MLB Daily Notes - April 5th
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis.
After things go wrong, it feels really good to have things go right. We view the world in contrasts, I think. Summer is only nice because we go through winter. Feeling healthy is only desirable because you know what it feels like to be sick. And on and on. I’m reading this book now:
It’s a pretty mainstream popular book right now, which makes me nervous about it, but it’s good. The guy makes a point early on about how humans will never get to a point where they don’t feel discomfort. No matter how cushy your life is, the factors that cause discomfort will just adapt and become more comfortable in themselves. There’s an example there of a guy who was wearing a t-shirt in 40 degree weather and didn’t feel cold at all, because he had spent a ton of time in very cold weather. And it’s more than physical too, of course. The more easy our lives are, the more mundane the things that bother us become.
The thesis of the book, I think, is that we should intentionally go do hard, uncomfortable things, because that will make our day-to-day lives much easier. Not only will we stretch our limits and have useful experiences, it will become much easier for us to deal with things that would otherwise bother us more than they need to. Or something.
Good book, but yeah it’s extremely clear to me that we basically work on a curve. Human nature breeds discontentment regardless of how good our lives are. I imagine we go through the same (or maybe even more) anxiety and stress as people that were fighting for their lives every day hundreds of years ago. Pretty wild.
Baseball, bro. There wasn’t much action yesterday, but I didn’t look into much stuff from Wednesday yesterday with the whole delay debacle.
SP Strike% leaders from the last two days:
Patrick Sandoval
Patrick Sandoval has had a pretty good start to the year. The Orioles kind of singled him to death in that first start, and the walk rate hasn’t been good at 10.8%, but the 15.7% SwStr% and 51% Strike% is good to see.
Maybe he’s finally turning a corner here? The story with him has long been that he’s a man with an elite changeup, but no fastball to change up.
It takes us back to our first point. A changeup needs something good to change-up. And his fastball has been horrible. He has a little more velocity on the four-seamer this year so far, and it’s been okay with the 47% Strike% and 11.1% SwStr%. He has all these other weapons too, so he could turn in a half-decent season if he can figure out some ways to set up that changeup more effectively.
Lance Lynn
I’ve been trying to do more section headers like this so people can scan through and find things they’re interested or and skip the things they’re not.
We have to take a good look at Lance Lynn, of course:
He has kept on keeping on with the whiffs (16.3% SwStr% is elite), but yeah he’s given up three homers in two starts and hasn’t made it through five innings yet. A 12:2 K:BB though! This guy is going to have some really bad starts this year, but (contrast!) he’s also going to have some dominant outings as well. At some point soon, there is going to be a Lance Lynn 7 inning, 12 strikeout, 0 ER performance which makes everybody wonder IS HE BACK?
I don’t think it’s crazy at all to start him in good matchups. And if we’re getting super granular, I’d be more interested in him against teams that don’t hit a lot of fly balls.
Pitcher Reports
If you’re a paid subscriber, you know I have these automated SP ranks that update daily.
It’s completely automated, zero input from me. It focuses heavily on strike-earning, but also factors in quality of contact allowed and sprinkles in a light touch of Stuff+.
So I’ve tuned that to rank on yesterday’s SP data as well, and that will now headline the pitching section of the notes. Here’s what it looks like for right now:
Algo SP Ranks - Yesterday
1. Tanner Bibee
2. Lance Lynn
3. Casey Mize
4. Matt Manning
5. Jose Butto
6. Pablo Lopez
7. Martin Perez
8. Adrian Houser
9. Josiah Gray
10. Ryan Weathers
11. Michael Soroka
12. Seth Lugo
On a full slate, the list will be 30 starters long, and that might be too long. This thing is already a monster to scroll through, so maybe it doesn’t matter. I think it will be interesting to see the full list, so I’ll try giving it for the first few days and see what happens. I am always open to suggestions and requests for these daily notes though, so leave a comment if you have something!
Tanner Bibee took the win yesterday in multiple categories. He has made two starts now with a 29% K% and an 11% BB%.
The Strike% is average and the Ball% is high, which isn’t good to see. But he struck out nine Twins yesterday, and he had a really solid rookie season, so he’s a must-start guy right now and seemingly has quite a bit of upside.
The Casey Mize season started yesterday, and he was pretty meh.
The fastball was good. The 59% Strike% is elite, and the 11.8% SwStr% is pretty good for a four-seamer. The splitter worked with limited usage, but the slider was awful. Maybe he’s not as garbo as I’ve thought, but a lot of people are talking about him as a top-50 SP or something and that makes no sense to me.
I’m pretty happy with Martin Perez’s start to the year. The Pirates have won both of his starts and he’s allowed just three earnies in two starts, but his SwStr% is 9.9% and his Strike% is 44%. Some very bad starts are coming.
