Tag Archives: Chase Burns

June 25, 2025

Impressive Night of Pitching

Tuesday night treated the baseball world to a number of outstanding performances for starting pitching, especially with the limits on starters these days. Eight pitchers posted game scores of at least 63. Garrett Crochet of the Red Sox topped the list with a 78, walking three and striking out ten in seven shutout innings. Taj Bradley of the Rays, Ranger Suarez of the Phillies, and Jake Latz of the Rangers took no-hitters fairly deep into games. Carlos Rodon of the Yankees, Framber Valdez of the Astros, and Frankie Montas of the Mets did not allow a run. Ryne Nelson of the Diamondbacks allowed one run in five innings, striking out seven.

For all that great pitching (including the Phillies versus Astros ending in a 1-0 Houston win), the starters went 1-1 with six no decisions!

Special mention goes to Chase Burns of the Reds, making his MLB debut against the Yankees:

Burns, the second overall pick in last July’s amateur draft, became the first starting pitcher in the expansion era to strike out the first five batters he faced in his debut. The 22-year old right-hander allowed three runs and six hits in five innings and struck out eight.
ESPN.com

Now we just need the starters to go a little deeper. Valdez currently stands third in the Bill James Starting Pitcher Rankings.

June 24, 2025

Burns Baby Burns

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:

0.337, 0.736 — Freddie Freeman batting at German Marquez.
0.330, 0.734 — Jackson Merrill batting vs. Trevor Williams.
0.327, 0.741 — Luis Arraez batting vs. Trevor Williams.
0.321, 0.712 — Andy Pages batting at German Marquez.
0.316, 0.700 — Hyeseong Kim batting at German Marquez.
0.314, 0.709 — Manny Machado batting vs. Trevor Williams.
0.313, 0.712 — Shohei Ohtani batting at German Marquez.
0.313, 0.696 — Will Smith batting at German Marquez.
0.304, 0.695 — Teoscar Hernandez batting at German Marquez.
0.302, 0.719 — Ernie Clement batting at Logan Allen.

It looks like it might be a good day for hitters as the top ten all project to hit averages (H/PA) over .300. The MLB average for 2025 is .219. Freeman is 7 for 27 with three walks and four strikeouts against Marquez for their careers.

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

0.327, 0.741 — Luis Arraez batting vs. Trevor Williams.
0.337, 0.736 — Freddie Freeman batting at German Marquez.
0.330, 0.734 — Jackson Merrill batting vs. Trevor Williams.
0.302, 0.719 — Ernie Clement batting at Logan Allen.
0.313, 0.712 — Shohei Ohtani batting at German Marquez.
0.321, 0.712 — Andy Pages batting at German Marquez.
0.268, 0.711 — Jacob Wilson batting at Tarik Skubal.
0.314, 0.709 — Manny Machado batting vs. Trevor Williams.
0.286, 0.708 — Aaron Judge batting at Chase Burns.
0.280, 0.708 — Ronald Acuna batting at Frankie Montas.

The two systems agree on the top three, but not the order. Freeman comes out as the consensus top pick, with Arraez the double down choice. Freeman ranks third, Arraez sixth in the top nine at MLB.com.

Judge ranks low here due to Burns making his MLB debut, and is seen as a league average pitcher. Burns burned through three minor league levels in this, his first season in professional baseball, seasonal age 22. He struck out tons with few walks. We’ll see how the big slugger handles Burns.

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!