Table of Contents

Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.

1. Reckless Power (RECK) Leaderboards

2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game

3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Reckless Power (RECK) Leaderboards

On Reckless Power, or RECK

Last year in these Notes, the author submitted for the readership’s consideration a stat that doesn’t actually exist, but is nevertheless called Reckless Power — or RECK, for short. It’s calculated by dividing Isolated Power by Isolated Patience — or, stated differently, (SLG – AVG) / (OBP – AVG). Essentially, it’s designed to identify players whose power far outstrips their patience. The results appear to approximate the Richter Scale, such that less than 2.0 is barely felt, 5.0 is moderate, and 9.0-and-up happens less than every 10 years and is totally destructive.

RECK Leaders: Qualified MLB Hitters

Here are the major-league RECK leaders so far in 2013:

RECK Laggards: Qualified MLB Hitters

Here are the qualified major-league batters with the lowest RECK figures so far:

RECK Leaderboards: Qualified MiLB Hitters

And here are the qualified minor-league* RECK leaders so far in 2013:

*Excluding Rookie League seasons that have basically just begun.

Three Brief Comments

• It would be fair to say, were one compelled to do so, that Toronto catcher J.P. Arencibia has exhibited the most reckless power so far this season among qualified major-league hitters, having hit 12 home runs while posting a 6:76 walk-to-strikeout ratio in his 236 plate appearances.

• That same Blue Jays organization also appears to have produced the minor-league hitter to have demonstrated the most reckless power, 21-year-old third baseman Gustavo Pierre in the Class-A Midwest League. Here’s a fact about Pierre: he was signed for probably $0.7 million in 2008. And another one: Pierre has recorded a 1:59 walk-to-strikeout ratio, and five home runs, in his 230 plate appearances. And a third: he’s currently in the middle of his third consecutive Midwest League season.

• It should, of course, be noted that there has been absolutely no attempt to adjust the minor-league numbers for age relative to level or park effects.

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game

St. Louis at Miami | 19:10 ET

Jake Westbrook (39.0 IP, 115 xFIP-, 0.5 WAR) faces Jose Fernandez (65.1 IP, 90 xFIP-, 1.0 WAR). With regard to the (rather low) NERD score for the Cardinals, it should be noted that they are presently 24th overall in fielding runs and second-to-last in the majors as a team in runs produced from baserunning. It should also be noted that, despite their low Team NERD score, that most of their games are rated quite highly overall because of their excellent starting rotation.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: St. Louis Radio.

Today’s Complete Schedule

Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 4.9.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.

To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.

* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.