NERD Game Scores: Johnny Cueto Referendum Event

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
Kansas City at Toronto | 19:07 ET
Cueto (130.2 IP, 92 xFIP-) vs. Hutchison (108.0 IP, 100 xFIP-)
In reality, the present game receives a NERD score of 7 — which is to say, tied with a pair of other games on tonight’s schedule and actually a point behind the Angels-Dodgers game featuring Clayton Kershaw. Unaccounted for by the metric’s haphazardly derived algorithm, however, is how Johnny Cueto’s start for Kansas City this evening represents his debut for that club following a noteworthy deadline trade. In reality, projecting Cueto’s performance over the course of the season is a matter largely of weighting and combining data from his past performances — of which sort of mathematical alchemy Steamer and ZiPS are the product. Owing to how the dumb human mind works, however, this start — for better or worse — will function as a referendum on the wisdom of Dayton Moore’s decision to acquire Cueto at all. (Until Cueto’s next start, at least, at which point the process will repeat itself.) Accordingly, what the author has done is to alter indiscriminately the game score for this contest — to alter it sufficiently such that it becomes the most highly rated game.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.

Two Brief Notes
Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game features Colorado at St. Louis, starts at 20:15 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 the calculations both for team and game NERD scores have changed recently to better integrate playoff odds into same. Read more about those adjustments here and here.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Williams Perez	ATL	3	2	2	1	2	PHI	David Buchanan	19:05
Buck Farmer	DET	7	3	5	7	5	BAL	Wei-Yin Chen	19:05
Johnny Cueto	KC	7	4	9^	10	7	TOR	Drew Hutchison	19:07
Jeff Locke	PIT	5	9	5	3	3	CIN	Mike Lorenzen	19:10
Ian Kennedy	SD	5	3	4	4	3	MIA	David Phelps	19:10
Erasmo Ramirez	TB	6	4	5	3	7	BOS	Ed. Rodriguez	19:10
Gio Gonzalez	WAS	6	7	7	7	9	NYN	Matt Harvey	19:10
Ma. Bumgarner	SF	8	8	5	3	2	TEX	Nick Martinez	20:05
Ru. de la Rosa	AZ	8	6	7	9	5	HOU	Scott Feldman	20:10
Jason Hammel	CHN	7	5	5	3	4	MIL	Taylor Jungmann	20:10
Nathan Eovaldi	NYA	8	7	6	1	8	CHA	Carlos Rodon	20:10
Taijuan Walker	SEA	10	3	5	4	3	MIN	Tommy Milone	20:10
Kyle Kendrick	COL	0	4	4	4	9	STL	Michael Wacha	20:15
Danny Salazar	CLE	10	4	5	4	4	OAK	Ken. Graveman	21:35
Hector Santiago	LAA	4	9	8	9	10	LAN	Clayton Kershaw	22:10

* = Fewer than 10 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.
^ = Author has altered score indiscriminately.