just a reminder that i launched pitch leaderboard 6.0 today
unlike in recent offseasons, i sank a lot of time into improving it. enjoy it, or don't, i'm not your dad
🚨 PITCH LEADERBOARD 6.0 IS LIVE 🚨
You can sign up at my Buy Me a Coffee page, linked in my next scheduled tweet.
If you have any questions/concerns about membership (or debug issues—surely there will be some!), please don't hesitate to reach out.
💕
ok, but here's something hilariously wholesome my friend just sent me. his friend saw mike trout at a grocery store and took a selfie – but, a social distancing selfie
and trout commented back
genuinely the best shit. i love it
Remember: The reason Twitter has "Verified Accounts" in the first place is because baseball manager Tony La Russa sued Twitter over an impersonator account:
mike trout's worst 162-game rolling WAR: +7.9
only 10% of hitters in MLB history accrued at least 7.9 WAR in their careers
only 0.2% of hitter-seasons in MLB history have ever exceeded 7.9 WAR
this is, hands down, my favorite statcast discovery so far
i looked at every two-pitch sequence (within PA but not across) in 2018 to see which combination is best at inducing swinging strikes
the result: throw the same exact pitch right before it!
i drew 1,000 random samples of 51 sliders+curves from kershaw's 2017 season
exactly one had a 0% swinging strike rate
so we are talking about a one-in-1,000 chance, what the astros pulled off
This should put the World Series games weren’t tainted argument to bed.
51 off speed pitches from the best pitcher in the planet and no swings and misses? FOH
pete alonso broke a home run record that is [checks watch] two years old with a ball that makes every hitter have the aluminum bat from backyard baseball
mike soroka faced the aluminum bat and posted the best indexed ERA *ever* (60) for any rookie with as many innings (174.2)
announcement time
i built a pitch leaderboard powered by statcast data. you can filter/sort pitchers' individual pitches as well as aggregate performance.
sometimes, when you can't find what you're looking for, you must take matters into your own hands
just a reminder that t***** b****, against all odds, overcame the adversity of [checks notes] being a
#3
-overall draft pick to achieve [checks notes again] a career 3.90 ERA
with all due respect to whomever compiled the angels prospect list for mlb pipeline, it's hard for me to believe the angels have even two better prospects than joyce, let alone eight
maybe i don't watch enough baseball but i love grandal giving keller what is effectively a release angle target—a target that corresponds with the implied linear trajectory out-of-hand—then shifts to the expected final location based on that target. and keller executes perfectly
MLBPA: half a season, full prorated salaries
MLB: one game, AL versus NL, lasts until (a) all 780 active-roster players have entered the game or (b) 24 innings, whichever happens first, winners split 8% of prorated salaries, losers get nothing and are obligated to contract covid
New
#Angels
3B Anthony Rendon on
#Dodgers
: “It’s not that we didn’t want to play for them, they’re a great organization that’s built to win. But what we heard about how the organization is, the Hollywood lifestyle, it didn’t seem like it would be a fit for me and my family.”
hey y'all fyi i'm joining
@pitcherlist
, not like as a full-time staffer or anything—far from it—but nick and i have been picking each other's brains for so long we just figured let's make a thing of it
also he needed an alex to fill
@AlexFast8
's vacancy. i am just a token alex
hey! quick reminder that if you think today's terrorism is even remotely similar to the BLM protests, or if you are cool with what's happening today in any capacity, you can unfollow me. i won't miss you! i won't even realize you're gone. you are intellectually unsalvageable. bye
not much of an announcements guy, simply because i don't have many announcements to make, but: i'm pretty thrilled to announce...
i've been invited to compete in tout wars!
matt swartz has nearly perfected arbitration modeling, so i would defer to his expertise should he override, but when
@seandolinar
and i looked at this more than half a decade ago, every home run was worth $45K–$50K at arbitration. that's not chump change for a journeyman
3-0 bomb from Yermin Mercedes off of a position player!
