I reached 1,000 subscribers and 200 paid members yesterday, two big milestones that I’m pretty pumped about. I appreciate that people are supporting what I do here, and I really would not have guessed we’d have gotten this far in just 13 months.
To celebrate, Producer Lee whipped me up a logo for the notes. He’s also going to help me overhaul the look and feel of the Substack, we think it’s time to brand this all a little bit better. I’m thinking of naming the blog “Baseball Data Warehouse”, BDW for short. That could work.
Shout out to Producer Lee, who I am still making pay for his membership - classic! Here’s a picture of us from high school!
Redemption shot:
That is what we look like now, and I can’t say I’m mad about it!
Some baseball fans on Twitter treat their team’s top prospects like they are their own children. I have learned this the hard way as the midwest mob has come after me for my criticisms of Jordan Walker, and now of Edouard Julien. The Twins prospect is getting the call-up after Joey Gallo has hit the IL.
What I pointed out is that Julien has struck out at a high rate for all of his minor league career.
He’s also walked at an insanely high rate. What this means is that the guy just doesn’t swing very much (35% of the time this year). One way to walk is to just not swing, but that also puts you in two-strike counts quite a bit which facilitates the strike out.
A lot of people have pointed out to me that he’s had a very low SwStr% in the minors, which is one of the few minor league stats available on FanGraphs. The problem with that stat is that it rewards you for just not swinging. If you see 100 pitches, swing at 10 of them, make contact half the time, that’s a 5% SwStr% - a great number, but in reality - you whiffed half the time.
Julien is going to have to swing more in the Majors because he’s going to see more strikes. Only seven hitters currently have swing rates under 36%, and the league average is 46%. We’ll see what that means, but it’s pretty rare that a hitter goes from the minors to the Majors and improves their strikeout rate, so I do imagine we’re in for a 28%+ K% for him this year in the Majors, and that just makes it very tough to have fantasy success (a high walk rate can be pretty bad for fantasy purposes in non-OBP leagues). So there, it’s in writing - you can come back here and yell at me later if I’m wrong.
Somewhat related: I wrote this piece in December comparing minor league stats to Major League stats, I learned a lot by doing that research.
In non-baseball news that I will twist and conform into a story to match the theme of this article, here’s this tree in my front yard:
I took that picture this morning. If I were a true artist, I might have moved the garbage cans. Unfortunately, Producer Lee and I live 360 miles away so he couldn’t get out here in time to prepare the set.
Anyways, I don’t know what the F kinda tree this is, but every April it blooms like this. By this evening it’ll be raging with flowers and look really “pretty”, as people with an eye for physical beauty would say.
But by Friday, it will be barren again. So we get a solid two days a year with this thing in bloom. I don’t get that. What is the point of that? Why does that happen? If you believe in God - why would He do that? Is it like a joke, a tease? If you believe in evolution - why wouldn’t it come to give the bees more time to get in there so they could #survive?
Anyways, this tree is like Julien. He’ll probably come up and rip a couple of hits, homer, and walk a bunch until the weekend - and that will be his few days of blooming - and after that, it’ll just be a barren tree and you’ll have to wait til next year to see it again.
I had finished the post, but I’m now #circling #back to mention that the Rays have called up Taj Bradley to replace Zach Eflin in the rotation as he heads to the IL. This gives us a good chance to look into the MiLB Statcast dashboard to see what we’re working with. Unfortunately, it’s still very early in the season so we don’t have a ton of data - but it’s so dope to have this AAA data available now that I’m doing it anyways.
Stats:
Game Logs:
2021-2022 Basic Stats:
Pitching in the Majors is not an easy thing to do. If I had to guess, I would say Bradley will disappoint us (you might be noticing a theme with my takes on prospects by now…), but yeah a 21.2% K-BB% in the minors over a full sample is a good thing. I won’t yell at anybody for picking him up.
Holy cow 23 whiffs for McClanny taking the Rays to 11-0! And the Pirates walked off the Astros!
