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Clayton Kershaw is an outlier, and for the more number-oriented among us, outliers can be best appreciated through their statistics. One could investigate Kershaw with the same enthusiasm with which one could investigate Barry Bonds. Maybe more fittingly, he’s like a modern-day Pedro Martinez. His career could be considered an accumulation of incredible fun facts. There’s the one about how his five-year ERA is still holding under 2.00. There’s the one about how Kershaw allowed an identical .521 OPS in three consecutive seasons. (In the fourth season, Kershaw got better.) It’s overwhelming to think about gathering all the best Kershaw fun facts. There are too many. You might already have your own favorite.

Now I have another fact to add to the list. It’s a little bit different — it’s as much about the hitters as it is about Kershaw himself, and it isn’t even necessarily good. What it is is an outlier. It’s another Kershaw stat that stands out from the pack. It requires some digging to get to, but the effort, I think, is worthwhile, because seldom do you ever encounter such statistical separation.

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It’s quite possible that — as recently as last night, with the Orioles preparing to finish their series against the Brewers — that Manny Machado had no idea who’d be on the mound for the Twins this evening. That sort of knowledge, and the preparation that goes along with it, would have to wait until Baltimore was finished with Milwaukee. The young third baseman doesn’t like to look too far ahead. I learned that when I spoke to Machado earlier this season.

At the time of our conversation, the Orioles were in Boston to play the Red Sox. His club would be facing the White Sox next, and I was interested to know when Chicago — and, specifically, their pitchers — would begin entering Machado’s consciousness. Here’s what he had to say.

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Machado on preparing for a series: “I don’t really think ahead. I think it’s the same way for most of the guys in this clubhouse — you have to stay in the moment. Today we have to face Chris Sale, so why would we think about the White Sox coming up? We have to worry about one of the best pitchers in the game, and what we’re going to do against him. We just prepare for the guy we’re going to face tonight. We stay with our same routines in the cage, and on the field, as well.

“Every time you go into a series, you kind of want to know who the three or four starters are going to be, but that’s just right before the series starts. I don’t know who is pitching for Chicago yet. Once the series here is over, I’ll take a look to see who we’ve got coming. I’ll kind of prepare myself mentally and start creating my plan for that series.

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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Jose Siri, OF, Cincinnati (Profile)
Level: Low-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: HM   Top 100: NR
Line: 3-for-5, 3B, HR

Notes
Siri’s slender 6-foot-2 frame contains surprisingly big tools. He’s a plus runner with above-average raw power and arm strength. He also has good bat control, although an aggressive approach at the plate has lead to some strikeout issues throughout his career that could be further exposed at upper levels. He has big upside if he can continue to hit. Much of what scouts are saying about Siri now were being said, verbatim, about Nick Williams two years ago.

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“Watch a batting practice of mine and it’s real boring,” said Freddie Freeman with a smile. The Atlanta first baseman is back, and he’s playing third base right now. You’d think the change of position might be the strangest thing about him. After studying angles with the team’s infield coach Ron Washington, though, he feels like playing third won’t actually be so difficult. What’s weirder is his approach during batting practice. As both his numbers and geometry suggest, however, his unusual BP strategy makes sense for him.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather 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.

How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.

Most Highly Rated Game
Boston at Tampa Bay | 19:10 ET
Sale (120.2 IP, 62 xFIP-) vs. Faria (32.1 IP, 78 xFIP-)
Imagine how good Chris Sale has been in your head. Now imagine a pitcher who’s been roughly 18% worse than that. Who do you see? Jacob Faria, is one possible answer according to the numbers. Faria’s been one of the majors’ best pitchers since his debut almost precisely a month ago. This game represents an opportunity to observe both him and Sale and the wondrous indoors of Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston or Tampa Bay Radio.

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Episode 754
Owing to a confluence of circumstances, including his own impending fatherhood, the author is compelled to ask Dave Cameron: “If a parent’s sole, awful intent were to raise a future major leaguer, how would he or she go about that endeavor?” Using both objective data and also wild speculation, the guest attempts to answer that hopeless question.

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Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 18 min play time.)

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Over the winter, the Dodgers re-signed Rich Hill. They did so because they knew that, when he was able to pitch, Hill looked like one of the best starting pitchers in the game. And then 2017 went and got underway. Through the earlier part of 2017, Hill looked like one of the more frustrating starting pitchers in the game. The stuff, for the most part, remained there, but Hill didn’t have his same control, and his remarkable curveball was no longer working. I wrote about Hill in the middle of June, at which point his curveball had the lowest run value among all curveballs, out of everyone. It made me wonder where, exactly, Rich Hill was. Could someone who reappeared so suddenly disappear with similar speed?

Since I wrote about Hill and his struggles, he’s gone back to looking like one of the best starting pitchers in the game. In three starts, he’s allowed four runs over 19 innings, with six walks and 26 strikeouts. The easy explanation is that Hill has simply regressed to the mean. That is, his newer mean, the one he began establishing a couple years ago. That explanation would ignore the changes that Hill has folded in. Regression to the mean isn’t an automatic process. Rich Hill has simultaneously simplified and grown more complex.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Jeff’s altitude sickness, Matt Albers and Ryan Raburn, an odd-field update, the Rich Hill resurgence, the MLB Battlegrounds event in Hyde Park, Logan Morrison’s comments about Gary Sánchez, Jonathan Lucroy’s comments about framing, and more on the Reds’ pitching staff. Then they take a detour to talk to listener Max Goder-Reiser about Beep Baseball and the Boston Renegades before answering listener emails about team wins, team WAR, and chemistry, the worst records for playoff teams, David Ortiz’s tire-changing, reaching-on-error records, pitching after long breaks on the bench, the best non-qualified seasons, Aaron Judge’s BABIP, multi-level single-season home-run records, a hypothetical closer, grand-slam oddities, and more.

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We might as well start this off with a Buster Olney tweet:

Teams asking about Justin Verlander; perception is DET looking for big,big,big return w/out salary offset. Owed $70m for rest of ’17,’18.’19

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 4, 2017

Just from reading that tweet alone, one could infer a few things. One, that the year hasn’t gone very well for the Tigers. That much is true, and the Tigers are only in the playoff race in the way that everyone in the American League is still in the playoff race. The Tigers are closer to the AL basement than they are to a playoff spot. Two, that Justin Verlander is available, and he’s been good enough to be interesting. That much is also true. And three, that a Verlander trade is going to be very challenging to execute. That much is certainly true. Verlander’s is the most fascinating name on the trade market, but as things stand, I don’t know how two sides could come together.

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