MLB Daily Notes - April 16th
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis.
I got thinking about the inevitability of robot umpires calling balls and strikes. It’s going to happen for sure, right? It is probably a few [or maybe even several] years away, but I would bet heavily on us having automatic ball and strike calls in 10 years.
And the biggest effect of that change revolves around pitch framing. A catcher’s pitch framing ability is a huge part of the way teams evaluate him. A lot of catchers in the league cannot hit worth a lick, but they do a really good job with framing and they create positive value that way. If there’s no longer a human umpire to fool, that whole thing immediately goes away.
There’s still the part of the job in calling pitches and working with the pitcher, so it’s not like you’ll just want to put anybody who can catch a ball and hit homers behind the plate, but you will certainly see a shift away from defensive specialist catchers. I feel like we’ve already seen that honestly, it seems to me that we have much better hitters playing catcher this year than ever before. That could be just a coincidence though that a lot of these young catchers arrived at the same time. But it will be really interesting to see what the catcher position looks like if and when that change is made. And I think teams might start developing their catchers with much more of a focus on hitting than they did prior just in anticipation of this potential rule change.
Paid subs: the 2024 MiLB Statcast dashboard is running and the link is available on the Resource Glossary page and below the paywall here. You can see all kinds of advanced stuff from the minor leagues there, like full pitch arsenals:
Barrel rates and advanced batted ball data:
Dope scatter plots:
Launch profile histograms:
And all kinds of other stuff. That dashboard is probably worth the $9/month all by itself!
My real life job is demanding things of me today, so I can’t spend much time on the notes today. But Edward Cabrera was the story of the day:
6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 10 K, 1 BB, 18.7% SwStr%, 56% Strike%, 31.9% Ball%
Here’s his Ball% by start for last year:
Since 2022, he has made 34 appearances where he threw more than 60 pitches, and only FOUR times did he go under a 33% Ball%. This could just be one outlier, lucky start (that’s more likely than you think), but it was certainly as good of a debut as you could have hoped for.
I would add him now if he’s free/cheap, but I’m going to need to see a whole lot more to spend any real cost on him. His next two starts are likely against the Cubs and Nationals, so a pretty good draw there.
Reese Olson had his first good outing of the year as well, good to see:
6.1 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 8 K, 1 BB, 49.5% Strike%, 33.7% Ball%
The arsenal for the year:
Dang we’ve got some null action going on, hate to see that. The problem with Olson has been clear since he got the Majors, and it’s super-duper clear again so far this year, the four-seamer SUCKS. It sucks, it’s terrible. A 1.4% SwStr%… That’s one whiff on 73 pitches. I am not joking that I could probably post a 1.4% SwStr% on a four-seamer if you give me 100 pitches. There’s a pretty decent chance some hitter would just try to hit it 700 feet and whiff, or maybe a bug would get in their eye at the exact right moment, or something. I mean what a terrible number. I’d say he should stop throwing it, but you can’t do that as a starting pitcher, you can’t do it. Olson is a streamer only, and even then you’re playing with fire.
A much better outing from Spencer Arrighetti, he earned 15 whiffs in four innings, a good 52.9% Strike% but it took him 87 pitches to get through four innings, so that’s not very good. His arsenal through two starts:
Pretty decent fastball, it would seem, and a lot of other junk to throw at people. He could be something, but he’s not worthy of a pickup in normal leagues yet. Stats by level going back to 2021 for him:
Nice K% stuff in the lower levels, but unimpressive in AAA, so that’s a pretty big problem right now.
Nick Nastrini looked awesome for a few innings but then the numbers went south in the fifth inning (I was watching closely on the live game tracker). I actually picked him up in the fourth inning on my home league team and then with every refresh of the live game tracker I regretted that decision. He finished with just 74 pitches and a mediocre 47.3% Strike%. But he got whiffs (14.9% SwStr%) and held his own, allowing just three hits and two runs in five innings on a 5:2 K:BB. He gets the Twins next, so I think he’s a good pickup in deeper leagues just for speculation purposes. He was awesome in the minors:
And he threw 115 innings last year, so he’s relatively built-up in that regard. He’s probably the White Sox best starting pitcher right now, so I would expect them to keep him in the rotation, but I guess after seeing what happened with Max Meyer, we shouldn’t be so sure.