Checking in on the whiffs leaderboard, a Google Sheet that updates daily that gives you the whiff counts by start and by pitch count (two tabs now, check it out if you’re a paid sub!)
That’s the 20-whiff club. A dozen of those whiff daddies were on the changeup, the third-highest of the season on an individual pitch:
But yeah Shane McClanny is great, you don’t need me to tell you that!
Pablo Lopez really has seemed to develop into a brand-new pitcher this year, and I might need to like manually force that into my projection system moving forward.
A 19.2% SwStr% sheesh! That ties him with McClanahan for second (behind, you guessed it - deGrom) for highest SwStr% among pitchers who have made at least two starts. Here’s the 17%+ club:
Fujinami has a 19% BB% so don’t go adding him just because you see him there.
Cristian Javier has struggled a little bit early on, and you’ll see below that he’s lost fastball velocity. Last year it was 93.8, this year it’s 92.6. He still is getting a ton of whiffs, so it’s probably not a huge deal - but when you’re looking at a guy that really depends on two pitches you don’t really want to see one of the two losing velocity.
Your barrel leaders:
Then there’s a bunch of people at seven. Matt Chapman has a barrel in nine strike games now, it’s been quite a start for him. He was one of my favorite 3B targets this draft season, but that said - he’s a good sell-high right now. I know it’s hard to trade away the guy that is rocking dingers for your team every day, but if someone will overpay, you should let them.
Well, that’s all for today, thanks a lot for everybody being here!
1. Shane McClanahan (TB): 23 Whiffs (95 Pitches)
2. Jacob deGrom (TEX): 20 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
3. Pablo Lopez (MIN): 20 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
4. Lance Lynn (CWS): 18 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
5. Jesus Luzardo (MIA): 16 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
6. Corbin Burnes (MIL): 16 Whiffs (89 Pitches)
7. Grayson Rodriguez (BAL): 15 Whiffs (99 Pitches)
8. David Peterson (NYM): 13 Whiffs (89 Pitches)
9. Merrill Kelly (ARI): 13 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
10. Cristian Javier (HOU): 12 Whiffs (96 Pitches)
1. Corbin Burnes (MIL): 18.0 SwStr%, 39.3 CSW%
2. Shane McClanahan (TB): 24.2 SwStr%, 38.9 CSW%
3. Pablo Lopez (MIN): 20.4 SwStr%, 36.7 CSW%
4. Jacob deGrom (TEX): 20.4 SwStr%, 34.7 CSW%
5. Lance Lynn (CWS): 18.4 SwStr%, 34.7 CSW%
6. Kyle Wright (ATL): 9.3 SwStr%, 32.0 CSW%
7. Matt Manning (DET): 8.2 SwStr%, 30.6 CSW%
8. Garrett Whitlock (BOS): 12.9 SwStr%, 30.6 CSW%
