Today’s MASH Report is being brought to you by Ryan Butcher and Wade Davis. The pair were given a few days off recently to get themselves back together. Butcher was sent to the minor and Davis to the DL. While both may have needed a break, one interesting note exists about them missing time, both pitchers experienced a drop in their fastball spin rate right before the decision was made

These are the first two times I have seen a major league team admit that a pitcher’s spin was used to decide on how they handle a pitcher. It has been known for a while that changes in spin rate can help detect injuries. Eno Sarris talked to FanGraphs friend, Kyle Boddy about this issue.

From that discovery flowed others. “Spin-rate changes are actually one of the best predictors of injury,” pointed out Boddy, a fact that was confirmed as a known within many parts of the baseball community by multiple sources. At Driveline, pitchers have their spin rates monitored constantly for the earliest signs of unhealthy fatigue.

The problem for the general public, we have not had good access to pitch spin data until StatCast began releasing data last year. Here is a detailed look at the two pitchers whose spin rate change cause their team to act and can we make any conclusion from them.

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Another strong chat in the books!

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Back when Defense Independent Pitching stats were originally developed, BABIP was treated almost like a trash bin “other” category for plate appearances that didn’t end with one of the so called “Three True Outcomes.” Strike outs, Walks, and Home runs were observed to have far greater predictive power than other stats with regards to runs scored, and pitcher performance could be accurately estimated using only these three metrics, regardless of other factors. That’s the theory anyway, and it has evolved somewhat to account for new research that has popped up over the years. However, with the Statcast data now publicly available, we now have an unprecedented granular view of batted ball data, and many people, including myself, have developed various methods to apply exit velocity and launch angles to predict both offensive and pitching performance.

I’ve previously written about xOBA, xBABIP, scFIP, VH and PH, each of which aim to estimate end of season results given the (publicly available) Statcast data on each given batted ball. Note, this is all done on a batted ball by batted ball basis, then summed up at the end for each pitcher, team, or what have you. I’m not using average launch angles or average exit velocities to calculate these things.  In calculating and applying these stats I’ve noticed that while xOBA has pretty decent year to year predictive value (2 = .22) and excellent predictive value within a given year (r = .78), xBABIP does not.  Nor does standard BABIP, even though xBABIP is pretty good at predicting BABIP itself.  The two stats, xBABIP and xOBA, are calculated using nearly identical methods, adding just one single step at the end of xOBA, weighting the batted balls by the linear weights you can find here.  How could this be?   Read the rest of this entry »

Agenda

1. The Kendrick-Hendricks Scale
2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard
3. Daily DFS
4. SaberSim Observations
5. Tomorrow’s Targets
6. Factor Grid

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Episode 234 – Six for six

The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss Matt’s imaginary road trip to Philadelphia, the strange concept of Matt’s dad wishing Dylan’s mom a happy birthday, a small six-game slate, picking on Alec Asher, pronouncing Luke Maile’s name, digging for shortstop options, Alex Cobb’s viability, the up and down of Juan Nicasio with the Pirates, and remembering Ivan Nova’s fateful contest selection.

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9/7/16

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer
• @enosarris
• @jasoncollette
• @paulkastava

Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles/Game Play

• Justin Bour activated (4:06)
• Dallas Keuchel to miss 2 starts (13:00)
• David Paulino up, Jordan Zimmermann activated (17:00)

Strategy Section: Struggling Last 30 Days

• Aaron Judge (22:00)
• Wil Myers (26:50)
• Jay Bruce (30:20)
• Xander Bogaerts (34:14)

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Okay, obviously the headline there is something that has become easily perceivable anytime anyone has watched Manny Machado pick up a bat in the last calendar year or so. One of the more prominent players at the third base position in a number of ways (again, I’m dealing in obvious statements here), one of the elements that folks were watching for early in his career was for that power to develop. Primarily a gap hitter early in his career, with 51 doubles during the 2013 season, it was only a matter of time before balls started leaving the yard. Here we are into Machado’s second completely healthy season in the last three years and that early expectation of more power has absolutely come to fruition.

In his first full season, back in 2013, Machado posted an ISO of just .148. The “just” qualifier is present only because of where he finds himself now. But he found the seats only 14 times across 700+ plate appearances. The 2014 campaign wasn’t completely a wash, but he was limited to appearances in 82 games because of injury. His ISO over that significantly smaller span came in slightly higher, at .153. But last year saw him break out in the power game.

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Note: Some of these notes were written before the games were played on Tuesday, so the stats may be a day old.

Quick Looks: Robert Stephenson

The 23-year-old Stephenson’s star has fallen a little bit since the start of the season. Here is how MLB.com and Baseball America graded him out to start the season.

Baseball American had him graded out quite a bit higher with his curve and change being borderline elite pitches. MLB.com on the other hand graded his fastball higher.

The one aspect both publications could agree on is his lack of control. His inability to find the plate can be seen in his 4.0 BB/9 or greater since he has been promoted to Double-A.

I watched his start on the Aug. 5 versus the Mets and here are my thoughts.

• The fastball was between 93-96 mph. Most of the time it was straight, but did show some cut action. Besides the speed, this pitch is very blah.
• His curve was between 80-83 mph with 12-6 break. At times he could throw it for strikes.
• His change was 84-86 and really inconsistent. Sometimes it was straight as an arrow. Other times it had a nice 12-6 break. Even other times it bounced in front of the plate. This inconsistency can be seen in a 20% Zone% on the season. Hitters will soon find they can just let this pitch pass.
• While I mentioned specifically that his change was going to be inconsistent, he lacked command on all his pitches.

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The ottoneu community is quickly growing into a hub of ottoneu analysis and discussion that supplements our longer form analysis on Rotographs. Today, I’d like to give a little preview of some of the additional discussion going on over at the community, led mainly by Justin, Trey, and Joe, as well as by some more adventurous members of the community who have been interested in trying their hand at writing. While the community certainly isn’t intended to replace any of the rigorous analysis done here at Rotographs, the hope is that it can serve as a less formal complement to the traditional content produced here, with a variety of forum-like features that encourage discussion, debate, suggestions for new ottoneu features, and plenty of friendly banter.

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Agenda

1. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard
2. Daily DFS
3. SaberSim Observations
4. Tomorrow’s Targets
5. Factor Grid

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