Announcer: “I don’t like it. Up 15-4. I don’t like it”
Guess who does like it? Yermin. Yermin’s wallet. Yermin’s family who gets food put on their table by him. Fans of the Sox. Fans of baseball.
respectfully if you quote IVB without arm slot you are reading me a book and skipping every other line. arm slot (in part) dictates and constrains IVB. i can infer the arm slot from the IVB but if you are proving to me that the IVB is impressive i'm gonna need the arm slot! thx!
"i don't know who needs to hear this but" here are correlations (r²) with next-year ERA (60+ IP in current and next year, n=305)
0.216 Stuff+
0.197 pitchingbot stuff
0.185 Pitching+
0.144 SIERA
0.131 bot overall
0.101 pFIP
0.099 bot ERA
0.091 xFIP
0.090 pFIP_EV
0.074 FIP
to the baseball community:
if you have ever benefited from the pitch leaderboard,
please consider donating to the maui mutual aid fund or maui food bank (info below). or venmo me
@pitchleaderboard
and i'll donate on everyone's behalf.
thanks,
alex
(please RT for visibility💙)
my mom passed away 10 years ago this july. she came 3rd in my home league's inaugural year 35+ years ago. my dad hid a ring in a cracker jacks box at an angels game. they had their reception at angel stadium. she helped cultivate my love for the sport
@BobbySandlot
@lizchar
nothing harmful about more accessibility even if it seems excessive. also, costs exactly zero to simply leave a mailbox where it is. it's already a sunk cost.
bill james blocked me years ago, but rest assured, no matter what stupid thing he said to cause my timeline to boil, it's not the first stupid thing he has said, nor will it be the last, and we're not contractually obligated to follow old stupid white men who had a good idea once
for the afternoon crowd, i developed an alternative to xFIP (and SIERA) that is as descriptive and more predictive, predicated upon the assumption (and evidence indicating) that:
> pitchers influence pitch height
> pitch height affects launch angle
> LA helps determine outcomes
tuck this in your back pocket for next year:
frankie montas always threw gas. PEDs did not help him develop a splitter, nor did they help him add 2 mph to his slider
you can chalk up his breakout to PEDs — in fact i invite it. because i'll gobble up that discount in 2020 drafts
2020 hitters with < 17% whiffs/swing* and > 110 mph max EV, min. 100 BBE
ketel marte
josé ramírez
josé iglesias
jake cronenworth
(*whiffs/swing ≠ SwStr%, which is whiffs ÷ all pitches)
the irony that he wasted so much time and breath on "development" only to not achieve jack shit until he started pine-tarring is not lost on me
also kyle hendricks has been significantly better for significantly longer yet you can't imagine him ever getting a deal like this
despite being fundamentally anti-retrospective, i can't help but contribute to oversaturating the market
thanks to anyone who has ever given a shit about anything i've written, researched, or made. it is truly humbling to know people might care, maybe a lot, about something i do
let me tell you: i will go to war for cavan biggio
this is gonna be a THREAD, y'all!!!!!!!
(1) look at this list, simply sorted by statcast's GB%. look at these names!! and who has the fewest combined ground balls and pop-ups? BIGGIO. no one optimizes launch angle like biggio.
if i almost hit nolan arenado in the head with a baseball and then he yelled at me to DO IT AGAIN, DO IT AGAIN, LET'S GO, DO IT AGAIN i would simply do it again i don't want to further upset him by not listening. this is how you avoid conflict
wow i can't believe all these pitcher injuries. certainly someone has to do something about it (someone does something about it) wow i can't believe the pirates didn't let jared jones throw 90 pitches
if i ever hit a MLB home run, let alone a world series home run, i would carry my bat to second base and then chuck it as far as i could into left-center
Right-hander Randy Dobnak and the Minnesota Twins are in agreement on a five-year, $9.25 million contract extension with three club options, sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN. The deal can max out at $29.75 million with the options and can grow with escalators.
