MLB Daily Notes - April 8th
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis.
We have eclipsed 10,000 plate appearances in the 2024 Major League season, lmao see what I did there! Here’s that cool League Stats by Year table from the MLB & MiLB Stats Dashie:
Steal attempts are down from last year, but still way up from 2022. It’s interesting that the success rate is way down to 77%, but maybe that’s just a small-sample thing. Slugging is down so far, but that’s probably just because of the weather. We’ll keep an eye on that table in the first few months here, but I don’t think there will be any significant shifts from the 2023 season in terms of league landscape.
I got a few different DM’s about Corbin Carroll. He’s hitting .200/.333/.229 this year with zero homers and two steals. The good news is that he has a 4.8% K% and a 16.7% BB% and has been caught stealing twice (that’s not good news, but it does mean he’s running a ton).
He has a cool .212 BABIP. He’s not crushing the ball by any means, but that’s not really his game anyways. I would not be worried about him whatsoever.
The other struggling top-three pick is none other than Ronald Acuna Jr. He’s slashing .273/.351/.333 with a 35% K%, an 11% BB%, zero homers and one steal. The contact rate is down at 68% and he has not barreled a ball yet. That’s eight games without a barrel. He went eight consecutive games without a barrel just once last year, and only had three instances of going at least six games without a barrel. Hit me with the “it’s way too early” qualifier, of course, but there’s a little added concern here with the pre-season injury. He’s #83 on the hitter player rater right now, and you’re probably not off to a great start in your league if you took him at #1. But what are you going to do? Trade him? I don’t think so! I mean if someone is giving you Bobby Witt or something for him than maybe you consider that, but you’re certainly not in sell mode.
Victor Scott is hitting .083/.154/.139 in 39 PAs to start his career. So that’s terrible. He has a 28% K% and a bad (but not completely awful) 73% Contact%. The .120 BABIP should improve, but his batted ball profile is just awful. A .189 xwOBA shows that, and the hard hit rate is just 28%.
He has a 28% FB%, which is above the league average of 26%. That is not what you want for a speedy guy without raw power. Those fly balls are not often going to find a fence to fly over. Weak fly balls are bad. We want to see him hitting line drives and hard ground balls.
I think you can cut him if you picked him up, but I would probably lean towards just keeping him on your bench for one more week to see if he can make some kind of adjustment. If he can even get to a .310 OBP or something, the steals will be a difference maker.
Your top ten hitters on the player rater so far:
Mookie Betts
Teoscar Hernandez
Tyler O’Neill
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
Spencer Steer
Adolis Garcia
Marcell Ozuna
Michael Conforto
Ketel Marte
Shohei Ohtani
Your bottom ten (#167-#178): Castellanos, Benintendi, Seth Brown, Vaughn, Rodgers, Meneses, Bregman, Pasquantino, Allen, Rendon
Ryan Pepiot
The man of the day. Six scoreless and an 11:0 K:BB in Coors Field. Impressive stuff.
The 22.3% SwStr% and 61.7% Strike% are elite numbers. The league SwStr% last year was 12.2%, and in Coors it was 12.1%. So it’s a small difference, but it is a bit harder to earn strikeouts in the elevation, so any big pitching performance is really impressive there. Here’s the arsenal for the season:
Only six pitchers have a SwStr% above 20% on their four-seamer (70 pitches minimum), and Pepiot is one of them:
The average SwStr% on a four-seamer is 10.7%. You will typically see the best SPs topping off between 14%-17%. Luis Castillo led the league last year at 17.8%, but get below 15% pretty quickly (Cristian Javier was eighth-best at 14.7%).
It’s really good and important to have a good four-seamer, so that’s great. Checking his performance on the Player Checklist:
He has just two checks, the fastball strikes and the strikes on the secondary pitch. This is far from an exact science, it’s more just a novelty thing than a truly predictable practice, but it does highlight potential issues with Pepiot. Check out the description of this resource here if you’re interested in that. Paid subscribers get access to that report, updated daily for pitchers and hitters.
His Ball% hasn’t been very good, and the arsenal is a bit limited. So I don’t think he has the most upside, but having a very good four-seamer takes you a long way all by itself. So you’re starting Pepiot, but he’s someone I’d be willing to sell high on if he continues to have a lot of success in the short term.
Shota Imanaga
The lefty had his outing cut short by rain yesterday (43 pitches), but he had pitched well against the Dodgers for four innings before that (4 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 3 K, 0 BB). He has now has a great line of a 20.7% SwStr%, 54.8% Strike%, and a 28.1% Ball% so far. That’s elite. He hasn’t walked anybody yet. Great start for Imanaga.
Garrett Crochet
He was good again, and now he has a 21:1 K:BB on the year. That gives him the 9th-best K-BB% in the league for SPs with at least two starts. He is on the magic formula qualifiers list as well with the nice 46% GB%. I’m still probably trying to unload him for a nice return, though.
Luis Gil
He was one of the most interesting SPs to watch coming out of spring, and so far:
This is pretty much just what we expected.
High K%, high BB%, high FB%. The FB% hasn’t been high yet, but that’s because they’ve mostly been line drives.
