You should all know by now that Statcast recently made their bat tracking data public. This is a big deal! Our own Ben Clemens made some early observations and also shared what the data does and doesn’t tell us, which included a correlation table between the new metrics and the familiar.
I can’t believe it’s been over five years since my daughter stepped in and wrote this post. In a few days she graduates from high school so I’ll be taking the week off (no weekend waiver wire article or chat) to enjoy time with family. As much as we enjoy this stupid game, friends and family mean so much more to us. I’m so pround of Ruby and can’t wait to watch her walk across the stage this weekend. -JZ
Note: I promised my kid she could write one of my articles this summer and as the summer winds down, I’m keeping my promise. -JZ
How do people do this? Writing for like 3000 hours. Then you get all mad that it must be 400 words. And figure out what to write. Then it can’t be big or small it has to be perfect. Then your kids take up all the internet. Then you have to know what BB% and Avg. for the player and it just gets soooo confusing. Then your brother is eating DILL PICKLE sunflower seeds and they smell GROOOOOSSS. When he snaps it and he spits on you. Are we there yet with this article?? This is so boring how do get this to be fun. All you do is sit and write. Then you are all itchy because you mowed the day before and the bugs bit you. Do you know what a parents favorite time of the year is SCHOOL XD. I would rather be in an ac room on my phone than at school. My favorite part of school is leaving 😉 Your brother thinks he can do math but he can’t. Anyway back to baseball. My dad lied to me about Coleverson [Culberson] can’t hit a home run but he did. Anyway, I am done. 204 words.
Post originally ran on August 9th, 2018
In my latest Big Kids article, I noticed three rookie hitters (Tyler Black, Joey Loperfido, and Jordan Beck) are struggling with the major league strike zone. Here are their AAA and MLB strikeout and walk rates.
| Name | AAA K% | MLB K% | Diff | AAA BB% | MLB K% | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jordan Beck | 19.8% | 45.8% | 26.0% | 14.9% | 0.0% | -14.9% |
| Joey Loperfido | 30.3% | 41.2% | 10.9% | 13.1% | 5.9% | -7.2% |
| Tyler Black | 13.7% | 34.8% | 21.1% | 11.0% | 4.3% | -6.7% |
| Average | 21.3% | 40.6% | 19.3% | 13.0% | 3.4% | -9.6% |
With the trio seeing major differences, I compared all hitters transitioning from AAA and divided them into those making a debut and veterans. The results line up with what I’ve observed so far, hitters are struggling to adjust to the major leagues. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re already about 10% into the season, so it’s time to take a look at some of the weird, the wonderful, and most extreme of performances. For as long as these types of results remain atop and at the bottom of the leaderboards, we know we’re still in small sample size territory! So let’s review some of the hitting outliers through a couple of weeks of the 2024 season.
I’m sure everyone who has sauntered over to Victor Scott II’s page immediately looked at his 2023 stolen bases totals. First, there are the 44 steals in AA. And they need to be added to the 50 steals in High-A. Yes, those 94 steals are now in play with Scott being named the Cardinals starting center fielder. So should roto managers get ready to pay for the young speedster?
There was some fantasy love for the 23-year-old speedster throughout draft season. Before March 1st, he was being drafted at an average spot of 586th in NFBC drafts. When Spring Training started and it was obvious Tommy Edman was not going to be ready for the season’s start, his ADP (average draft position) jumped to 440. And then the news came out yesterday that he was making the team because of Dylan Carlson’s injury and in the 47 Tuesday drafts, his ADP jumped to 254. It should possibly be higher. Read the rest of this entry »
Every year, spring training performances inflate, and sometimes deflate, auction prices and ADP. The vast majority of the time, it’s the wrong reaction. But sometimes, it’s the right move. We do learn new information during spring training, such as exit velocities, pitch velocities, new stances, new pitches added to a repertoire, etc etc. That’s what I care about, not that a hitter is batting .450 (unless it results in more projected playing time) or a pitcher holds a 1.37 ERA (unless it wins him a rotation spot or the closer role). So let’s talk about my starting pitcher targets, plus a bonus hitter sleeper.
I just got done writing up my hitter breakouts and need to make several playing time adjustments based on my projected lineup spot. I needed to find out how many plate appearances the lineup spot generated. After about a half dozen lookups, I decided to just create a simple table with the values. Read the rest of this entry »
With Jacob deGrom and Walker Buehler coming back from their second Tommy John surgery (TJS), I wanted to go back and look at how pitchers performed after going under the knife a second time. While I had high hopes this study would find some useful adjustments, the results were mixed and probably point to the pitcher being more of the same. Read the rest of this entry »
A few years back, I created pERA (pitch ERA) to help give each pitch a grade based on its results. For each grade, I never included any kind of walk rate until the final value when I added it in BB/9. It was never included in the individual pitches. A few months back, I looked into Ball% and immediately knew I needed to add it to the pERA formula. On top of that, I added a weak contact element. After a new finding, I needed to go back and tweak the batted ball numbers. Read the rest of this entry »
This past season, the minor leagues experimented with several rules including pre-tacked baseballs and automatic strike zones. The following is a look at how those rules changed the amount of expected production from players.
First off, I’m not going to weave a narrative around this data dump. There is no polishing this turd. The information can be referenced later as fantasy managers begin to dive into 2023’s results while preparing for next season. Read the rest of this entry »