Fantasy Points Leaders - Yesterday
1. Tanner Bibee (vs. MIN): 28.99 Points
2. Martin Perez (vs. WSH): 22.21 Points
3. Jose Butto (vs. DET): 19.9 Points
4. Ryan Weathers (vs. STL): 17.65 Points
5. Seth Lugo (vs. CWS): 17.01 Points
6. Reed Garrett (vs. DET): 16.95 Points
7. Matt Manning (vs. NYM): 16.36 Points
8. Shelby Miller (vs. NYM): 15.3 Points
9. Adrian Houser (vs. DET): 11.65 Points
10. Lance Lynn (vs. MIA): 11.11 Points
Whiffs Leaders - Yesterday
1. Tanner Bibee (CLE): 17 Whiffs (91 Pitches)
2. Lance Lynn (STL): 14 Whiffs (83 Pitches)
3. Jose Butto (NYM): 12 Whiffs (90 Pitches)
4. Pablo Lopez (MIN): 12 Whiffs (95 Pitches)
5. Josiah Gray (WSH): 11 Whiffs (96 Pitches)
6. Ryan Weathers (MIA): 11 Whiffs (85 Pitches)
7. Casey Mize (DET): 10 Whiffs (87 Pitches)
8. Adrian Houser (NYM): 8 Whiffs (67 Pitches)
9. Martin Perez (PIT): 8 Whiffs (85 Pitches)
10. Michael Tonkin (NYM): 8 Whiffs (28 Pitches)
Strike% Leaders - Yesterday
1. Lance Lynn (STL): 53.0 Strike%, 28.9 Ball%
2. Tanner Bibee (CLE): 51.6 Strike%, 34.1 Ball%
3. Casey Mize (DET): 48.3 Strike%, 35.6 Ball%
4. Martin Perez (PIT): 48.2 Strike%, 28.2 Ball%
5. Matt Manning (DET): 44.4 Strike%, 40.0 Ball%
6. Josiah Gray (WSH): 43.8 Strike%, 39.6 Ball%
7. Jose Butto (NYM): 42.2 Strike%, 42.2 Ball%
8. Adrian Houser (NYM): 41.8 Strike%, 37.3 Ball%
9. Ryan Weathers (MIA): 41.2 Strike%, 44.7 Ball%
10. Pablo Lopez (MIN): 41.1 Strike%, 36.8 Ball%
11. Michael Soroka (CWS): 40.7 Strike%, 37.4 Ball%
12. Seth Lugo (KC): 40.7 Strike%, 33.7 Ball%
Pitches/Out (POUT) Leaders - Yesterday
1. Martin Perez: 85 Pitches, 20 Outs, 4.25 POUT
2. Seth Lugo: 86 Pitches, 20 Outs, 4.3 POUT
3. Adrian Houser: 67 Pitches, 15 Outs, 4.47 POUT
4. Jose Butto: 90 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.0 POUT
5. Matt Manning: 90 Pitches, 17 Outs, 5.29 POUT
6. Michael Soroka: 91 Pitches, 17 Outs, 5.35 POUT
7. Pablo Lopez: 95 Pitches, 17 Outs, 5.59 POUT
8. Ryan Weathers: 85 Pitches, 15 Outs, 5.67 POUT
9. Tanner Bibee: 91 Pitches, 16 Outs, 5.69 POUT
10. Lance Lynn: 83 Pitches, 14 Outs, 5.93 POUT
Velo Changes - Yesterday
Martin Perez's FC velo (23 pitches) DOWN -1.6mph to 87.5
Martin Perez's CH velo (18 pitches) DOWN -1.6mph to 82.4
Pitch Mix Changes - Yesterday
Jose Butto's SI usage (32.2%) up 23.7 points
Josiah Gray's CH usage (15.6%) up 13.6 points
Lance Lynn's FC usage (42.2%) up 16.5 points
Matt Manning's ST usage (40.0%) up 37.1 points
Ryan Weathers's ST usage (38.8%) up 17.9 points
Tanner Bibee's CH usage (29.7%) up 12.5 points
Pitch Mix Changes - Last 3 Starts
None
CSW% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Shane Bieber - 45 TBF, 36.1% CSW%
Garrett Crochet - 48 TBF, 34.4% CSW%
Cole Ragans - 47 TBF, 34.0% CSW%
Zack Wheeler - 48 TBF, 33.5% CSW%
Corbin Burnes - 45 TBF, 33.0% CSW%
Logan Allen - 47 TBF, 32.0% CSW%
Merrill Kelly - 48 TBF, 31.8% CSW%
Chris Bassitt - 48 TBF, 31.2% CSW%
Ryan Weathers - 45 TBF, 30.7% CSW%
Pablo Lopez - 48 TBF, 30.7% CSW%
Become a paid sub today to get the rest of the daily notes. It’s just $9/month and you get absolutely everything that I do here. Check out the about page here for more. 10% of your subscription goes to Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian humanitarian aid organization.