Tag Archives: John Brebbia

February 15, 2025

Changes, Detroit Tigers

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The Tigers acquired the following players for their 2025 active roster:

Torres played his walk year at seasonal age 27, an age at which players normally peak. Instead, this turned out to be the worst of his last three seasons, which is why he settled for a one-year, $15 million contract. Torres’ power yo-yos; some years he pounds the ball; other years he hits like a second baseman known for his defense. Since his defense never was great, Torres needs to produce at the plate to make his WAR high. I’m not sure Torres is an improvement over what the Tigers received from their second basemen in 2024.

Flaherty returns to the Tigers after a mid-season trade which brought him a World Series ring, even though he pitched poorly in the post-season. Overall in 2024, he posted a 3.2 fWAR his highest since 2019. His walk and strikeout rate returned to the 2019 levels so the Tigers hope that continues.

Kahnle produced ERAs well below his FIP numbers in his last two seasons. He walks a lot of batters, but a high K rate and a low BABIP in that time meant the walks didn’t hurt him. In the last two seasons he added a sinker to complement his four-seam fastball, but he’s always had a high ground ball rate. We’ll see if he moves closer to his FIP this season.

Brebbia can go long in the bullpen or start. The last two seasons he gave up home runs at a high rate, however.

I don’t think there was a lot of improvement from moves. The offense is young, with only Jake Rogers hitting 30 this year. Another year of maturity should help more that their off-season moves.

July 3, 2022

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 picks:

This looks like a bullpen day for the Giants, who are starting Brebbia. Log5 breaks down in this type of game, since Anderson basically gets one shot at the starting pitcher. With a .315 probability of getting a hit in that one plate appearance, it’s a pretty good shot.

Here are the NN picks:

  • 0.315, 0.754 — Tim Anderson batting against John Brebbia.
  • 0.273, 0.714 — Trea Turner batting against MacKenzie Gore.
  • 0.271, 0.709 — Luis Arraez batting against Tyler Wells.
  • 0.295, 0.709 — Nico Hoerner batting against Connor Seabold.
  • 0.286, 0.708 — Harold Ramirez batting against Ross Stripling.
  • 0.280, 0.708 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Zack Wheeler.
  • 0.291, 0.708 — Garrett Cooper batting against Erick Fedde.
  • 0.279, 0.706 — Luis Robert batting against John Brebbia.
  • 0.272, 0.697 — Rafael Devers batting against Keegan Thompson.
  • 0.266, 0.693 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Keegan Thompson.

The NN also ranks Anderson number one. Log5 and the NN ask different questions. Log5 asks, “What is the hit average when this batter faces this pitcher?” The NN asks, “Given this batter and starting pitcher, what is the probability of the batter getting a hit in the game?” The NN should adjust for the fact that poor starting pitchers don’t go deep in games. That’s why some days the results of Log5 rank everyone on a team against a bad pitcher high, while the NN only ranks a couple of those players high.

Hoener is the consensus double down pick.

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!