August 29, 2024

Best Batter Today

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Yordan Alvarez of the Astros goes four for four with a walk and three home runs to move up to fourth in the Baseball Musings Batter Rankings. His game score of 98 not only topped the day, but ranks as the second highest game score of the season. It is the 18th time this season a player posted a score of at least 90. Six of those involved three homer games.

Aaron Judge of the Yankees remains at the top of the list after a one for two with two walks in a 5-2 Nationals win. His teammate, Juan Soto, posted an 0 for 4 in the game, and went 0 for 12 with three strikeouts in his visit to his old stomping grounds. That drops him to fifth place.

Valdimir Guerrero Jr of the Blue Jays holds second place after a one for three in a 3-0 Boston win. Bobby Witt Jr. oft the Royals used a two for five game with a home run to move into third place. The Guardians took the game 7-5 to break the tie for first place in the AL Central.

August 29, 2024

August 28, 2024

August 28, 2024

SusSpencer

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Spencer Arrighetti of the Astros just finished six no-hit innings against the Phillies. He walked four and struck out eight as the Astros lead 7-0. He’s thrown 78 pitches so far.

I’m listening to the Phillies broadcast, and John Kruk can’t believe the Phillies haven’t gotten a hit, as Arrighetti came in with a 4.94 ERA. He only allowed 112 hits in 116 2/3 innings, so it’s really his high walk and home runs rates that lead to the ERA.

Update: Mauricio Dubon makes a great catch at the wall in leftfield to end the seventh inning, the Phillies going down 1-2-3 to preserve the no-hitter. Arrighetti is not at 86 pitches.

Update: A notable game for the Astros on offense as Yordan Alvarez just hit a line drive home run to centerfield, his third home runs of the game. Houston leads 10-0 in the top of the eighth inning. He’s driven in four runs.

Update: Austin Hays singled leading off the eighth to end the no-hitter. Arrighetti lasted 7 2/3 innings for the short shutout as the Astros take the game 10-0.

August 28, 2024

Wild Finish Wednesday

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The two early Wednesday games ended in big comebacks as the Guardians downed the Royals 7-5 and the Cubs beat the Pirates 14-10.

The Royals took a five-two lead into the seventh inning. They allowed Michael Wacha to start the seventh inning, however, and the Guardians greeted him with a home run and two singles. Lucas Erceg came on and gives up Wacha’s runners to tie the game. Then in the eighth, Bo Naylor reaches base and Lane Thomas pinch runs. He winds up on third on an SBE, and scores on a sacrifice fly for the winning run. Cleveland regains sole possession of first place in the AL Central.

The Pirates led the Cubs 10-3 at the end of six innings, Paul Skenes having somewhat of a weak outing, but was in line for the win for his five innings. The Pirates pen, however, allowed two runs in the seventh, three runs in the eighth, then six runs in the ninth for a 14-10 Cubs win. The pen gave up 11 hits and six walks.

August 28, 2024

Games of the Day

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The Royals and Guardians battle for first place in the AL Central with Michael Wacha facing Tanner Bibee. Wacha last three seasons are impressively consistent. He played for three different teams, but generated a very similar ERA, and beat his FIP projections by a lot. Bibee pitched well against the Royals in his short career, holding a 2.81 ERA in three starts.

The Orioles take on the Dodgers in a possible preview of the World Series. Corbin Burnes faces Walker Buehler. Burnes stands at 12 wins. Even though he posted great ERAs throughout his career, he never reach 13 wins. Buehler made ten starts this season. He made one good start in May before he was sidelined again. He allowed 7 runs, six earned, in 7 1/3 innings since his latest return from the illjured list.

Enjoy!

August 28, 2024

Beat the Streak Picks

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For the past few years Baseball Musings tried to help with playing Beat the Streak. The Day by Day Database keeps track of hit streak of at least five games. In addition, two programs produce top ten lists of players with a high probability of a hit.

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.

The Log5 Method yields these top projected hit averages versus starting pitchers:

It looks like a good day for the Orioles, although who knows if Walker Buehler will return to form as he recovers from a long term injury. Diaz comes out on top. He owns a career .289 BA with a .315 OBP. High BA, low OBP usually means someone who should be good at extending streaks. He’s raised both those numbers this season to .297/.323.

