NERD Game Scores for Saturday, August 9, 2014
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
Los Angeles NL at Milwaukee | 19:10 ET
Zack Greinke (146.1 IP, 69 xFIP-, 2.9 WAR) faces Mike Fiers (7.0 IP, 139 xFIP-, 0.0 WAR). Following Milwaukee’s victory over the Dodgers last night (box), the club now possesses 45% odds of reaching the divisional series — closer to even than any other major-league team. Starting for the Brewers is Fiers, who has produced both excellent and less excellent major-league numbers in the past. His stats for Triple-A Nashville skew decidedly in the more excellent direction this year. To wit: 102.1 IP, 31.5% K, 4.2% BB.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Milwaukee Radio.
A Single, Brief Note
Regarding Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features the same Dodgers and Brewers 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 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 10 | NYA | Bran. McCarthy | 13:05 |
| Max Scherzer | DET | 7 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 9 | TOR | M. Stroman | 13:07 |
| John Lackey | STL | 7 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 2 | BAL | U. Jimenez | 16:05 |
| Jake Odorizzi | TB | 7 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | CHN | Edwin Jackson | 16:05 |
| Dillon Gee | NYN | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 8 | PHI | Cole Hamels | 19:05 |
| Eric Stults | SD | 4 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 7 | PIT | Francis. Liriano | 19:05 |
| Zack Greinke | LAN | 9 | 4 | 7 | 10 | 6 | MIL | Mike Fiers* | 19:10 |
| Brad Penny* | MIA | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | CIN | Alfredo Simon | 19:10 |
| Tim Hudson | SF | 5 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 6 | KC | James Shields | 19:10 |
| Yu Darvish | TEX | 8 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 0 | HOU | Scott Feldman | 19:10 |
| Tanner Roark | WAS | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 3 | ATL | Aaron Harang | 19:10 |
| Jorge de la Rosa | COL | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | AZ | Trevor Cahill | 20:10 |
| Clay Buchholz | BOS | 2 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 9 | LAA | Gar’tt Richards | 21:05 |
| Trevor May* | MIN | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 7 | OAK | Jeff Samardzija | 21:05 |
| Hector Noesi | CHA | 3 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 9 | SEA | James Paxton* | 21:10 |
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.
Just saying hi!
I do have a bit of constructive criticism for the NERD score. All the NERD scores for today are between 4 and 7. The distribution of NERD scores is too heavily weighted in the middle. How often do games actually end up as 9’s or 10’s?
Assuming a distribution of scores along a standard bell curve*, shouldn’t the bulk of NERD scores fall between 4 and 7 (actually 3 and 7, I suppose)?
*[I’m assuming that NERD scores are relative to some sort of mean.] With the preceding assumption, if most games were scored a 9 or a 10**, wouldn’t that be the equivalent of little leaguers not keeping score (e.g. everyone wins)? Granted, if one is a fan of a specific team, one may find that team’s games to be highly watchable, even if they are not objectively (as a Twins’ fan, this is me).
** I had a forensic psych professor who attempted to have the average class score be a 50%. As a result, one could not know how grades would be distributed until after the final exam. I believe an “A” was 75% and up, a “B” was 60-74%, et cetera.
Numbers with upper and lower bounds can never be distributed along a true bell curve. The overall NERD scores appear to be basically an average of 4 numbers which appear to be somewhat uniformly distributed. The more uniform distributions that you average, the closer the distribution comes to being normal as it also gets more dense toward the mean. So if there were like 100 different factors which got averaged, it would even be more bell-like but almost all NERD scores would be 5.
I just feel there are too many overall NERD scores in the middle, and unless decimals are going to be added, it is hard to differentiate between different games.