9. David Peterson (NYM): 14.6 SwStr%, 30.3 CSW%
10. Merrill Kelly (ARI): 13.3 SwStr%, 29.6 CSW%
1. Pablo Lopez - 7.67 IP - 84.75 JA Points
2. Corbin Burnes - 8.0 IP - 79.75 JA Points
3. Shane McClanahan - 5.0 IP - 71.75 JA Points
4. Jacob deGrom - 6.67 IP - 68.5 JA Points
5. Lance Lynn - 6.0 IP - 62.75 JA Points
6. Jesus Luzardo - 5.67 IP - 52.75 JA Points
7. David Peterson - 5.67 IP - 46.5 JA Points
8. Merrill Kelly - 5.67 IP - 38.25 JA Points
9. Aaron Nola - 5.33 IP - 37.75 JA Points
10. Shohei Ohtani - 7.0 IP - 37.5 JA Points
1. Nick Lodolo (CIN) - 2 GS - 66.59 JA Points
2. Jacob deGrom (TEX) - 3 GS - 62.07 JA Points
3. Spencer Strider (ATL) - 2 GS - 52.61 JA Points
4. Brandon Woodruff (MIL) - 2 GS - 52.61 JA Points
5. Zack Wheeler (PHI) - 2 GS - 52.37 JA Points
6. Pablo Lopez (MIN) - 3 GS - 51.4 JA Points
7. Jesus Luzardo (MIA) - 3 GS - 50.87 JA Points
8. Shane McClanahan (TB) - 3 GS - 48.75 JA Points
9. Dylan Cease (CWS) - 3 GS - 47.22 JA Points
10. Martin Perez (TEX) - 2 GS - 46.52 JA Points
Xzavion Curry's CU velo (10 pitches) UP 2.2mph to 75.9
David Peterson's SL velo (24 pitches) UP 2.1mph to 86.6
Garrett Whitlock's CH velo (18 pitches) UP 2.0mph to 86.6
Pablo Lopez's FF velo (31 pitches) UP 1.5mph to 95.1
Cristian Javier's FF velo (56 pitches) DOWN -1.5mph to 92.3
Luis Cessa's SL velo (35 pitches) DOWN -1.5mph to 81.3
Shohei Ohtani's ST velo (51 pitches) DOWN -1.5mph to 82.4
Gerrit Cole's CH velo (13 pitches) DOWN -1.6mph to 88.1
Grayson Rodriguez's SL velo (30 pitches) DOWN -1.6mph to 81.1
Mitch Keller's ST velo (26 pitches) DOWN -1.6mph to 81.8
Garrett Whitlock's SI velo (49 pitches) DOWN -1.8mph to 93.5
Alek Manoah's FF velo (19 pitches) DOWN -2.0mph to 91.8
Matt Manning's SL velo (17 pitches) DOWN -2.8mph to 80.6
Garrett Whitlock's SL velo (17 pitches) DOWN -3.7mph to 79.5
Shohei Ohtani's SI velo (12 pitches) DOWN -3.9mph to 92.9
Aaron Nola's FC usage (27.0%) up 20.5 points
Alek Manoah's SI usage (37.2%) up 11.3 points
Corbin Burnes's CH usage (21.3%) up 11.1 points
Dustin May's FF usage (48.7%) up 20.3 points
Gerrit Cole's CU usage (22.7%) up 12.0 points
Hayden Wesneski's ST usage (31.2%) up 25.2 points
Jesus Luzardo's SL usage (20.4%) up 15.8 points
Jordan Lyles's ST usage (27.2%) up 25.7 points
Josiah Gray's FC usage (19.4%) up 18.6 points
Kyle Freeland's SI usage (42.2%) up 19.5 points
Kyle Muller's FF usage (58.6%) up 10.8 points
Kyle Wright's CU usage (53.3%) up 19.2 points
Luis Cessa's SL usage (49.3%) up 10.2 points
Matt Manning's CU usage (23.5%) up 12.5 points
Miles Mikolas's SL usage (41.6%) up 15.2 points
Mitch Keller's ST usage (27.7%) up 26.6 points
