David Ortiz was feted at Fenway Park yesterday. The 40-year-old slugger will retire following the postseason, and he’s deserving of any and all accolades that come his way. “Big Papi” finished the regular-season portion of his career with 541 home runs, 4,765 total bases, and a .931 OPS.

His October exploits are legendary. Ortiz has 17 home runs and 60 RBI in postseason action, many of which have come in key situations. The Red Sox have captured three World Series titles — their first since 1918 — since he joined the team in 2003. His slash line in those Fall Classics is .455/.576/.795.

The Dominican Republic born-and-raised slugger is a Boston icon for more than his on-field accomplishments. His charitable endeavors have been exemplary, his engaging personality omnipresent. His larger-than-life persona has captivated his adopted home. Ortiz will long be remembered for his words following the Boston Marathon bombing: ‘This is our f-ing city.”

Myriad people throughout the game have shared their thoughts on the soon-to-retire superstar in recent weeks. I collected quotes from 15, including players, managers, executives and broadcasters.

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Dusty Baker, Washington Nationals manager: “I’d have loved to have had David Ortiz on my teams. The postseasons he’s had… he’s carried them by himself, through sheer willpower. David Ortiz is one of the best that’s ever played this game. To me, he’s one of the best leaders that’s played this game. People gravitate toward him. That’s what being a leader is about. If David Ortiz wants it… what Big Papi wants, usually Big Papi gets.”

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Matt Carpenter did something special last night, on the final day of baseball’s 2016 regular season. I’ll get the anticlimactic part of this all out of the way right now: it didn’t matter. Of course, none of this actually matters, but through the lens of the St. Louis Cardinals’ year and postseason implications, what Carpenter did wound up not meaning a thing. It could’ve meant a thing; Carpenter and the Cardinals had everything to play for. Their only shot at a playoff berth came through a win, and what Carpenter did helped the Cardinals win one of their biggest game of the year, 10-4, over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

But the Cardinals needed some help alongside their win to potentially clinch that playoff berth, and with a loss to the San Francisco Giants, the Los Angeles Dodgers did not provide the necessary help. The win over the Pirates was for nought; the Cardinals were eliminated from postseason contention. Carpenter, though, did all he could — including pulling a trick out of his bag that he’d been waiting more than six years to use.

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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.

On September 1, Byron Buxton returned from a stint in Triple-A and proceeded to go 15 for 37 with five home runs over 10 games. Talking to him at the tail end of that stretch, I got a good feel for what was driving his success. The 22-year-old phenom was just playing baseball.

When expectations are sky-high, that’s easier said than done. Buxton was drafted second overall by the Minnesota Twins in 2012, and shortly thereafter he was ordained as the game’s No. 1 prospect. Media attention was heavy. Every success and failure was scrutinized. Being Byron Buxton was burdensome.

That’s slowly changing. Buxton told me that this is “probably the least attention,” he’s received since turning pro. He still feels pressure to perform, but at the same time, it’s easier for him to “not worry about what people are saying, or expecting.”

He admits to pressing early in the season. He also owns up to getting away from what comes natural. Read the rest of this entry »

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:

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Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
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One month ago, Tyler Clippard discussed Beating BABIP and the Limits of FIP in these very pages. He cited his ability to create plane as a big part of his success. The Yankees reliever effectively induces weak contact with a 91-mph riding fastball and a combination of changeups and splitters.

Clippard always has insight to offer, so I followed up on our earlier conversation when New York returned to Boston a few weeks ago. The subjects at hand were pitch usage and effectively changing eye levels.

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Clippard on if pitchers should throw their “best” pitch a higher percentage of the time than they do: “That’s a good question. I mean… I’m always trying to mix it up and have really good variance on what I’m throwing. That way hitters can’t sit on one pitch. If you are throwing your best pitch, regardless of how good it is, over 60% of the time, I feel like you’re giving the hitter a better chance. Granted, that pitch might be one of the best pitches in baseball — it’s tough for the hitters to hit, even if they know it’s coming — but to me, it just works against what pitching is.

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Earlier recaps: Episode 1.

Welcome to our recap of the second episode of “Pitch”, entitled “The Interim”. As always, there are spoilers, so read at your own risk.

We join Ginny Baker (Kylie Bunbury) in the aftermath of her first major-league victory (which is, of course, the first ever major-league victory by a woman). After the locker-room blowup we saw last week, Ginny’s determined to not cause any more of a fuss, despite the outside pandemonium that sports pundits have dubbed “Ginnsanity.” She wants to be “just one of the guys.”

The best way to do this is by going out for drinks with some of her Padres teammates. Almost immediately, they address the issue of Ginny’s sexuality — something that, ideally, wouldn’t be relevant, but, in reality, most definitely is. Ginny’s not a “nun,” nor is she a lesbian, but she doesn’t hook up with teammates, either. Now they know.

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Ben and Sam banter about a wild night in baseball, the morality of forfeits, and the triples record, then discuss Theo Epstein’s record-setting extension.

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Even if you didn’t predict great things for the Diamondbacks this year, it’s hard not to be disappointed by their 2016 season. You can set aside their various front-office nonsense and still come to that conclusion. Zack Greinke hasn’t been great, A.J. Pollock missed significant time, and Shelby Miller’s year has gone about as poorly as you could imagine. The club is set to lose nearly 100 games and finish last in the NL West.

You’d think that Jake Lamb offensive exploits would be among the club’s few points of pride this season. In 2015, Lamb recorded a 91 wRC+; he’s raised that figure to 115 this year. But it’s more likely that the club is worried about their young third baseman going into the season’s final games. After a scorching hot start, Lamb hasn’t just cooled off in the second half, he’s cratered.

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