NERD Game Scores: Let’s Use Championship Leverage Index

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
Los Angeles NL at San Francisco | 15:05 ET
Maeda (173.0 IP, 89 xFIP-) vs. Moore (190.1 IP, 108 xFIP-)
As in other recent editions of this daily exercise, this current edition of the exercise is the product of an experiment — in particular, with regard to how the team NERD scores are calculated. At this point of the season, those team NERD scores are typically a function of each club’s playoff probability, where a probability of 50% (or, in a recent case, 33%) would yield a NERD score of 10; a probability of either 0% or 100%, a NERD score of 0.

For today, however, NERD scores have instead been calculated by utilizing championship leverage index (cLI) — which metric is, per Dan Hirsch’s Baseball Gauge, “a measurement of the importance of a particular game, based on how a win or a loss affects a team’s World Series win expectancy.” This is essentially the concept of leverage index applied not to a game state but a season state.

What I’ve done is to assess the highest current cLI (San Francisco’s 2.84 mark) a NERD score of 10 and scale all other cLI figures to that. The results of those calculations are below. (Note: all cLI numbers are available here.)

Unsurprisingly, the Cardinals’ and Giants’ and Tigers’ team scores are the highest. They’re among a paucity a minority of clubs whose seasons haven’t been resolved. Because none of them are playing each other, however, none of the games themselves are likely to reach peak drama. All in all, it appears as though the Giants game is most urgent in its way. FanGraphs readers prefer Vin Scully’s Dodgers broadcast for this and every contest.