The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:

It’s nice to see a new generation of hitters making this list. Arraez is the consensus top pick, with Diaz the double down choice.

Note that the Rangers and White Sox are playing the finish of a game suspended after four pitches, then the regularly scheduled game. That will likely influence the lineup for the second game, the game that counts here today.

You can follow the NN results on this spreadsheet. I do not guarantee results. Your best pick is going to have about a 25% chance of not getting a hit. Good luck!

August 28, 2024

Best Batter Today

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Tuesday brought no change to the top five in the Baseball Musings Batter Rankings. Aaron Judge and Juan Soto of the Yankees remain one and three respectively. Judge doubled and walked, while Soto took an 0 for 4 in the 4-2 Nationals win. Judge’s probability of 63 home runs this season stand at 0.21.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.of the Blue Jays sits in second place after a two for five with a double in a 6-3 Red Sox win. Bobby Witt Jr.of the Royals holds fourth place as he posted a one for four with a HBP and a double in a 6-1 win over the Guardians. The Royals and Guardians are now tied for first place in the AL Central!

Fifth place belongs to Yordan Alvarez of the Astros, one for four in a 5-0 Phillies victory.

The best game score of the day belonged to Ezequiel Tovar of the Rockies, three for four with a double and two home runs in a 9-8 slugfest won by the Marlins. Tovar topped his doubles total of last year, 38 to 37. Power is his game, with 61 extra-base hits. Those come at a high cost of outs, as he owns a paltry .298 OBP.

Griffin Conine, Mr. Marlins Jr. collected the first two extra-base hits of his career, a double and a triple in his second MLB game.

August 28, 2024

August 27, 2024

August 27, 2024

Beat the Streak Picks

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For the past few years Baseball Musings tried to help with playing Beat the Streak. The Day by Day Database keeps track of hit streak of at least five games. In addition, two programs produce top ten lists of players with a high probability of a hit.

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.

The Log5 Method yields these top project hit averages against starting pitchers:

Judge comes out second on this list, but he walks so much he is a tough pick. Also, Corbin looks like he’s improving since the Yankees don’t dominate the top picks!

The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:

  • 0.340, 0.762 — Luis Arraez batting against Miles Mikolas.
  • 0.302, 0.725 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Gavin Williams.
  • 0.288, 0.721 — Jose Iglesias batting against Eduardo Rodriguez.
  • 0.314, 0.717 — Donovan Solano batting against Miles Mikolas.
  • 0.311, 0.714 — Jackson Merrill batting against Miles Mikolas.
  • 0.302, 0.714 — Amed Rosario batting against Mitch Spence.
  • 0.320, 0.711 — Aaron Judge batting against Patrick Corbin.
  • 0.305, 0.711 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Cooper Criswell.
  • 0.285, 0.710 — Yainer Diaz batting against Aaron Nola.
  • 0.298, 0.702 — Freddie Freeman batting against Cole Irvin.

Both systems agree on Arraez as the top pick. Judge, Solano, and Witt all tie for the consensus double down choice.

You can follow the NN results on this spreadsheet. I do not guarantee results. Your best pick is going to have about a 25% chance of not getting a hit. Good luck!

August 27, 2024

August 27, 2024

August 27, 2024

White Sox Watch

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The Tigers beat the White Sox 6-3 on Monday, lowering the White Sox winning percentage on the season to .235. That is below the .250 winning percentage of the 1962 Mets, the modern record for mediocrity. Time to update the probability of Chicago finishing with no more than 40 wins.

They need to go no better than 9-21 the rest of the way to finish with a worse winning percentage than the Mets. The lowest winning percentage that doesn’t include 30 wins in the 95 percent confidence interval for 132 games is .309. The probability of no more than 9 wins at that level is 0.55. For replacement level of .296, the probability stands at 0.61. Both measures now favor the White Sox finishing with no more than 40 wins.

If you are looking for a more optimistic view, the White Sox are -6 wins by the Pythagorean Won-Loss percentage. That would put their 95 percentage confidence interval probability at .358, which reduces their probability of finishing with no more than 40 wins to 0.34, or about 1 in 3.

