Archive for Meta Analysis

A whopping eight years ago, I shared the hitter xK% metric I developed using a couple of our plate discipline metrics. It was quite good, using only three variables, but still had a strong R-squared of 0.81. Since then, I haven’t discussed it all that much, but still use it to help formulate my Pod Projections. However, I have actually been using an updated version that I had never shared and it’s even better. The comments on my recent xwOBA articles inspired me to finally reveal the latest and greatest version of the hitter xK% metric.

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Today’s mini-study is brought to you by Austin Gomber and Tarik Skubal. Both struggled to start the season with April ERA’s over 6.00, but I noticed both have righted the ship with May ERA’s near 3.00. Excessive walks caused their early struggles but both got them under control.

With the regression always looming, I wondered how much of the May gains should be given back in June. After looking through the data, not as much as I expected. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I’m going to take a stab to answer the simple question:

“Do hitters perform better with regular at-bats?”

While the question is simple, finding an acceptable answer is not so easy. While my final approach is far from “perfect”, it verifies the statement is true to a small extent.

The concept behind the rule-of-thumb is that with regular at-bats, a hitter can get into a groove and perform better. Usually, the idea references a hitter in a platoon.

Besides being in a platoon, he could be in the National League and used primarily as a pinch hitter. Anyone going from mainly being a pinch hitter to a full-time role will no longer occur the pinch hitter penalty.
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Today’s post is brought to you by Vince Velasquez who is schedule to face the Marlins. When I decide which pitchers to target, I look for who is facing some of the weaker offenses and Velasquez popped for being interesting (3.68 ERA, 11.4 K/9) and available. I noticed his 15% K% (5.8 BB/9) and moved on. He broke my simple rule of not rostering a player with a walk rate over 10% BB%. But is 10% the right value? After diving into the numbers, it’s not a bad rule, but I’ll try to shrink that number down.

I use 10% because it’s simple to remember. The equivalent is 3.9 BB/9 which could be rounded up to an even 4.0 BB/9. The deal is that while simple rules help, I’d like to have every advantage. For example, I used to use a 50% GB% to show an advantage. The deal is that between 50% and 55% GB, the pitcher doesn’t gain any advantage in double plays and additional high flyballs (i.e. outs).

The other reason I picked 10% is that only a few pitchers reach this total. Of the 68 qualified starters this season, nine have a walk rate of 10% or higher.
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A while back on Twitter, Razzball’s Rudy Gamble made the following comment in a discussion of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and his high groundball rate.

trying to think of any plus power guys that never figured out how to reduce a ton of GBs.

maikel franco is the only one that comes to mind with hosmer a possible second

— Rudy Gamble (@rudygamble) March 1, 2021

Vlad’s career groundball rate in just 900 PA is 50.5% which would rank as the 5th highest of 75 hitters. Over the same sample, his 118.9 mph Max Exit Velocity is the highest. It’s like he’s been blasting holes in the infield. So coming back to Rudy’s comment, will a power hitter, like Vlad, eventually get the ball in the air. While the answer is some, it’s likely not enough to make a difference.
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Every Sunday, Fred Zinkie and I spend between 30 minutes to an hour going over the three teams we share. The first words out of his mouth this week was, “I think we should add Martín Pérez.” And my first thought was that the smooth Canadian had been drinking a little too much. In classic Fred fashion, he went into detail that while Martin is a subpar pitcher and facing the Tigers who have struggled against left-handed pitching. As a team, the Tigers have a 38% K%, .467 OPS, and 33 wRC+.

I didn’t know how to how to evaluate the results when a pathetic pitcher faces an even more pathetic offense so, considering Fred’s performance history, I let him add away without too much of a fuss. I didn’t have a simple response, but I do now and I should have been suspicious of his proposal. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a disputed fact: MLB changed the ball. League brass, on the record, wanted to make the ball livelier but also raise the height of the seams, which would increase drag. The two changes — more bounce, but also more air resistance — would, more or less, offset each other.

The fact is disputed because some of the game’s most intelligent minds — namely, renowned baseball physicists, the very people most capable of determining if the ball is, indeed, different — doubt the ball has changed. It’s imperative I tell you this because they may be right, which would make me (and MLB, for the umpteenth time), well, wrong. Everything that follows assumes the ball has changed. Maybe this meshes with what you’ve witnessed, maybe it doesn’t. This is simply one stupid man’s interpretation of the data available to us thus far.

Early returns suggest MLB accomplished what it set out to accomplish. We can use weighted on-base average on contact (wOBAcon) to describe hitter production on balls in play, aka batted ball events (BBE). The average hitter is slightly less productive in 2021 than in past years, but not egregiously so, as shown below. Also, it’s only April; as the weather warms, so should be the bats. It’s reasonable to expect 2021’s league-wide wOBAcon value to climb a few ticks before year’s end.

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A while back, I investigated how a varied pitch mix helps produce weak contact. At the time, I wondered if varying pitch location would be a benefit for the pitcher. After a first stab at the data, the answer is somewhere between no and just not known.

The theory goes that a hitter would have a tough time squaring up a ball as it gets located in different parts of the strike zone. The results could even be more swing-and-miss. With this focus, I just dove in to see what stuck.

The first hurdle was finding a way to measure pitch location variation. I ended up using nine zones with nearly the same number of pitches in each zone. Deciding on just nine zone drives the rest of the results. Should there be more? Fewer? Some removed? If/when I reexamine the data, I’ll start here with some adjustments.
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The 2020 and ’21 seasons have created a unique fantasy baseball environment that has never existed. One of the biggest challenges is evaluating players. It’s been almost 18 months since there have been games across all levels. Players have changed for the good and bad. There is just no way to know how much with everyone hidden at the alternate sites. For hitters, xwOBA and a Barrel% formula can be a solution to spot and verify some breakouts.

With hitters, I find they change at a slower rate. While pitchers can change a pitch’s shape or its usage overnight, hitters can’t immediately change their batting eye or gain 50-home run power. It’s going to be subtle changes that won’t be noticeable for a few weeks. Still, I want to try to be one step ahead of these unknown adjustments by using the best indicators and hope to marry these best estimates from long-range projections.

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There still isn’t a whole lot to evaluate just about two and a half weeks into the season, but batted ball profiles are one of the few that could signal a change in plate approach that lasts all year. As one of the primary drivers of hitting home runs, let’s look to fly ball rate to see who has increased their marks versus 2020 so far. All else being equal, a higher fly ball rate will result in more homers, so paying attention to a hitter’s batted ball profile is important.

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