Tag Archives: Justus Sheffield

June 23, 2021

Beat the Streak Picks

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.

Here are the Log5 Method picks:

0.339 — Raimel Tapia batting against Justus Sheffield.
0.330 — Yonathan Daza batting against Justus Sheffield.
0.319 — Michael Brantley batting against Tom Eshelman.
0.300 — Matt Olson batting against Mike Foltynewicz.
0.297 — Tim Anderson batting against Chase De Jong.
0.296 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Justus Sheffield.
0.295 — Joey Wendle batting against Garrett Richards.
0.289 — Trevor Story batting against Justus Sheffield.
0.287 — Trea Turner batting against Vincent Velasquez.
0.283 — C.J. Cron batting against Justus Sheffield.

It looks like a good day for the Rockies. Batters hang a .338 BABIP on Sheffield this season, and .337 for his career. Couple that with a high home run rate and a low strikeout rate and the Rockies might even pick up some hits in Seattle. On top of that, Tapia owns an 18 game hit streak, longest in the majors right now.

Here are the NN picks:

0.319, 0.754 — Michael Brantley batting against Tom Eshelman.
0.339, 0.738 — Raimel Tapia batting against Justus Sheffield.
0.297, 0.730 — Tim Anderson batting against Chase De Jong.
0.287, 0.720 — Trea Turner batting against Vincent Velasquez.
0.330, 0.713 — Yonathan Daza batting against Justus Sheffield.
0.240, 0.711 — Ketel Marte batting against Brandon Woodruff.
0.281, 0.705 — Yordan Alvarez batting against Tom Eshelman.
0.278, 0.695 — Yulieski Gurriel batting against Tom Eshelman.
0.276, 0.692 — Salvador Perez batting against Michael King.
0.295, 0.688 — Joey Wendle batting against Garrett Richards.

Brantley is one of the hottest hitters in the league right now, and tops the AL in batting average. Note that Eshelman in his career pitched well, but hasn’t pitched much. Both systems regress him toward the mean, but he may be better than that. Tapia is the consensus first pick with Brantley second.

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!

March 9, 2020

Spinning Sheffield

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Justus Sheffield developed a two-seam fastball at the suggestion of his pitching coach. It’s a nice example of how spin rate analysis help pitchers adjust:

“His four-seam had very low spin to begin with, so him switching to a two-seamer actually is going to benefit him in the long run, and you saw that today,” Murphy said. “It’s one of those things where you kind of want to feed the beast, right? If a four-seam isn’t necessarily at the upper echelon, then why keep pushing something that isn’t going to be a great pitch? When you can make it a two-seamer, now all of a sudden, that low spin rate plays to his advantage.”
SeattleTimes.com

Sheffield demonstrated better control yesterday throwing the pitch.

March 8, 2019

Justus Conviction

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Justus Sheffield, the the prize in the James Paxton trade, pitched well in a simulated game against the Mariners top hitters. The key word here is conviction:

Per one National League scout, Sheffield’s changeup has been better than his slider this spring. He’s throwing it with conviction and confidence.
“He’s got around some other left-handed pitchers that have very good change-ups,” Servais said, referencing Wade LeBlanc and Marco Gonzales. “It’s crazy how that rubs off. You’re talking about changing grips and finger pressure and things like that. It looks great right now.”
Sheffield believes in the pitch.

“I don’t know if it’s necessarily getting better as a pitch, but I know I’m throwing with more confidence every time out there,” he said. “If I can throw my pitches with conviction, that’s the main goal. Throw each pitch with conviction and let it do what it’s supposed to do. I’m seeing success with it and I’m going to keep throwing it.”
SeattleTimes.com

This could turn out to be a fascinating trade to watch over time, to see how it works out for both the Mariners and the Yankees. New York is looking for a championship now, the Mariners for a great pitcher to under team control for many years. I hope they get to face each other.

November 19, 2018

Justus Leaves for the Mariners

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The Yankees acquired pitcher James Paxton from the Mariners in exchange for prospect Justus Sheffield:

In the deal for Paxton, along with Sheffield, the Yankees surrendered Double-A oufielder Dom Thompson-Williams and righty Erik Swanson, who finished the season with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

So the Yankees get a proven talent for a possible future star pitcher. That’s exactly the right thing to do if the Yankees want to win with this team now.

Thompson-Williams played 2018 as a 23-year-old and was still in A ball. Swanson will play 2018 as a 25-year-old and owns good three-true outcome numbers. While Justus has good strikeout numbers, he’s yet to find his control and doesn’t do that great a job of keeping the ball in the park.

On the other hand, Paxton never pitched a full season in the majors. His 28 starts in 2018 was by far the most he made in one season, and still failed to pitch enough innings to be counted in the ERA leaders. The Yankees job will be to keep him healthy for the season.

He only pitched at Yankee Stadium once in his career, this year.

July 31, 2016

Miller Official

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The Yankees officially traded Andrew Miller to the Indians:

The Indians are sending back four players, including top prospects Justus Sheffield and Clint Frazier, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney.

Here’s Olney’s account:

Minor league pitchers Ben Heller and J.P. Feyereisen are also heading to New York.

Miller is a terrific relief pitcher, and doesn’t seem to be bothered by his role. He can setup or close.

Frazier is a high OBP outfielder. When I look at his stats, I think Brett Gardner. Sheffield is just seasonal age 20, and in the low minors allowed just 14 home runs in 243 1/3 innings. Feyereisen is blowing away batters at AA, but with a high walk rate. Heller should really be major league ready. He is seasonal age 24 and is posting great three-true outcome numbers this season.

The Yankees got a nice haul of prospects for a relief pitcher. I’m not sure any of them will be a star, but they all should be players that contribute eventually.