The managerial change has not helped. This is just a terrible team.

August 26, 2024

Royals Sweep

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The Royals took game two of their doubleheader from the Guardians 9-4 to close Cleveland’s lead to one game. While young legend Bobby Witt Jr. proved the hero of game one, veteran legend Salvador Perez hit two home runs, including a grand slam, and drove in six runs in game two. The Royals have plenty of opportunities to catch and pass Cleveland as they play two more games in this series and three games in Kansas City next week.

August 26, 2024

Weekly Look at Offense

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Every Monday Baseball Musings compares offense in the current season to offense in the previous season through the same number of weeks. For the second week in a row, 2024 lost ground to 2023. The current season produced 8.83 runs per game compared to 9.21 runs per game last year. The big reason is fewer batters reaching base per game; .15 less by home runs (2.41 to 2.26), .25 less by other hits (14.40 to 14.15), and .30 by walks (6.46 to 6.15). Strike outs are down .40 (17.22 to 16.81).

One explanation could be that batters are being more aggressive at the plate, not waiting to fall behind and putting pitches in play. If you combine that with a further adjustment of fielders to the new shift rules, MLB could wind up with more balls in play without more hits. It also could be that swinging early means batters are swinging at pitches that lead to poor results.

The league scored 8.76 runs per game last week, very close to the season average. It was a poor week for hits with any type of hits below average. You can follow the weekly run scoring since 2015 on this spreadsheet.

August 26, 2024

Too Tall for Short

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The Pirates decided to move Oneil Cruz from shortstop to centerfield:

Cruz is likely to be the designated hitter for the three-game series against the Chicago Cubs that starts Monday night. He will go through pregame workouts during the early part of the week before likely making his center-field debut sometime during a three-game weekend series at Cleveland.

…

Cruz, 25, became the tallest shortstop in major league history when he made his debut on Oct. 2, 2021.

“It’s something that we’ve been talking about,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said of the position change before Monday night’s game. “It’s not something we took lightly. He’s an unbelievable athlete. We feel that [center field] is probably the best position for him and for the Pirates.”

ESPN.com

While the article points to errors, Cruz ranked 19th in UZR per 150 defensive games.

One of the advantages of drafting shortstops is they can be moved to easier defensive positions fairly easily. We’ve seen this kind of move frequently over the years.

August 26, 2024

As Heard on TV

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I have heard broadcast play by play announcers discussing on-base streaks. As you might imagine, it is much easier to earn your way on base than just by a hit. This list is a bit out of date, but the top remains the same. Twice hitters exceeded 70 games in a season. Joe DiMaggio set a record of 74 in 1941 as part of his hitting streak. Ted Williams blew that away in 1949 with an 84 game streak. I don’t think many people were award of the records at the time, as hits were paramount. Drawing a lot of walks can be detrimental to a hit streak, but they are great if you are trying to generate an on base streak.

The second thing I heard was in a recent Yankees broadcast, where they talked about Juan Soto providing protection for Aaron Judge by being on base so many times in front of him. I actually did a graphic about this at ESPN in 1992. George Bell joined the White Sox at season, near the end of his career, and he was driving in a lot of runs. Robin Ventura and Frank Thomas were batting in front of him, clogging up the bases. Bell saw the most runners on base that season, so opponents could not pitch around him. Bell was still good at generating power, and that led to lots of RBI. The takeaway is that there is more than one way to protect a power hitter.

August 26, 2024

The Stuff of Legends

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The Royals took game one of the their doubleheader against the Guardians 4-3. Kansas City’s MVP candidate, Bobby Witt Jr. loomed large in the decision. The Guardians tied the game at three in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Bobby Witt Jr. homered leading off the eighth inning to break a tie as the Kansas City Royals pulled closer to Cleveland in the AL Central with a 4-3 victory over the Guardians in the opener of a day-night doubleheader Monday.

Witt connected on a 0-1 pitch from rookie Hunter Gaddis (4-3), driving it 413 feet into the left-field bleachers for his 27th homer of the season — and his 11th in 34 games since the All-Star break.

