NERD Game Scores for Sunday, July 24, 2016

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.

Most Highly Rated Game
Cleveland at Baltimore | 13:35 ET
Kluber (129.0 IP, 78 xFIP-) vs. Worley (51.1 IP, 104 xFIP-)
Vance Worley isn’t the precise name one expects to find headlining what is allegedly the day’s most compelling game. The score produced by the author’s haphazardly calculated algorithm for this particular contest, however, has less to do with the identity of Baltimore’s starter and more with its current place in the standings. No team is perched more precariously on the knife edge of postseason qualification than the Baltimore Orioles, which club features both divisional and wild-card odds in the vicinity of 50%. For more on that, read the author’s tortuous explanation of NERD’s ongoing playoff adjustment below. For less on that, do anything else that you want.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

Two Other Brief Notes
A Tortuous Explanation of NERD’s Ongoing Playoff Adjustment
As the season wears on, the algorithm for game NERD scores weights team scores progressively more heavily and pitcher scores less heavily — to account for the greater influence of a team’s posteason chances on the watchability of their games. Also as the season progresses, the algorithm for those team NERD scores weights various performance factors (weighted batting, adjusted home-run rate) less heavily and playoff odds more heavily.

The idea of the postseason adjustment is to assess higher NERD scores to clubs which feature less certainty regarding the postseason. To accomplish this, the author begins with the divisional odds and wild-card odds and finds the absolute value of each number minus 0.5 (or, 50%). I then add the results together divide by two. Then I subtract the result of that figure from 0.5 and multiply the resulting number by 20. Finally, I normalize all the scores to create a league average of 5.0.

Here’s all of that using Baltimore as an example. The Orioles have divisional and wild-card odds of 47.1% and 31.7%, respectively, using the site’s “coin flip” methodology (which seems to best represent how human minds conceive of postseason odds).

• [ |0.471 – 0.5| + |0.317 – 0.5| ] / 2 = 0.106
• (0.5 – 0.106) * 20 = 7.9

That 7.9 number is the postseason adjustment just before it’s normalized to create a league average of 5.0. The raw league average right now is 2.61. So, to find the Orioles’ score we subtract that figure from 5.0 and add the difference to the Orioles’ raw score.

So:

• 7.9 + (5.0 – 2.61) = 10.3

That 10.3 represents Baltimore’s current playoff adjustment. The more the season progresses, the more that figure will represent a team’s NERD score.

Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features New York NL at Miami, starts at 13:10 ET, 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 calculations both for team and game NERD scores feature adjustment for postseason odds that increases as season progresses. Read more about those adjustments here and here.