Author Archive: Mike Podhorzer

In early April, I took a look at starting pitchers who had enjoyed increased fastball velocities, and those who had suffered declines. Since velocity is highly correlated with both strikeout rate and ERA, velocity is an important metric to track during the season. Identifying early season risers could help pinpoint breakouts, while decliners could help you avoid busts. But are the early gains actually sustainable and do the losses stick? Let’s review the pitchers and see what happened the rest of the year.

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Let’s continue reviewing early season articles, moving on to the fun I had discussing the tiny sample size pitching leaderboards. As I did with the batter edition, I’ll name the player and the fun tiny sample size stat that vaulted them at or near the top of that metric’s leaderboard.

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Even though we weren’t even a week into the regular season, I had a bit of fun with tiny sample sizes at the end of March. Obviously, you wouldn’t conclude much, or anything, from stats so early in the season. But maybe some of these proved to actually be early signals? Let’s review the batters I highlighted and the metrics they stood out on and find out if the early performance proved meaningful.

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Last week, I began my review of my preseason first base rankings. Let’s now discuss the names that made the top 40, but were suspiciously missing from my preseason rankings.

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Let’s begin a short series reviewing my preseason first base rankings. My final list was posted on March 24, a day before opening night. I’ll share my final rankings, along with where each actually ended up ranking. Then we’ll discuss those I got wrong, as well as those I got right that were out of line with their Auction Calculator projected values. As a reminder, since the calculator defaults to valuing a player at his most valuable position (catcher-eligibles who also qualify at first base will be valued as catchers), I manually adjust every hitter so they are all valued solely as first basemen.

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Last week, I reviewed my 2026 batter wOBA projection showdown pitting THE BAT against Steamer. Now let’s flip on over to pitchers with the same two systems battling it out for ERA projection supremacy. In mid-late February, I compared ERA projections and shared the pitchers that each system was most bullish on compared to the other. Let’s now find out which system ended up closest.

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In mid-February, I revived my projection showdown series, starting with THE BAT X vs Steamer in forecasting batter wOBA. I shared two lists, one in which THE BAT X was most bullish, and the other in which Steamer was most bullish. I then shared my own opinion of the hitter and which system I thought would end up closest. Let’s see how we all did.

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At the beginning of February, I tested a hypothesis I had, which was essentially that hitters with better than league average maxEV and HardHit% marks, but below average Barrel% marks, had a better chance of increasing their Barrel% the following year, while HR/FB rated followed. If this was true, I imagined the other side being true as well, with below averaged marks, but an above average Barrel%, leading to a weaker latter mark and HR/FB rate the next year. Sure enough, my research proved that my hypothesis was indeed true.

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We continue my 2026 analysis review season! Today, let’s investigate the names that made my 2026 Preview: Potential Batter HR/FB Rate Surgers & Decliners list. I used Statcast’s xHR calculation to calculate the hitters that most underperformed and overperformed according to the formula and then implied that assuming all else was equal, a higher xHR total would mean a higher HR/FB rate and vice versa. Let’s find out how they ended up doing.

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Last December, I asked a question – Is Jordan Walker the Next Driveline Baseball Fueled Breakout? I’ve been obsessed with identifying which players have visited Driveline Baseball each offseason because we’ve witnessed a number of breakouts the following season. Obviously, a visit doesn’t guarantee anything and two of the three names that made my bold predictions thanks to their visits were total busts. But the mere acknowledgement a player makes by deciding to train there is important as it shows a willingness to improve. Walker was a fascinating name among the group of Driveline trainees last offseason given that he was a one-time top prospect who had disappointed, but had also already showcased some really intriguing skills.

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