George Kirby had a better outing, and he just continues to pound the strike zone. He’s now at a 29.1% Ball%, which normally would lead the league but Jared Jones and Joe Ryan are besting him so far:
The good times with Frankie Montas came to an end last night as he went all Joe Boyle on it with a 48.5% Ball% and five walks in two innings. Putrid outing for him. He’ll be better than this, but he definitely won’t be as good as he was in his first three starts.
Let me just give you my roto player rater’s top player at each position and then I’ll go do what I need to do for my real job.
Catcher: William Contreras
First Base: Pete Alonso
Second Base: Jose Altuve
Shortstop: Elly De La Cruz
Third Base: Spencer Steer
Outfield: Mookie Betts / Marcell Ozuna / Taylor Ward
Starting Pitcher: Glasnow / Berrios / Gallen / Detmers / Burnes
Relief Pitcher: Helsley / Suarez / Foley
Pitcher Reports
Algo SP Ranks - Yesterday
1. Edward Cabrera
2. Reese Olson
3. Spencer Arrighetti
4. Sonny Gray
5. Aaron Nola
6. George Kirby
7. Nick Nastrini
8. Merrill Kelly
9. Joe Ross
10. Adrian Houser
11. Xzavion Curry
12. Zach Eflin
13. Tyler Glasnow
14. Ross Stripling
15. Kyle Harrison
16. Darius Vines
17. Seth Lugo
18. Patrick Sandoval
19. Cal Quantrill
20. Louie Varland
21. Kutter Crawford
22. Mitchell Parker
23. Michael Lorenzen
24. Ben Brown
25. Cole Irvin
26. Chris Bassitt
27. Joe Musgrove
28. Martin Perez
29. Frankie Montas
Fantasy Points Leaders - Yesterday
1. Aaron Nola (vs. COL): 29.49 Points
2. Edward Cabrera (vs. SF): 27.9 Points
3. Sonny Gray (vs. OAK): 27.1 Points
4. Seth Lugo (vs. CWS): 24.75 Points
5. Reese Olson (vs. TEX): 24.04 Points
6. Kutter Crawford (vs. CLE): 23.56 Points
7. Chris Bassitt (vs. NYY): 22.64 Points
8. George Kirby (vs. CIN): 22.5 Points
9. Zach Eflin (vs. LAA): 20.64 Points
10. Michael Lorenzen (vs. DET): 18.45 Points
Whiffs Leaders - Yesterday
1. Edward Cabrera (MIA): 17 Whiffs (91 Pitches)
2. Reese Olson (DET): 17 Whiffs (95 Pitches)
3. Luis Gil (NYY): 16 Whiffs (99 Pitches)
4. Spencer Arrighetti (HOU): 15 Whiffs (87 Pitches)
5. Merrill Kelly (ARI): 13 Whiffs (95 Pitches)
6. Aaron Nola (PHI): 12 Whiffs (99 Pitches)
7. George Kirby (SEA): 12 Whiffs (89 Pitches)
8. Tyler Glasnow (LAD): 12 Whiffs (94 Pitches)
9. Nick Nastrini (CWS): 11 Whiffs (74 Pitches)
10. Sonny Gray (STL): 11 Whiffs (72 Pitches)
Strike% Leaders - Yesterday
1. Edward Cabrera (MIA): 56.0 Strike%, 31.9 Ball%
2. Kutter Crawford (BOS): 54.3 Strike%, 31.5 Ball%
3. Spencer Arrighetti (HOU): 52.9 Strike%, 34.5 Ball%
4. Aaron Nola (PHI): 52.5 Strike%, 30.3 Ball%
5. Cole Irvin (BAL): 52.4 Strike%, 29.3 Ball%
6. Nick Martinez (CIN): 51.8 Strike%, 26.8 Ball%
7. Reese Olson (DET): 49.5 Strike%, 33.7 Ball%
