NERD Game Scores: The Sound and Fury and Cardinals

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 | 20:15 ET
Glasnow (18.1 IP, 104 xFIP-) vs. Martinez (188.1 IP, 94 xFIP-)
Yesterday, the author experimented with a version of NERD game scores that does not assume an average NERD score of 5 for all teams every day of the season, but instead assesses a score to each club based on its postseason odds, where odds of 50% would equal a perfect score of 10 and odds either of 0% or 100% equal a NERD score of 0. Given the number of teams which have either clinched a playoff spot or, in most cases, been eliminated from the postseason altogether, this naturally leads to a lot of 0s. The advantage, however, is the there aren’t a number of teams clustered around the 4 mark, which naturally becomes the “average” score at a point in the season when most teams are playing for little and/or nothing.

Today, I’ve employed basically the same methodology, with one difference: instead of using 50% as the Platonic ideal of postseason odds, I’ve used 33%. Which is to say, in this case, a club with a playoff probability of 33% would receive a perfect score of 10. (And, as in the previous case, odds either of 0% or 100% equal a NERD score of 0.) Why 33%? (Or, really, 33.3% repeating.) Because this is every club’s generic postseason odds on Opening Day, when all things are possible. There’s something elegant about a club, at this stage of the season, possessing the same odds of qualifying for the playoffs as on the very first day of games. One imagines all the expectations from that first day, condensed (at this point) into the last three days of the season, nothing having been resolved over the first 159 games.

Finally, one small point about assessing NERD scores based on a “midpoint” of 33% instead of 50% — namely, that 33% isn’t a midpoint between 0% and 100%. So postseason odds that are five points lower than 33% naturally aren’t equal to postseason odds that are five points higher. In fact, it’s not much of a problem. Because the distance between 33% and 100% is twice the distance between 33% and 0%, the NERD scores for figures that move “up” from 33% decline at half the rate of those which move “down” from 33%. So, the equivalent of a 16.5% playoff probability — which is roughly half of 33% and therefore receives a NERD score of 5 — is 66%, which is twice 33% and therefore also receives a NERD score of 5.

In the end, most of this immaterial, of course. Specifically, that is, because it’s pretty clear how the Cardinals are playing some of the league’s most consequential games right now. And, more generally, because the entire exercise signifies nothing.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: St. Louis Radio.

One Other Brief Note
Today’s Free Game
Today’s free game is actually every game — all of 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.