Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet 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
Washington at Pittsburgh | 13:35 ET
Ross (26.2 IP, 66 xFIP-) vs. Cole (124.2 IP, 79 xFIP-)
Owing to the author’s combo package of ungovernable sloth and wide-ranging incompetence, there’s no adjustment included in any of the NERD algorithms to account for those games in which a player is expected to pursue some manner of historical record. So, for example, Zack Greinke’s current streak of 43.2 consecutive scoreless innings is ignored by the figures one finds in the table below. Fortunately, the totalitarian dystopia within which one is forced by law to watch only the top-rated game as determined by the author — fortunately, that bleak hellscape exists only in the future. As such, the reader is permitted to observe Greinke’s start without recourse.

Were one interested in consuming a different game, however, this Washington-Pittsburgh contest would appear to offer no little aesthetic possibility. Both of the relevant clubs are currently in the very real midst of a postseason race. Moreover, one finds that Joe Ross and Gerrit Cole are scheduled to start — the latter having been excellent this season, like everyone expected; the former, also excellent, but in a way no one expected at all.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington Radio.

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With five days left until the trade deadline, things seem to be picking up, with one big move nearly happening last night, and some others potentially getting done today. So while I was originally planning on running these speculative guesses as my Monday piece, I figure I might as well publish it now before teams make a good chunk of this irrelevant.

So, what follows are my guesses as to who goes where before July 31st, based on what teams are rumored to be looking for and who we know is available. The tricky part of an exercise like this is that there are also guys who are available that we don’t know about, and if a team penciled in for one of the available guys goes for the mystery box instead, it will have a domino effect, driving that available player somewhere else, and messing up multiple guesses in the process. So, by Friday, I’d be surprised if I got more than a few of these right. This is really more just for fun than any kind of serious attempt at handicapping exactly where everyone is going. But let’s see how I do.

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Kevin Pillar is a stud with the glove. The Blue Jays center fielder has 14 Defensive Runs Saved, which ranks him second behind Kevin Kiermaier among fly chasers. Unlike the Rays’ hit robber, he didn’t reach the big leagues because of his defense.

“I got here because I hit well at every level in the minor leagues,” said Pillar, who put up a .322/.364/.477 slash line down on the farm. “My offensive production overshadowed my ability to play defense, but I enjoy playing center field and I enjoy making good plays. I have fun out there.”

He’s certainly been fun to watch. Pillar passes the eye test with flying colors, as evidenced by myriad appearances on highlight reels. But while he’s surprised a lot of people with his Devon White-like play, he hasn’t surprised himself. Read the rest of this entry »

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet 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 New York NL | 19:10 ET
Undecided (N/A) vs. Harvey (118.1 IP, 92 xFIP-)
Reports indicate that this game might represent the major-league debut of right-handed Dodgers prospect Zach Lee. A first-round selection out of a Texas high school in 2010, Lee notably forewent an opportunity to play quarterback at LSU by signing with Los Angeles. As Kiley McDaniel notes, Lee’s arm speed has declined since turning professional, although he’s still managed to record an above-average strikeout- and walk-rate differential as a 23-year-old in Triple-A this year. Even without Lee, this game offers the opportunity to observe two clubs, in the Dodgers and Mets, both contending for division titles. It also offers the opportunity to observe Matt Harvey, who is human but not actually all-too-human.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: New York NL Television.

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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, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
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The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a couple years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion in the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above both (a) absent from the most current iteration of Kiley McDaniel’s top-200 prospect list and (b) not currently playing in the majors. Players appearing on any of McDaniel’s updated prospect lists or, otherwise, selected in the first round of the current season’s amateur draft will also be excluded from eligibility.

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Ben and Sam banter about analytics and secrecy, then answer listener emails about aces in relief, the Phillies’ terrible rotation, and more.

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When Rangers lefty Matt Harrison hobbled off the mound in the second inning of a game against the Astros in May of 2014, you, like any rational observer (such as the esteemed yours truly), probably experienced the lumbar equivalent of a sympathetic pregnancy. You probably winced — and just in case the initial wince didn’t register with the awww-jeeeez registry, winced again — and then reached for your lower back, wiggled it around while listening to the unmistakable sounds of Pachinko and fell to the floor in unmitigated agony after reaching for the business card of a chiropractor.

Or something like that.

Mercy.

It was painful to watch, and more painful, surely, for poor Matt Harrison to bear. Having already undergone a pair of 2013 surgeries to repair a herniated disc, Harrison, with his head bowed and back slightly but tellingly bent, walked gingerly to the dugout that day with four earned runs (in 1.2 innings) in his wake and, worse, one lumbar spinal disc fusion surgery in his future.

Couched in the careful language of objective reports were subtle eulogies to his once ascendant career, little nods to the possibility — the probability — that the 6-foot-4 former All-Star had thrown his last big league pitch, or, really, his last pitch, period. After all, nobody else in the history of baseball — a sport, mind you, in which unfettered actions of the spinal column are pretty key to performance — had ever undergone the same surgical procedure, let alone returned from it. In a season that saw so many Rangers sojourn in long disability, Harrison seemed bound for a permanent stay.

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