Anthony Volpe of the Yankees may be suffering from a shoulder injury. It’s another one of those injuries where he is probably healthy enough to play, but not healthy enough to play consistently well. If this is true, why doesn’t New York give him ten days on the illjured list to rest?
Aaron Judge improved his batting average to .414 as he goes two for three with a double and two walks in an 11-5 win over the Mariners. Judge’s OBP stands at just as impressive a level at .500. His game score of 65 was only the third best on the team in the game as Trent Grisham and Anthony Volpe each posted a 73. Judge now holds a 24 point lead in the Baseball Musings Batter Rankings. The probability of him hitting .400 for the season now stands at about 0.000042 or about 21 in 500,000.
In the same game, Cal Raleigh of the Mariners homered and drove in two runs to sit in fourth place. Raleigh is tied for third in the majors in home runs with Corbin Carroll of the Diamondbacks, one behind Judge and Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies. Carroll hit two solo home runs in a 2-1 win over the Giants,
Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and the Dodgers rested on Monday, Ohtani and Freeman holding second and third place respectively. Francisco Lindor of the Mets rounds out the top five after a two for five night in a 4-3 win over the Pirates. I watched the Mets a bit lately, and their games delivered a lot of excitement.
Gleyber Torres of the Tigers delivered the highest game score of the day, a 78, in a 14-2 win over the Red Sox. I discussed Torres in a post last night.
Anthony Volpe talks about his torpedo bat:
“So far, so good,” Volpe said Sunday morning. “It’s cool to look down at and the concept makes so much sense. I know I’m bought in. The bigger you can have the barrel where you’re going to hit the ball makes sense to me.
“It’s probably just placebo,” Volpe added with a grin. “A lot of it is looking up at your bat and you see how big the barrel is. But it’s exciting. I think any .001 percent mentally that can give you confidence helps.”
NYPost.com
Steve Martin knows what placebos can do:
[ seriously ] But I quit that! I’ve quit ALL drugs. Well… let me say one thing: I twisted my ankle this morning, and I was in quite a bit of pain… so I went to the doctor, and I asked him to give me some pain pills. And he didn’t want to do it, but I talked him into it. So he gave me some pills — and I shouldn’t have done this, but I took some about an hour before the show tonight, and right now… I am high… as a KITE! [ audience cheers ] I mean, it is unbelievable! And I would NEVER say this to you people, but, in this case: if you EVER get a chance, to take these drugs… DO IT! They’re called… [ he glances from side-to-side cautiously ] Placebos! I mean, I’m thinking that right now I have NO idea where I am at all! It is WILD! Placebo!
snltranscripts.jt.org
The Yankees helped develop new bats, that moving the sweet spot closer to the label,. This is supposed to help Anthony Volpe:
According to Kay, the Yankees analytics department found shortstop Anthony Volpe rarely hit balls with the barrel of his bat and was almost always hitting balls in the label area. That prompted the Yankees to have the bats made redistributing the location of the wood.
The discussion took place during a Jazz Chisholm at-bat, with Chisholm using one of the newly designed bats.
It is worth noting that Chisholm was one of the Yankees to homer in Saturday’s game.
Yardbarker.com
It is a constant battle to keep the game from evolving toward more home runs, walks and strikeouts. If this technological change leads to an explosion in home runs, look for MLB to try to outlaw this type of bat.
I still would like to see an experiment where pitchers are speed limited and batters swing heavier bats.
Joe Buck is calling the Brewers-Yankees game. One thing I don’t care for about Buck is that he calls hits pop ups when they are rather clear fly balls. He just did that on an Anthony Volpe hit that ended up in the rightfield seats to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead.
Pop ups are on the infield. If a ball is hit to the normal position of an outfielder, it’s a fly ball.
Aaron Judge of the Yankees just dropped a ball in centerfield. Enrique Hernandez was on first, and Judge looked to see where he was as he went for the ball, and it ticked off his glove. That gives the Dodgers men on first and second with none out in the top of the fifth.
Volpe then makes a bad throw to third on a ground ball to the hole, and the Dodgers have the bases loaded.
Update: Gavin Lux strikes out swinging on a 1-2 pitch for the first out as Gerrit Cole tries to pick up the defense.
Update: Shohei Ohtani falls behind 1-2. He winces every time he swings hard. He swings at a pitch down and outside, and the Yankees get the second out.
Update: Mookie Betts grounds to first, but Cole does not cover first. Betts is safe and the Dodgers score their first run of the game. It looked like Rizzo could take it himself, but the ball took a little hop away at the end. No excuse for Cole, however.
Update: Freddie Freeman falls behind 1-2. He then singles to centerfield, and the Yankees lead is down to 5-3.
Update: Teoscar Hernandez falls behind 0-2. He hits a 1-2 pitch off the wall in centerfield and the Dodgers tie the game at five! The Yankees show how to give runs away. It also shows that even Cole can get knocked around the third time through the order.
Update: Max Muncy draws a walk. Dodgers on first and second.
Update: Enrique Hernandez bats for the second time in the inning. He falls behind 0-2. He grounds out to shortstop to end the inning with the score tied at five.
Aaron Judge of the Yankees moved back into third place in the Baseball Musings Batter Rankings with a single, walk, and hit by pitch in the 11-4 win over the Dodgers in game four of the 2024 World Series. That put New York on the board, but the Dodgers still lead the best of seven series 3-1. Dodgers lead-off hitter Shohei Ohtani went one for four to stay in first place, while Juan Soto of the Yankees doubled and walked to move two points behind the Dodgers star.
