The Phillies chase Max Scherzer after five innings, leading the Nationals 3-0 on two homers off Scherzer. Meanwhile, Aaron Nola is dominating the Nationals hitters for the second game in a row. He throws pitches with extremely late movement toward the plate, so much so that batters are leaning out of the way of pitches that end up strikes, especially left-handed batters. He’s walked two and struck out six in the game as he pitches the sixth inning.
The St. Louis Cardinals signed interim manager Mike Shildt to a two-year contract:
“Why now?” said John Mozeliak, the Cardinals’ president of baseball operations, in reference to making Mike Shildt the official manager. “It made sense because everything is going well and more importantly, (there is) momentum behind our players and our staff. … Clearly, we had to do something different. These changes have been very positive. I’ve had a lot of feedback from our coaches and players and everyone has endorsed him.”
The 50-year-old Shildt is the 50th manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, a club that was 50-50 on July 24 and enters Tuesday 73-58.
It’s good to reward success. Two years is a good length, also, since the Cardinals surge could be as much about Mike Mathney leaving as Shlidt taking over. If the former is true, the Cardinals might want to make another move in a couple of years.
The Marlins are investing a lot of time and effort in improving their minor league players:
The Marlins hired Emily Glass, a trained educator, and four other teachers to give language and life lessons to prospects as part of weekly 45-minute sessions. The goal is to make Marlins prospects self-sufficient and more mature, believing that increases their chance of success on the field.
Glass “has a passion for teaching,” Gary Denbo, the Marlins’ director of player development and scouting, told FS-Florida. “We hope to have the best education department in all of sports, not just baseball. That is our goal and we will reach that goal. Everyone has an individual program.”
The Marlins have installed computers and set up labs at their facilities in Jupiter and the Dominican Republic to help them with their course work.
Marlins co-owner Derek Jeter also told Denbo that he wants Spanish-speaking players in the Marlins’ minor-league system to learn English and English-speaking players to learn Spanish. That has been implemented.
There are other interesting things going on as well. The Indians and Red Sox implemented systems like this many years ago, and they appear to have very cohesive teams.
Sean Manaea may be out for the season with a shoulder injury:
A’s left-hander Sean Manaea has been shut down indefinitely with tendinitis in his left rotator cuff, and while the club is hopeful he will pitch again this year, there remains a chance that his season is over.
When I was young, torn rotator cuffs were rather prevalent among pitchers, and not many came back strong from the injury. Better training of the muscles that make up the cuff greatly reduced the catastrophic version of the injury.
Manaea was the Oakland workhorse, the only pitcher who started for them and broke the 100 inning barrier so far. The A’s really cobbled together a rotation this season, making their run at a wild card all the more impressive. Manaea is just 1 1/3 innings away from becoming an ERA qualifier.
Max Scherzer and Aaron Nola battle for the NL Cy Young Award as the Nationals face the Phillies. Tom Tango’s Cy Young Tracker has Scherzer ahead, with Nola third behind Jacob deGrom. Nola beating Scherzer twice down the stretch, however, should sit well with the voters.
The Mets send deGrom into battle with the Cubs and Cole Hamels, so all three top contenders are in action today. Hamels is 4-0 with an 0.79 ERA in five games with the Cubs. deGrom does a great job of keeping the ball in the park.
Finally, Clay Buchholz leads the Diamondbacks against the Giants and Madison Bumgarner. Buchholz walked just 16 batters in 80 innings this season. Bumgarner has mixed results against the Diamondbacks in his career. He owns a 2.58 ERA, but a 10-11 record.
Enjoy!
Here are the top picks my programs produced for use in Beat the Streak. This post mostly explains the ideas behind the calculations. In addition, this post shows tests on the Neural Network (NN). This post discusses an NN that includes the ballpark. I updated the models, and the results of those tests are here.
For 2018, I am just going to publish the Log5 hit averages and the NN probabilities with parks factored in. I am keeping track of the results here. I added a graph that gives a visual representation of the probability and success each day.
I have been asked to expand the list to the top 25 players for an econometric project.
First, the Log5 Method picks:
0.329 — Jose Martinez batting against Ivan Nova.
0.306 — J.D. Martinez batting against Jose Urena.
0.301 — Yadier Molina batting against Ivan Nova.
0.300 — Jean Segura batting against Jacob Nix.
0.295 — Justin Turner batting against Ariel Jurado.
0.294 — Christian Yelich batting against Anthony DeSclafani.
0.293 — Mookie Betts batting against Jose Urena.
