Daily Notes: Kevin Gausman Preparedness Manual

Table of Contents Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes. 1. Featured Game: Baltimore at Toronto, 19:07pm ET 2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game 3. Today’s Complete Schedule Featured Game: Baltimore at Toronto, 19:07pm ET Regarding This Game, Who’s Starting It for Baltimore Starting this game for Baltimore, in terms of a pitcher, is Compelling Baseball Prospect Kevin Gausman. The appearance will mark Gausman’s first in the majors. Regarding Gausman, Some Potentially Useful Information Originally drafted by, but ultimately refusing to sign with, the Dodgers in 2010, Gausman was ultimately taken by the Orioles fourth overall in last season’s draft out of LSU — behind, that is, only Carlos Correa (Astros), Byron Buxton (Twins), and Mike Zunino (Mariners). Regarding Gausman, His Prospect Status Prior to the season, Gausman predictably appeared on all the notable top-100 prospect lists. Here are some examples of where, specifically: Baseball America: 26th Baseball Prospectus: 13th Bullpen Banter: 15th FanGraphs: 15th John Sickels: 23rd Keith Law: 26th Regarding Gausman, His Performance In 13 minor-league starts between last season (at Low-A Aberdeen and High-A Frederick) and this one (at Double-A Bowie), Gausman has posted the following line: 61.1 IP, 9.1 K, 0.9 BB, 0.9 HR/9. Regarding Gausman, His Projection Gausman’s rest-of-season projection according to Steamer is as follows: 63.0 IP, 8.0 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 1.0 HR/9, 3.93 ERA, 3.79 FIP, 0.8 WAR. Gausman’s Repertoire: Fastball Reports, like J.D. Sussman’s very recent one that appeared in these electronic pages, generally place Gausman’s fastball in the 96-98 mph range with good movement. Here’s an example of Gausman’s fastball from this spring, against Boston’s Brock Holt: Gausman’s Repertoire: Slider Again according to Sussman, there were questions with regard to Gausman’s breaking ball out of college — questions which he answered rather well. Gausman throws his slider in the 82-84 mph range, generally. Here’s an example of it, again from this spring, this time to elicit a swinging strike from Jonny Gomes: Gausman’s Repertoire: Changeup Reports of Gausman’s changeup are almost entirely gushing. Like the slider, he throws it in the 82-84 mph — although with that pitch’s signature fade and depth. Here’s an example of the pitch to Jackie Bradley from this spring: And that same pitch in slow motion, for no purpose other than the reader’s Continued Amusement: Readers’ Preferred Broadcast Per the results of our crowdsourcing project from the 2011-2012 offseason, FanGraphs readers prefer Toronto Radio, probably (link). Today’s MLB.TV Free Game Minnesota at Detroit | 19:08 ET Scott Diamond (39.2 IP, 113 xFIP-, 0.1 WAR) faces Rick Porcello (38.0 IP, 84 xFIP-, 0.3 WAR). Here’s Rick Porcello’s career strikeout rate: 13.1%. Here’s his strikeout rate this season: 17.0%. And, finally, here’s his strikeout rate over his last four starts (25.0 IP): 25.0%. Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit 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 5.8. Note: the following table is entirely sortable. Away SP Tm. Gm. Tm. SP   Home Time Edwin Jackson CHN 5 5 5 7 3 PIT Jeanmar Gomez* 12:35 Kevin Gausman* BAL 12 7 7 4 2 TOR Brandon Morrow 19:07 Scott Diamond MIN 2 3 5 8 8 DET Rick Porcello 19:08 Zach McAllister CLE 4 9 6 8 6 BOS Ryan Dempster 19:10 Joe Blanton LAA 5 5 6 7 7 KC Ervin Santana 20:10 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.