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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In an MLB.com article from earlier this month, Adam Berry investigates the secrets of the Rays’ pitching staff. First, read the article because it contains so many great pieces of information. I wish MLB.com did more pieces like this one.

And the guts of the article comes down to this quote:

The Rays don’t employ a one-size-fits-all philosophy, Snyder said, besides imploring pitchers to throw strikes and get to a two-strike count as quickly as possible. Beyond that, their approach is player-centered: They recognize what each pitcher does best, which they can typically tell by identifying what each does most consistently, and revolve everything around that.

Two-strike counts are important? In previous work, I’ve noticed pitchers who are behind in the count generate weaker contact along with those who have a diversified pitch mix. It’s time to dive into the effects of two strikes counts and determine if they can help pitchers limit hard contact.
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Our MLB DFS lineups don’t start and end with pitching. My first five-figure tournament score came on a night where Collin McHugh scored negative points, I think–or maybe it was, like, six points. Extremely flukey, as I made the big money because Justin Turner hit three HRs for me at nearly no ownership. I’m not saying to put pitcher every night or even every now and then. I’m just stressing that each and every slate does not rest upon our pitching.

The pitcher position is so vital because it’s the slot where we can get the most accurate projection in an extremely volatile wing of DFS.

Our pitching isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they shape they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,”so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players to win tournaments. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.
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On Monday, I shared the names of eight pitchers whose Pod Projected ERA is significantly lower than Steamer. Today, let’s flip to the ERA downside names. Remember that in aggregate, Pod ERA projections are lower than Steamer, so the gap between ERA forecasts below are a lot smaller than on the upside list. Since it’s really relative projections and calculated dollar values that matter (we care how the projections compare to the player pool, not whether the pitcher is projected for a 3.00 ERA vs a 14.00 ERA), try to ignore the small degree Pod’s ERA is higher than Steamer and remember these are the largest outliers, so if put on the same ERA scale, the difference would be greater.

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Yesterday, I compared my Pod Projections in the stolen base category to Steamer and identified five hitters I am forecasting for a meaningfully higher stolen base total. Today, let’s now look at the hitters I’m projecting for fewer stolen bases than Steamer. I’ll only highlight the fantasy relevant names as there are a number projected for limited playing time that aren’t worth discussing.

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Today, I continue my Pod Projections vs Steamer battle, this time moving along to stolen bases. Similarly to the way I compared our home run forecasts, I’m going to calculate a PA/SB rate first and then extrapolate that projection over 650 plate appearances so we’re only comparing stolen base projections and playing time forecasts don’t factor in.

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