Mitch Keller's FC usage (19.1%) up 16.7 points
Pablo Lopez's ST usage (12.2%) up 10.5 points
Ryan Weathers's ST usage (19.1%) up 10.7 points
Shane McClanahan's FF usage (48.4%) up 11.7 points
Shohei Ohtani's ST usage (55.4%) up 52.1 points
Nick Lodolo - 50 TBF, 36.3% CSW%
Clayton Kershaw - 48 TBF, 35.3% CSW%
Jacob deGrom - 66 TBF, 35.0% CSW%
Zac Gallen - 70 TBF, 34.3% CSW%
Jesus Luzardo - 74 TBF, 34.0% CSW%
Pablo Lopez - 71 TBF, 33.9% CSW%
Shane McClanahan - 68 TBF, 33.7% CSW%
Logan Webb - 70 TBF, 33.7% CSW%
Michael Wacha - 47 TBF, 32.6% CSW%
Shohei Ohtani - 75 TBF, 32.4% CSW%
Nick Lodolo - 50 TBF, 42.0% K%
Jacob deGrom - 66 TBF, 40.9% K%
Pablo Lopez - 71 TBF, 36.6% K%
Dylan Cease - 69 TBF, 34.8% K%
Shohei Ohtani - 75 TBF, 32.0% K%
Gerrit Cole - 70 TBF, 31.4% K%
Logan Webb - 70 TBF, 31.4% K%
Shane McClanahan - 68 TBF, 30.9% K%
Mitch Keller - 75 TBF, 29.3% K%
Julio Urias - 65 TBF, 29.2% K%
Jacob deGrom - 66 TBF, 37.9% K-BB%
Nick Lodolo - 50 TBF, 36.0% K-BB%
Pablo Lopez - 71 TBF, 29.6% K-BB%
Logan Webb - 70 TBF, 27.1% K-BB%
Julio Urias - 65 TBF, 26.2% K-BB%
Dylan Cease - 69 TBF, 24.6% K-BB%
Gerrit Cole - 70 TBF, 22.9% K-BB%
Clayton Kershaw - 48 TBF, 22.9% K-BB%
Kevin Gausman - 51 TBF, 21.6% K-BB%
Zac Gallen - 70 TBF, 20.0% K-BB%
Seth Lugo - 50 TBF, 67.6% GB%
Framber Valdez - 77 TBF, 66.7% GB%
Johan Oviedo - 49 TBF, 59.5% GB%
Graham Ashcraft - 51 TBF, 58.8% GB%
German Marquez - 63 TBF, 58.7% GB%
Justin Steele - 47 TBF, 58.1% GB%
Corbin Burnes - 72 TBF, 56.9% GB%
Kyle Muller - 66 TBF, 56.2% GB%
Clayton Kershaw - 48 TBF, 56.2% GB%
Nick Martinez - 52 TBF, 55.6% GB%
Alejandro Kirk (TOR) 4 PA, 6 Swings, 2 Barrels, 1 HR
Austin Hays (BAL) 5 PA, 8 Swings, 2 Barrels, 1 HR
Brandon Lowe (TB) 4 PA, 8 Swings, 2 Barrels, 1 HR
Jarred Kelenic (SEA) 5 PA, 7 Swings, 2 Barrels, 1 HR
Ji-Man Choi (PIT) 4 PA, 10 Swings, 2 Barrels, 1 HR
Juan Yepez (STL) 4 PA, 6 Swings, 2 Barrels, 1 HR
Kerry Carpenter (DET) 3 PA, 4 Swings, 2 Barrels, 0 HR
Marcell Ozuna (ATL) 4 PA, 8 Swings, 2 Barrels, 0 HR
Mike Yastrzemski (SF) 4 PA, 5 Swings, 2 Barrels, 0 HR
Nelson Velazquez (CHC) 5 PA, 12 Swings, 2 Barrels, 1 HR
Ryan Mountcastle (BAL) 5 PA, 10 Swings, 2 Barrels, 2 HR
Eddie Rosario, Yesterday: 109.8 Previous High: 107.3
Josh Smith, Yesterday: 109.8 Previous High: 105.4
Matt Olson, Yesterday: 118.6 Previous High: 116.8
Mike Yastrzemski, Yesterday: 110.1 Previous High: 109.7
Nelson Velazquez, Yesterday: 111.4 Previous High: 111.2
Nick Fortes, Yesterday: 108.5 Previous High: 108.4
1. Jarred Kelenic - 5.0 PA - 73.0 JA Points
2. Nelson Velazquez - 5.0 PA - 71.0 JA Points
3. Ryan Mountcastle - 5.0 PA - 64.0 JA Points
