Ted Williams once said, "baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer". Batting Average has long been used as a way to compare production of hitters. Over the years people have come up with stats like OPS+ and wRC+ which... Continue Reading →
The great Ty Cobb once said, “If a man pretends to be a major leaguer, he should stay in the lineup no matter who is pitching.” This is coming from someone who was 1 of 2 guys to ever have over 4,000 MLB hits. For the rest of the 99.99% who don’t have the highest... Continue Reading →
In 2020, Zach Davies’ changeup was ranked #2/469 changeups based on run value. In 2021 though, his changeup was dead last in the rankings at #590/590! Many questions come to mind when you see such a drastic transformation like this. Did his changeup metrics like his movement differ from 2020-2021? Table 1 Table 1 displays... Continue Reading →
Three divisions in 2021 are on pace to achieve unique feats. The AL East can potentially end up with 4 teams having 90+ wins, the NL West is almost certain to have 2 teams with 100+ wins, and the NL East is very likely to have 0 teams reach 90 wins. AL East: Final win... Continue Reading →
Throughout the history of baseball, there have only been 2 players to lead their league in OPS and defensive WAR in the same season. One of them is Willie Mays (in 1954) which should come as no shock to anyone. The other...was Snuffy Stirnweiss (in 1945). When we think of the year 1945, the ending... Continue Reading →
Have you ever noticed that good pitchers seem to reach back for a little extra velo when they need it? This blog post will look at the top 20 starting pitchers by average fastball velocity. I chose starting pitchers because they have to pace themselves throughout a game more than relievers so I expected to... Continue Reading →
One of the best tools available to programs around the country is HitTrax. With HitTrax, batters hit off a pitching machine or live pitcher and get feedback from the system that includes batted ball outcome (hit, ground out, fly out, etc.) and metrics like exit speed, launch angle, and even point of contact from home... Continue Reading →
In the recent MLB draft, Cleveland drafted three pitchers from the University of Florida. These Gators are; Tommy Mace (69th), Jack Leftwich (216th), and Franco Aleman (306th). Here is the data for each of their pitches: After reading Rylan Domingues’ most recent article: Mathematically Discovering Jack Leiter’s MLB Pitch Comps, I reached out to learn... Continue Reading →
In the months preceding the Major League Baseball draft, the buzz around the top draft-eligible pitchers start to come about. Baseball news outlets love to come up with Major League comps for these potential stars. And as fans we love to say “Oh this guy really reminds me of [fill-in the blank].” While this is... Continue Reading →
The Pythagorean Win Percentage for baseball was created by Bill James to correlate a team's winning percentage to their expected win percentage. His initial equation was: Over the years this has held up with slight changes in the exponent to get a higher correlation between expected wins and actual wins. Currently, on Baseball Reference the... Continue Reading →
As the Tigers focused on pitching during the early stages of the rebuild, it has started to make its presence felt at the Major League Level. The organization has now started shifting its focus to positional talent. While this has resulted in a lack of starting pitching talent in the farm system, there are now... Continue Reading →
As a right-handed submarine pitcher, you hear countless times that you will be more effective against righties and will struggle against left-handed hitters. The past data agrees with this, as do most (if not all) coaches and past players. So why are submarine/sidearm pitchers having more success against opposite handed hitters than same-sided hitters this... Continue Reading →
Hitters are often told by their coaches to “hunt the fastball,” to look to drive a fastball rather than seek out a breaking ball that exchanges velocity for movement. However, amid the Moneyball Era, a group of baseball misfits were already looking to the future and what would become the Statcast Era. In 2003, professors... Continue Reading →
Why was I screaming at my TV in agony as the Yankees turned their first triple play of the year on May 21st to get them out of a jam against the White Sox? This may seem like a weird reaction from a lifelong Yankees fan...unless you knew about the Curse of the Triple Play.... Continue Reading →
Baseball analytics have long been focused on helping teams gain a competitive advantage by finding players their competitors have overlooked for one reason or another. While this started by using very basic statistics such as on-base percentage, recent decades have seen the methods for doing this become increasingly advanced. Major League teams are now pouring... Continue Reading →
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