Tag Archives: Kevin Kiermaier

June 10, 2023

Mr. Triple

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Matt McLain of the Reds, a true rookie, picked up the third triple of his career Saturday afternoon in an 8-4 victory over St. Louis. That was just his 24th game. Over 162 games, that would work out to about 20 triples in a season.

Another way to look at his triples success is by his rate. The major league rate for triples per plate appearance (PA) is 0.0036. McLain, with 114 PA, has a rate of 0.026, seven times higher. Coming into today, only two other players had a rate of at least 0.02, Kevin Kiermaier and Ke’Bryan Hayes (min 100 PA). So if McLain managed 650 PA in a season, we might expect 17 triples from him. Since 1998, there have only been eight player seasons where a batter recorded at least 17 triples. The last was in 2008, when Jose Reyes had 19.

May 21, 2023

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:

The Blue Jays should look good against Kremer. He sports low K and BB rates, so teams put the ball in play against him. Those balls find holes as he owns a .322 opposition BABIP. In addition, he allowed eight home runs in 47 1/3 innings.

Kiermaier shows up as he is hitting well above his career averages this season, and my formula for Log5 weighs the current season evenly with the three latest seasons.

Here are the NN picks:

  • 0.315, 0.755 — Luis Arraez batting against Alex Wood.
  • 0.330, 0.738 — Bo Bichette batting against Dean Kremer.
  • 0.297, 0.704 — Ronald Acuna batting against George Kirby.
  • 0.270, 0.702 — Freddie Freeman batting against Jack Flaherty.
  • 0.302, 0.701 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Dean Kremer.
  • 0.280, 0.699 — Nico Hoerner batting against Taijuan Walker.
  • 0.280, 0.699 — Joey Meneses batting against Joey Wentz.
  • 0.297, 0.693 — Ezequiel Duran batting against Connor Seabold.
  • 0.271, 0.691 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Roansy Contreras.
  • 0.299, 0.690 — Kevin Kiermaier batting against Dean Kremer.

This is a similar list, with Bichette and Arraez flipped. They are the consensus double down choices for today, and their probability of getting a hit far exceeds everyone else on the list.

Note that Guerrero holds a much better history against Kremer than Bichette. Guerrero stands 6 for 16 with a double, four home runs, two walks, and three strikeouts. Bichette is 2 for 14 with four walks and three K.

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!

April 9, 2023

Missed Cycles Slugfest

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The Angels Blue Jays beat the Angels 12-11 in an extra-inning slugfest. The two team collected twenty six hits in the game, eight for extra bases. Kevin Kiermaier of Toronto missed the cycle by a home run, while Hunter Renfro of LAnaheim took the more traditional route and missed the cycle by a triple.

Coming into the season I thought triples might go up due to the larger bases. Through Saturday, however, only 0.26% of plate appearances ended in triples, which would be the lowest rate of all time. It looks like today yielded a good number of three-baggers, so we’ll see how this looks tomorrow morning.

July 11, 2022

X Rays

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The Rays put Wander Franco and Kevin Kiermaier on the illjured list. Franco requires surgery due to a hamate injury:

Manager Kevin Cash said Monday that the 21-year-old Franco will be sidelined for five to eight weeks. Franco is hitting .260 with five homers and 23 RBI in 58 games in the first season of a $182 million, 11-year contract.

ESPN.com

Franco’s injury is a blow to the Rays offensively, while Kiermaier’s hip injury hurts the team defensively.

October 20, 2020 October 17, 2020 April 20, 2018

Loss of Defense

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The Rays lose one of their best defensive players, Kevin Kiermaier:

Tampa Bay Rays center fielder Kevin Kiermaier had surgery Friday to repair a torn ligament in his right thumb and will be sidelined for two to three months.

Kiermaier was injured sliding headfirst into second base during a 10-4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday.

This is the third straight season the two-time Gold Glove winner will miss significant time because of injury.

On the other hand, Kiermaier’s offense was so bad to start the season that the Rays might wind up with a big improvement at the position.

March 15, 2017

Fixing Arbitration

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Dave Cameron uses the Kevin Keirmaier contract extension to rail against the current arbitration system:

But the fact that this was the deal Kiermaier had to take to get early-career financial security is a stain on the MLBPA’s willingness to let arbitration continue to massively undervalue certain types of players. Because with the amount of money that has flooded into MLB, there’s no reason that a guy like Kiermaier should have to settle for this kind of contract in 2017.

The idea that a team needs six years to recoup the investment in minor league training for a player is now ludicrous. A one-WAR player at league minimum gives a team about $7 million in residual value. The minimum salary for players rose much more slowly than than the cost of a win on the free agent market. So either the majors should greatly raise the minimum salary to something over $1 million dollars, or they should shorten the time to free agency. While I’m for universal free agency, dropping arbitration for free agency after three years works as well.

May 21, 2016

Losing Defense

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Kevin Kiermaier of the Rays, one of the elite defensive centerfielders in the game, sustained a hand injury today:

Tampa Bay Rays center fielder Kevin Kiermaier suffered two fractures in his left hand while attempting to make a diving catch in the fifth inning of Saturday’s game against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.

Kiermaier, 26, left the game and will return to St. Petersburg, where he will be re-evaluated Monday.

Kiermaier broke his glove hand while trying to make a play on catcher James McCann‘s bloop single to shallow center. He came up grimacing in pain and left the field immediately with the Rays’ trainer.

Note that there are a high number of excellent centerfielders right now, and Kiermaier is only the second best in the AL East. The Rays are ranked higher in pitching/defense than on offense right now, so his loss is likely to hurt the team.