He came in batting .417 since the break, the fourth-highest average (with at least 125 at-bats) in the second half since World War II. Only Ted Williams (.454 in 1957), Ichiro Suzuki (.429, 2004) and George Brett (.421, 1980) have hit higher.

Chron.com

With that swing, Cleveland’s lead in the AL Central is down to two games. We’ll see if Witt can lead the Royals in the night-cap as well. Coming into today, Aaron Judge led Witt in fWAR 9.6 to 9.0. Baseball Reference has Judge up 9.4 to 8.4. There’s something to be said for Witt producing those numbers as a shortstop, although that should be baked into WAR. If Judge sets another home run record, or wins the triple crown, he will win MVP. There is going to be a pretty good case if the Royals win the division for Witt. He doesn’t have a seven WAR player helping him out.

August 26, 2024

Games of the Day

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The Royals and the Guardians play a doubleheader today, the Royals three games back in the AL Central. The Royals lead the season series 4-2.

The Blue Jays and the Red Sox play a sort of doubleheader as well, game one is the continuation of a game stopped by rain in June. Danny Jansen makes history in that game as the first player to appear for both teams in the same game.

The Astros visit the Phillies as Ronel Blanco takes on Zack Wheeler. Blanco is certainly living up to his name this season as he made five starts in which he did not allow a run. Wheeler won at least 12 games in each of his four full seasons with the Phillies. He is trying to win 13 to make it three seasons of at least that win level.

The Brave and Twins both vie for wild card spots as Max Fried takes on Bailey Ober. Fried’s ERA is up a bit this year, mostly from a higher walk rate. Ober’s 12 wins is a career single season high by four. His ERA is in line with his career average, but he produced more quality starts.

Enjoy!

August 26, 2024

Beat the Streak Picks

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For the past few years Baseball Musings tried to help with playing Beat the Streak. The Day by Day Database keeps track of hit streak of at least five games. In addition, two programs produce top ten lists of players with a high probability of a hit.

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.

The Log5 Method yields these top projected hit averages averages against starting pitchers:

The afternoon continuation game in Boston is not available for your beat the streak picks. My source has Criswell starting the evening game, but that is not official. If you want to pick someone from the Blue Jays, check the Boston starter first.

It looks like a good day for the Cardinals

The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:

  • 0.314, 0.749 — Luis Arraez batting against Kyle Gibson.
  • 0.337, 0.747 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Logan Allen.
  • 0.310, 0.714 — Xavier Edwards batting against Ryan Feltner.
  • 0.308, 0.712 — Freddy Fermin batting against Logan Allen.
  • 0.304, 0.710 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Cooper Criswell.
  • 0.288, 0.702 — Donovan Solano batting against Kyle Gibson.
  • 0.283, 0.696 — Jackson Merrill batting against Kyle Gibson.
  • 0.280, 0.696 — Luis Garcia Jr. batting against Nestor Cortes.
  • 0.305, 0.696 — Nolan Arenado batting against Randy Vasquez.
  • 0.271, 0.693 — Harold Ramirez batting against Nestor Cortes.

The NN flips one and two on Log5, with Arraez a hair ahead of Witt. They are the consensus double down choices for today. Expect to see Merrill on the list more as the season progresses and into next year as well. He owns a .288 BA with a .319 OBP, a high BA without too many walks. He also owns a reasonable K rate. At 482 PA, the long term variable of the NN is still regressing his number toward the mean, but less and less every day.

You can follow the NN results on this spreadsheet. I do not guarantee results. Your best pick is going to have about a 25% chance of not getting a hit. Good luck!

August 25, 2024

Best Batter Monday

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Aaron Judge and Juan Soto of the Yankees remain one and three respectively in the Baseball Musings Batter Rankings after games of Sunday. Judge produced the third best game score of the day, a 76, as he went two for four with a walk and two home runs, bringing his season HR total to 51. That puts him in good shape to break his own AL record of 62 homers in a season. Soto also went two for four with a walk, but hit just one home run, his 37th of the season. That makes them the crazy 88 at the moment. The Yankees beat the Rockies 10-3.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.of the Blue Jays holds on to second place with a two for three with two walks and a double in an 8-2 win over the Angels. His OBP rises to .395.

Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals stays in fourth place with a two for four day, including a home run to raise his BA to .347. In the same game, Garrett Stubbs of the Phillies goes four for four, missing the cycle by a home run. That was good for a game score of 80, one of two players with the highest game score of the day. The backup catcher raises his slugging percentage to .281. The Phillies beat the Royals 11-3.

Once again, Yordan Alvarez of the Astros did not play, and no one trailing him was able to overtake the fifth slot.

The other 80 belonged to Eugenio Suarez of the Diamondbacks. He went four for four with a home run and three RBI for his 80 in a 7-5 win over the Red Sox, Arizona sweeping the series. He’s driven in 82 runs on the season, giving him a good chance to reach 100 RBI for the third time in his career.

August 25, 2024

August 25, 2024

A Tale of Two Seasons

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It’s been a rather fascinating season. Coming into today, none of the eight teams who were in the top eight in the majors through June 30th were in the top eight at the start of Sunday. It looked early on that there would not be many good division races, and now we have three or four depending on how the Astros game turns out tonight. While the Phillies and Guardians dominated the first half, the Diamondbacks (34-13 including Sunday) and the Astros (27-19 entering today) lead since. Oakland and Detroit are above .500, while the Royals, Mets, Cubs, and Padres turned it up a notch as well.

Even the Rockies played much better since July 1. Only the White Sox, Marlins, and Angels posted consistently bad records. For the most part, most fans had a stretch where they could feel good about their team, and except for the Brewers, a stretch where they worried that everything was falling apart.

August 25, 2024

White Sox Watch

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The Tigers beat the White Sox 9-4 on Sunday, lowering the White Sox winning percentage on the season to .237. That is below the .250 winning percentage of the 1962 Mets, the modern record for mediocrity. Time to update the probability of Chicago finishing with no more than 40 wins.

They need to go no better than 9-22 the rest of the way to finish with a worse winning percentage than the Mets. The lowest winning percentage that doesn’t include 30 wins in the 95 percent confidence interval for 131 games is .311. The probability of no more than 9 wins at that level is 0.49. For replacement level of .296, the probability stands at 0.56. The odds now favor the White Sox falling below the mark of the Mets!

If you are looking for a more optimistic view, the White Sox are -6 wins by the Pythagorean Won-Loss percentage. That would put their 95 percentage confidence interval probability at .360, which reduces their probability of finishing with no more than 40 wins to 0.27, or about 1 in 4.

Things are looking bleak for Chicago.

August 25, 2024

Judge Watch

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Aaron Judge of the Yankees hit two more home runs on Sunday, part of a Yankees barrage that beat the Rockies 10-3. He now owns 51 homers on the season. His probability of breaking his own AL record of 62 homers in a season is now at 0.28 a little better than one in four. While I have not talked about breaking Barry Bonds‘ major league record of 73 in a season, the probability of that went from 0.000025 to 0.00012.

August 25, 2024

August 25, 2024

Side the Head

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The home plate umpire Nick Mahrley in the Rockies-Yankees game just took a blow in the side of the neck from a broken bat. Giancarlo Stanton took a swing and his bat cracked at the handle. The barrel came around and got the home plate umpire in the side of the neck. It looks like Mahrley just took the barrel, and not the sharp end. The ball fell for a hit, and Mahrley, on the ground, did turn around if there was a play at the plate. He was down on all fours after that. They have stabilized his neck and he is being wheeled off the field.

My thoughts go out to Mahrley for a quick recovery.

August 25, 2024

August 25, 2024

Games of the Day

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The Diamondbacks send Merrill Kelly against Tanner Houck and the Red Sox. Kelly missed three months due to a strained muscle in his shoulder. He pitched one good and one bad outing since his return, overall giving up eight runs in ten innings. Houck’s 3.01 ERA is now second in the AL, and he leads the league with the lowest HR per 9 IP, 0.53.

The Phillies and Royals play the rubber match of their weekend series with Kolby Allard taking on Seth Lugo. Allard only walked two batters in his 13 innings this season. He allowed three home runs, accounting for all five of the runs he allowed. Lugo, a former NL East pitcher, faced members of the Phillies a decent amount. Bryce Harper hits him well, J.T. Realmuto and Trea Turner not so much.

Enjoy!