the playoffs, or a game that features one club that’s been eliminated already against another that possesses exactly a 50% chance of reaching the postseason — and therefore resides at the crossroads of great uncertainty? Or, here’s another question: is a game featuring two clubs that have been eliminated entirely meaningless? Or, another one: is the “average” watchability of a game in April (when hope is ubiquitous) the same as one September (when most clubs have already become resigned to merely seeing the season out, like a marriage that exists only for the kids)?

While there’s probably something worthwhile to say about any of those questions, this post is designed only to address only the last one — which is to say, the matter of an April game versus a September one. By the typical methodology for calculating NERD team scores, all those same scores are adjusted to produce a leaguewide average of 5.0 exactly. For most of the year, the effects of that calculation are largely invisible. But as postseason odds begin to represent a larger portion of the team NERD score (which they do, slowly, as the season progresses), most clubs also begin to feature postseason odds either of zero or one. At that point, a plurality of teams are playing games of little consequence. This becomes “average.”

The result is that clubs all cluster together at around 5.0. Here’s an example of how today’s NERD scores would look calculated by the typical methodology:

Basically, every club is a 5. Detroit and San Francisco and two or three other clubs receive a bonus for their still living postseason aspirations. But that’s it. All the other teams have either clinched and been eliminated. As a a result, this is “normal.” And because a majority of the clubs have nothing for which they’re a playing, they all receive basically an average score of 5.

For today, however, I’ve also employed an alternative methodology. One that doesn’t take for granted this average of 5.0. One that, as a result, implies that certain games in September are a bit hopeless — especially as compared to April, when every club features basically the same generic odds of reaching the World Series. For this method, what I did was merely to take each club’s chances of reaching the postseason and find the absolute value of that figured substracted from 50%. Then I’ve subtracted that figure from 50% and multiplied the result by 20. By this method, a club with a 50% chance of making the playoffs reaceives a 10.

Here’s how it works, with the Tigers as an example. The Tigers currently possess a 0.0% probability of winning the division and 29.0% probability of reaching the wild-card game, so a 29.0% chance overall. Here’s the calculation that follows:

• |0.50 – 0.29| = 0.21
• 0.50 – 0.21 = 0.29
• 0.29 * 20 = 5.8

By this method, Detroit receives a NERD score of 5.8, rounded to 6.

Here’s that same thing applied to all today’s games:

In this case, there are mostly 0s where there were 5s before — because the average team’s postseason future is already settled. The top game by this methodology is the one between two still-contending teams in Baltimore and Toronto. The readers preferred broadcast is Baltimore television.