The highest game score of the night went to Anthony Volpe of the Yankees, a 74. He posted a two for three night with a walk, a double, and a grand slam. Note that in his regular season career, Volpe saved his power for men on base situations. He hit fourteen home runs with the bases empty, and 19 with men on base in about 300 fewer PA.
Austin Wells, batting behind Volpe, posted the same line in terms of hits and walks, but came away with a game score of 71 as he only drove in one run. An early base running blunder by Volpe cost Wells both a triple and an RBI. I saw Wells interviewed after the game, and his response to a question about a change to his approach at the plate was “Screw it.” I suspect he was channeling another Yankees catcher who once said, “How can you think and hit at the same time?” Teams, of course, throw a lot of analytics at batters. Maybe Wells just decided to screw all the information and just try to hit the ball. Whatever “Screw it” means Wells certainly did.
The Yankees beat the Dodgers 11-4 to hold off elimination for another day. New York lived up to their nickname of The Bronx Bombers as they hit three home runs, the biggest a grand slam by Anthony Volpe. The bottom of the order, 7-8-9, combined to go five for ten with two homers, two walks, seven RBI, and no strikeouts.
Game five happens Wednesday night at 8 PM, the last game at Yankee Stadium this season.
The Yankees load the bases with one out in the bottom of the third. Anthony Rizzo pops out, but Anthony Volpe makes up for his base running gaffe with a grand slam. Volpe hit just a dozen homers in the regular season. This was his first in the post season. They Yankees take a 5-2 lead at the end of three innings.
Austin Wells of the Yankees doubles off the wall in centerfield, but Anthony Volpe had tagged up and only got to third base. Another bad play by the Yankees in the series. Alex Verdugo does bring Volpe home with a ground out, and New York is down 2-1 to the Dodgers after two innings.
Of course, if the ball goes a few more feet in center, the game is tied. The Yankees keep just missing.
The Braves and Mets play game four of their weekend series, the winner pulling ahead of the loser in the NL Wild Card race. Reynaldo Lopez takes on David Peterson. Lopez, with a 2.12 ERA, is a little short on innings to qualify for the ERA title. Seven solid innings would get him on the leaderboard for a few days. Peterson helped stabilize the Mets rotation, going 5-0 in nine starts with a 3.14 ERA. He could help more by starting to go deeper in games.
The Cubs and Royals play the rubber game of their weekend series with Javier Assad facing Cole Ragans. Assad is Mr. No Decision this season, with just a 3-4 record in 18 starts despite a 3.15 ERA. He is averaging just five innings per start, leaving on average half a game for things to change, or not pitching long enough to get a win. Ragans ranks third in lowest HR allowed per 9 IP since the start of the 2023 season.
The Athletics and the Angels finish their four game series as Oakland goes for a sweep. Oakland is 14-7 in July, tied with the Diamondbacks for the best record in the month. Osvaldo Bido faces Jose Soriano. Bido makes his third start of the season after pitching mostly in relief. It looks like he made an emergency start in May in a doubleheader that didn’t go well. His last appearance, however, was a five inning stint against the Astros in which he allowed one run in five innings, walking none and striking out six. Soriano limited hits this season with a .256 opposition BABIP. He also does a decent job of keeping the ball in the park.
Finally, the Yankees and Red Sox play the rubber game of their series at Fenway on Sunday Night Baseball. Youngsters Jarren Duran and Anthony Volpe are at the top of the plate appearance list in the AL. Note that Duran blowing Volpe away in terms of production. He is exactly the kind of player a team wants to get tons of PA. Volpe got off to a good start, but overall he’s been a bit of an out machine, basically flushing opportunities away. Both, however, are extremely good at collecting triples, a rare skill these days. Duran leads the AL in both doubles and triples, no mean feat.
Enjoy!
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 picks:
The Guardians get to celebrate Corbin day. Ramirez owns a low strikeout rate for his career, and this season he walks less as well. He puts plenty of balls in play, and lately they’ve been finding holes.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
Arraez is four for thirteen against Wacha, .308, with two home runs! He also struck out twice, so Arraez is good against Wacha, but in an atypical way for the hitter.
Anthony Volpe saw his hit streak end on Thursday, putting Masyn Winn at 18 and J.T. Realmuto at 17 on top of the list of longest current streaks.
Arraez stands as the consensus top pick with Bohm and Ramirez tied for the consensus double down choice.
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 picks:
It looks like a good day for the Royals against Paddack. He gave up a high BABIP in each of the last three seasons.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
Note that three batters not on the list currently work on long hit streaks. Anthony Volpe of the Yankees extended his streak to 21 games on Wednesday, with Masyn Winn right behind him at 18 and J.T. Realmuto at 17. Note that all of them are hitting for power during their streaks.
Perez is the consensus top pick, with Ramirez the consensus double down choice.
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 picks:
The Mets and Dodgers play what used to call a twi-night double header, single admission starting at 4PM EDT. You can double down on Shohei Ohtani or Mookie Betts! MLB.com shows Quintana starting game two. Always be careful when picking from a doubleheader, as some hitters often get one of the games off.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
Arraez offers the only really high probability on the day. He and Ohtani against Quintana tie for the consensus top pick. If you want to go in another direction, Anthony Volpe of the Yankees looks to extend his hit streak to 20 games.
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!