4. Josh Jung - 5.0 PA - 57.0 JA Points
5. Yandy Diaz - 4.0 PA - 55.0 JA Points
6. Luis Arraez - 5.0 PA - 48.0 JA Points
7. Jon Berti - 4.0 PA - 46.0 JA Points
8. LaMonte Wade Jr. - 4.0 PA - 46.0 JA Points
9. Austin Hays - 5.0 PA - 45.0 JA Points
10. Anthony Rizzo - 5.0 PA - 45.0 JA Points
1. Bryan Reynolds (PIT) - 49.0 PA - 227.76 JA Points
2. Matt Chapman (TOR) - 48.0 PA - 224.17 JA Points
3. Gleyber Torres (NYY) - 46.0 PA - 216.52 JA Points
4. Brandon Lowe (TB) - 36.0 PA - 215.56 JA Points
5. Adam Duvall (BOS) - 37.0 PA - 205.41 JA Points
6. Yandy Diaz (TB) - 40.0 PA - 204.0 JA Points
7. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (TOR) - 53.0 PA - 191.7 JA Points
8. Paul Goldschmidt (STL) - 50.0 PA - 181.6 JA Points
9. Mike Trout (LAA) - 51.0 PA - 178.82 JA Points
10. Randy Arozarena (TB) - 49.0 PA - 169.8 JA Points
Matt Olson (ATL) - 118.6mph - home_run
Sam Hilliard (ATL) - 114.0mph - double
Bobby Dalbec (BOS) - 113.7mph - single
Kyle Schwarber (PHI) - 112.7mph - home_run
Juan Soto (SD) - 112.6mph - nan
Austin Riley (ATL) - 112.4mph - single
Julio Rodriguez (SEA) - 112.0mph - field_out
Jorge Soler (MIA) - 111.6mph - double
Nelson Velazquez (CHC) - 111.4mph - double
Ryan Mountcastle (BAL) - 111.0mph - home_run
Matt Chapman - 48 PA, 34 BIP, 12 Brls, 35.3 Brl%
Brandon Lowe - 36 PA, 20 BIP, 7 Brls, 35.0 Brl%
MJ Melendez - 43 PA, 20 BIP, 6 Brls, 30.0 Brl%
Luke Raley - 30 PA, 17 BIP, 5 Brls, 29.4 Brl%
Ryan McMahon - 46 PA, 24 BIP, 7 Brls, 29.2 Brl%
Bryan Reynolds - 49 PA, 42 BIP, 12 Brls, 28.6 Brl%
James Outman - 43 PA, 21 BIP, 6 Brls, 28.6 Brl%
Ryan Mountcastle - 50 PA, 32 BIP, 9 Brls, 28.1 Brl%
Matt Olson - 57 PA, 29 BIP, 8 Brls, 27.6 Brl%
Brian Anderson - 42 PA, 22 BIP, 6 Brls, 27.3 Brl%
Brandon Lowe - 36 PA, 0.582 xwOBA
Matt Chapman - 48 PA, 0.564 xwOBA
Bryan Reynolds - 49 PA, 0.534 xwOBA
Adam Duvall - 37 PA, 0.519 xwOBA
Bo Bichette - 54 PA, 0.479 xwOBA
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. - 53 PA, 0.478 xwOBA
Paul Goldschmidt - 50 PA, 0.477 xwOBA
Jarred Kelenic - 37 PA, 0.477 xwOBA
Freddie Freeman - 55 PA, 0.472 xwOBA
James Outman - 43 PA, 0.469 xwOBA
Alex Verdugo - 47 PA, 67 Swings, 91.0 Cont%
Luis Arraez - 47 PA, 66 Swings, 90.9 Cont%
Mauricio Dubon - 33 PA, 68 Swings, 89.7 Cont%
Nico Hoerner - 47 PA, 77 Swings, 89.6 Cont%
Isaac Paredes - 39 PA, 83 Swings, 89.2 Cont%
Bryson Stott - 46 PA, 97 Swings, 88.7 Cont%
Xander Bogaerts - 54 PA, 76 Swings, 88.2 Cont%
Will Smith - 43 PA, 73 Swings, 87.7 Cont%
Steven Kwan - 57 PA, 102 Swings, 87.3 Cont%
Nick Gordon - 31 PA, 58 Swings, 86.2 Cont%
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