8. George Kirby (SEA): 49.4 Strike%, 32.6 Ball%
9. Sonny Gray (STL): 48.6 Strike%, 30.6 Ball%
10. Louie Varland (MIN): 47.9 Strike%, 29.8 Ball%
11. Ross Stripling (OAK): 47.5 Strike%, 33.7 Ball%
12. Chris Bassitt (TOR): 47.4 Strike%, 36.1 Ball%
13. Nick Nastrini (CWS): 47.3 Strike%, 35.1 Ball%
14. Kyle Harrison (SF): 47.1 Strike%, 25.9 Ball%
15. Xzavion Curry (CLE): 46.6 Strike%, 34.2 Ball%
Pitches/Out (POUT) Leaders - Yesterday
1. Zach Eflin: 76 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.22 POUT
2. Sonny Gray: 72 Pitches, 17 Outs, 4.24 POUT
3. Aaron Nola: 99 Pitches, 22 Outs, 4.5 POUT
4. Nick Martinez: 56 Pitches, 12 Outs, 4.67 POUT
5. Ben Brown: 84 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.67 POUT
6. Seth Lugo: 99 Pitches, 21 Outs, 4.71 POUT
7. Xzavion Curry: 73 Pitches, 15 Outs, 4.87 POUT
8. Nick Nastrini: 74 Pitches, 15 Outs, 4.93 POUT
9. George Kirby: 89 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.94 POUT
10. Cal Quantrill: 90 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.0 POUT
Velo Changes - Yesterday
Louie Varland's CH velo (12 pitches) UP 2.9mph to 89.1
Aaron Nola's FC velo (13 pitches) UP 1.8mph to 88.2
Louie Varland's FC velo (23 pitches) UP 1.6mph to 91.1
Chris Bassitt's FC velo (20 pitches) UP 1.5mph to 89.4
Xzavion Curry's SL velo (30 pitches) DOWN -1.5mph to 83.5
Ross Stripling's SL velo (17 pitches) DOWN -2.4mph to 84.4
Pitch Mix Changes - Yesterday
Adrian Houser's CH usage (15.8%) up 10.7 points
Cal Quantrill's FS usage (34.4%) up 19.1 points
Kutter Crawford's FC usage (41.3%) up 13.2 points
Kyle Harrison's CH usage (25.9%) up 10.5 points
Louie Varland's CU usage (23.4%) up 18.8 points
Michael Lorenzen's SI usage (27.8%) up 14.9 points
Reese Olson's CH usage (29.5%) up 13.2 points
Ross Stripling's FF usage (50.5%) up 23.4 points
Zach Eflin's SI usage (50.0%) up 17.5 points
CSW% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Jared Jones - 72 TBF, 37.4% CSW%
Jack Flaherty - 79 TBF, 36.7% CSW%
Reid Detmers - 64 TBF, 34.6% CSW%
Garrett Crochet - 88 TBF, 34.4% CSW%
Joe Ryan - 70 TBF, 33.7% CSW%
Tarik Skubal - 65 TBF, 33.6% CSW%
Chris Sale - 71 TBF, 33.5% CSW%
Logan Gilbert - 77 TBF, 33.2% CSW%
Max Meyer - 65 TBF, 33.2% CSW%
Brady Singer - 69 TBF, 33.1% CSW%
K% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Reid Detmers - 64 TBF, 40.6% K%
Freddy Peralta - 66 TBF, 39.4% K%
MacKenzie Gore - 65 TBF, 35.4% K%
Garrett Crochet - 88 TBF, 35.2% K%
Jared Jones - 72 TBF, 34.7% K%
Joe Ryan - 70 TBF, 34.3% K%
Tyler Glasnow - 95 TBF, 32.6% K%
Yusei Kikuchi - 65 TBF, 30.8% K%
Tarik Skubal - 65 TBF, 30.8% K%
Ryan Pepiot - 65 TBF, 30.8% K%
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