i long suspected corey kluber's 5-year peak (2014-2018) was one of the best in recent memory. i was right—out of nearly 80,000 such 5-year spans since 2000, it ranks 21st
so, for anyone who cares: here are the best 5-year fWAR peaks since 2000. it's the same 10 guys and kluber
in which i use a combination of spray angle, batted ball trajectory, batted ball quality, and hitter handedness to "adjust" xwOBA
it's a good day for jose ramirez, willie calhoun, matt olson, and jeff mcneil – all resoundingly My Boys
random finding of the day:
r² = 0.24 between BABIP and stdev(LA)
that is, tighter avg launch angle ➡️ higher BABIP. bat control and all that.
also: tighter launch angle ➡️ more repeatable exit velo to a small extent (r² = 0.14)
What happened to Spencer Strider?
Why does he likely need Tommy John Surgery?
Here's a clip that makes obvious his issue.
See how his pitching arm is FLAT and not UP when his pitching arm side elbow comes off the white line?
That's Flat Arm Syndrome.
in our group chat tonight my friend texted us a photo of his friend taking a pic with boone at the bar. dude got ejected, packed his shit and hit up the local dive
nothing has made me feel absolutely fucking ancient like tiktok. what is it. is it a vine? but longer? and it can only have music and poor editing and the same shitty sans-serif font every time? so, like, a youtube video from 12 years ago? please help
The
@MLB
needs to stop listening to their corporate communist sponsors and remember the little guys who buy their tickets.
The same people who are now saying they are done with professional sports.
Keep the politics off the field and stop ruining everything!
aaron judge 2017:
52 HR
94.9 mph EV (
#1
/ 182)
100.2 mph EV FB/LD (
#1
/ 182)
pete alonso 2019:
53 HR
90.6 mph EV (
#43
/ 175)
96.5 mph EV FB/LD (
#13
/ 175)
like, is alonso a huge trap play in 2020? seems so by deserved barrel%. at least judge's peripherals were historically good
this is an extremely boomer-ass take from me, and i don't intend to disparage carroll or acuña or any of MLB's young, extremely talented players, but all of the "_____ + SB" records being set this year under new rules feels kinda, idk... not totally valid?
i'm going to keep bothering you about this today because i feel like it's kind of important
wOBA - xwOBA on barrels
2015: +0.069
2016: +0.033
2017: +0.010
2018: -0.157
and it's not just random variance
🚨 PITCH LEADERBOARD 3.0 IS HERE 🚨
(ONLY 2021 DATA FOR NOW!)
why is this just now going live? the short story is my actual job has devoured the last two months. also, i'm a dad now
i'll try to make timely updates, but they likely won't be daily anymore
Max Muncy, Mookie Betts, Chris Taylor and Gavin Lux were among the
@Dodgers
hitters to visit Driveline Baseball at the team's suggestion.
“We just thought there was some opportunity with certain guys to go up there, get some information on them.”
lance lynn kicking ass really feels like exhibit A as to why an elite fastball is so important. this is mild exaggeration, but both high-whiff secondaries and high-velo fastballs are a dime a dozen. actually good fastballs are rarest, and damn do they make such an impact
random finding of the day:
r² = 0.24 between BABIP and stdev(LA)
that is, tighter avg launch angle ➡️ higher BABIP. bat control and all that.
also: tighter launch angle ➡️ more repeatable exit velo to a small extent (r² = 0.14)
much has already been made about isaac paredes' ability to pull fly balls. i will simply bolster the argument by showing that he's not just good at it, he may be the best at it
(all hitters with 650+ BBE the last two seasons
induced vertical break (IVB, y-axis) with the context of vertical release point (x-axis) exclusively for four-seamers, 2020-23
identical IVBs are not created equal; 17" from 6.0' is extremely ordinary, 17" from 5.4' is not
(color-coded for pitch effectiveness, red to blue)