0.292 — Manny Machado batting against Ariel Jurado.
0.291 — Harrison Bader batting against Ivan Nova.
0.290 — Lorenzo Cain batting against Anthony DeSclafani.
0.288 — Yairo Munoz batting against Ivan Nova.
0.288 — Jose Altuve batting against Edwin Jackson.
0.285 — Matt Kemp batting against Ariel Jurado.
0.283 — Tyler O’Neill batting against Ivan Nova.
0.283 — Nick Castellanos batting against Jakob Junis.
0.281 — Jedd Gyorko batting against Ivan Nova.
0.279 — Scooter Gennett batting against Junior Guerra.
0.278 — Miguel Andujar batting against James Shields.
0.277 — Matthew Adams batting against Ivan Nova.
0.276 — Starlin Castro batting against Brian Johnson.
0.275 — Corey Seager batting against Ariel Jurado.
0.273 — Eduardo Nunez batting against Jose Urena.
0.272 — Dee Gordon batting against Jacob Nix.
0.271 — J.T. Realmuto batting against Brian Johnson.
0.270 — Daniel Murphy batting against Jacob deGrom.
0.270 — Eddie Rosario batting against Carlos Carrasco.
It looks like a good night for the Cardinals against Nova. Jose Martinez is 2 for 10 against Nova, but Molina is 6 for 10. Neither has struck out against Nova, and balls in play can turn into hits.
Here is how the NN with Park ranks the players:
0.329, 0.743 — Jose Martinez batting against Ivan Nova.
0.288, 0.743 — Jose Altuve batting against Edwin Jackson.
0.306, 0.737 — J.D. Martinez batting against Jose Urena.
0.300, 0.734 — Jean Segura batting against Jacob Nix.
0.270, 0.726 — Daniel Murphy batting against Jacob deGrom.
0.293, 0.716 — Mookie Betts batting against Jose Urena.
0.278, 0.712 — Miguel Andujar batting against James Shields.
0.294, 0.711 — Christian Yelich batting against Anthony DeSclafani.
0.290, 0.710 — Lorenzo Cain batting against Anthony DeSclafani.
0.295, 0.708 — Justin Turner batting against Ariel Jurado.
0.279, 0.707 — Scooter Gennett batting against Junior Guerra.
0.301, 0.707 — Yadier Molina batting against Ivan Nova.
0.283, 0.703 — Nick Castellanos batting against Jakob Junis.
0.268, 0.702 — Michael Brantley batting against Kyle Gibson.
0.292, 0.701 — Manny Machado batting against Ariel Jurado.
0.276, 0.698 — Starlin Castro batting against Brian Johnson.
0.265, 0.698 — Ronald Torreyes batting against James Shields.
0.270, 0.698 — Eddie Rosario batting against Carlos Carrasco.
0.273, 0.698 — Eduardo Nunez batting against Jose Urena.
0.263, 0.697 — David Peralta batting against Madison Bumgarner.
0.272, 0.696 — Dee Gordon batting against Jacob Nix.
0.253, 0.695 — Albert Almora batting against Jacob deGrom.
0.255, 0.694 — Whit Merrifield batting against Matt Boyd.
0.258, 0.694 — Yulieski Gurriel batting against Edwin Jackson.
0.285, 0.694 — Matt Kemp batting against Ariel Jurado.
0.260, 0.694 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Noe Ramirez.
The Angels are using an opener strategy today, as Noe Ramirez gets the start. Jose Martinez is the consensus choice. It’s a two Martinez day as J.D. Martinez is the consensus second choice, although with Altuve tied for first, that is a good double down as well.
(Note that Jose Martinez is actually first. To four decimal places, Martinez is .7432, Altuve is .7427.)
The top pick each day has now generated a 16 day streak. During development, the top streak the test data produced was 16. We’ll see tonight if Jose Martinez can top that. Unfortunately, being late in the season, I’ve been doubling down, so my current streak is eight.
Remember, your best pick will fail about 25% of the time. Good luck!
Alex Bregman used a 4 for 5 night to solidify his position atop the Baseball Musings Batter Rankings. He included a double and a home run in the Astros 11-4 win over the Athletics. Mike Trout went 2 for 3 with two walks and his 31st home run as the Angels beat the Rockies 10-7 in Anaheim. Justin Turner, J.D. Martinez, and Matt Carpenter round out the top five. Paul Goldschmidt‘s 0 for 3 with a walk drops him to sixth.
The Day by Day Database is up to date.