NERD Game Scores: So Much Depends Upon a Red Ballclub

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
Pittsburgh at St. Louis | 13:05 ET
Kuhl (65.2 IP, 108 xFIP-) vs. Wacha (137.0 IP, 97 xFIP-)
Over the last few days, in an attempt to fully illustrate the absurdity of this ongoing endeavor, the author has presented some alternative scoring methods and scales for these NERD game scores. To describe the public as “scandalized” would be an exercise in understatement. The mailbox is full of letters — the electronic mailbox, full of electronic letters — all of them saying one thing: “We are scandalized, Carson.”

Today, this hard look into the gauzy mists of our humanity continues. Below are two different, but also not entirely different, versions of the NERD scores for today’s games. The first one is a product of the methodology utilized in yesterday’s post. For this one, team scores are based entirely on the relevant club’s postseason odds — namely, the proximity of those odds to 33.3% repeating. A probability of precisely 33.3% yields a NERD score of 10; of either 0% or 100%, a score of 0.

The results of that:

Like a Cistulli family portrait, this table is populated mostly by 0s. It stands to reason: with two merely two games remaining, most clubs aren’t playing games of consequence. The Cardinals, meanwhile, receive the highest score — owing, that is, to their roughly 20% probability of qualifying for the wild-card game.

This second version uses a similar methodology as the first — except that the team scores, after having been calculated for their distance relative to a playoff probability of 33.3%, are then adjusted to reach a collective average of 5.0. The result: most clubs that previously received a 0 now receive a 4. And the other result: the Cardinals receive a 10. Which, this also isn’t inconceivable. The prospect of a club playing a meaningful game on the second-to-last day of the season is an attractive one. Not unlike a red wheelbarrow, so much depends on it.

Regard:

In either case, St. Louis’s appears to be the most compelling game — and, in either case, the readers’ preferred broadcast is St. Louis Radio.

One Other Brief Note
Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game is actually every game — all of which can be accessed by means of this hyperlinked text.