He hasn’t given up a homer yet, so that’s good, but I would imagine that won’t be true for much longer. He doesn’t profile as a guy that’s great at avoiding homers. Given the 12.3% SwStr% and the wildness, I would not be excited to start this guy moving forward.
Ryne Nelson
Another interesting name we were watching after the spring. Here are his marks:
Still throwing a ton of four-seamers, which isn’t what we want to see, but it’s not a ridiculous amount, and the pitch has been fine so far. The slider/cutter/changeup trio is interesting. They’re all more just fine than great, but he is confident in all three. Overall, it hasn’t been a great start for him with the high 39% Ball% and low 11.5% SwStr%, but he certainly did fool some dudes yesterday with a 7:0 K:BB in five innings.
Jack Flaherty
It’s been just classic Flaherty. He gets you hyped in the spring, looks pretty good in his first starts, and then destroys your life in his second start in an elite matchup.
He gave up nine hits and six earnies against the Athletics. The silver lining is a nice 5:1 K:BB here, and he’s walked just one batter in 12 innings. So that’s a positive. Unfortunately, the walks haven’t been traded for strikeouts but for balls in play.
In deep leagues, I think Flaherty is competent enough to just ride it out. Take the good with the bad and hope the arrow points slightly more towards good at the end of the year. But he’s not going to break out, it’s a lost cause guys stop getting excited.
Let’s take a look at the 6+ check hitters:
What we’re doing here is checking for hitter performance in seven different categories
Low K%
High Contact%
High Brl%
Low GB%
High EV on fly balls
Attempting steals
Swinging at strikes
There’s a lot of overlap in barrels, ground balls, and FB EV. It’s pretty interesting to see Michael Busch here. He’s slashing .296/.375/.481 with a 22% K% and a 9.5% Brl%. He has not attempted a steal, but everything else has been there. Great start to the year for him. If you are unfamiliar, he was a former Dodgers prospect who was one of the best hitters in all of AAA last year, but couldn’t do much of anything in a couple of shorter stints in the Majors. It wasn’t encouraging to see the Dodgers giving him up so easily, but he’s doing everything we want to see early on here, so you can pick him up if you’re in need of a corner infielder.
Riley Greene is off to a good start despite a .188 batting average. He has three homers and a 16.7% Brl% with a good 21% K%. The .143 BABIP is really low, so there’s better luck coming for him. He has been a high BABIP hitter in his career (.366 since the beginning of last season), and I do not have many questions about his power production. I think he’s in for a 30-homer season with a .260+ batting average. Sign me up.
I’ve gotta wrap it here, more to come later today in some form.
Pitcher Reports
Algo SP Ranks - Yesterday
1. Ryan Pepiot
2. Shota Imanaga
3. Garrett Crochet
4. Chris Sale
5. Gavin Stone
6. Ryne Nelson
7. Dakota Hudson
8. Jack Flaherty
9. Sean Manaea
10. Luis Gil
11. Max Meyer
12. Dean Kremer
13. MacKenzie Gore
14. Bowden Francis
15. Dane Dunning
16. Marco Gonzales
17. Ronel Blanco
18. Colin Rea
19. Chase Silseth
20. Andrew Abbott
21. Emerson Hancock
22. Kyle Gibson
23. Tanner Houck
24. Cristopher Sanchez
25. Matt Waldron
26. Joe Boyle
27. Alec Marsh
28. Logan Webb
Fantasy Points Leaders - Yesterday
1. Ryan Pepiot (vs. COL): 37.7 Points
2. Tanner Houck (vs. LAA): 27.9 Points
3. Dean Kremer (vs. PIT): 24.75 Points
4. Joe Boyle (vs. DET): 24.25 Points
5. Ronel Blanco (vs. TEX): 22.5 Points
6. Sean Manaea (vs. CIN): 22.25 Points
7. Chris Sale (vs. ARI): 21.59 Points
8. MacKenzie Gore (vs. PHI): 20.56 Points
9. Matt Waldron (vs. SF): 19.59 Points
10. Max Meyer (vs. STL): 19.1 Points
Whiffs Leaders - Yesterday
1. Ryan Pepiot (TB): 21 Whiffs (94 Pitches)
2. Ryne Nelson (ARI): 16 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
3. Garrett Crochet (CWS): 15 Whiffs (77 Pitches)
4. Jack Flaherty (DET): 14 Whiffs (94 Pitches)
5. Chris Sale (ATL): 13 Whiffs (96 Pitches)
6. Gavin Stone (LAD): 13 Whiffs (77 Pitches)
7. Luis Gil (NYY): 12 Whiffs (95 Pitches)
8. Sean Manaea (NYM): 12 Whiffs (92 Pitches)
9. Max Meyer (MIA): 11 Whiffs (83 Pitches)
10. MacKenzie Gore (WSH): 11 Whiffs (92 Pitches)
Strike% Leaders - Yesterday
1. Ryan Pepiot (TB): 61.7 Strike%, 28.7 Ball%
2. Chris Sale (ATL): 57.3 Strike%, 28.1 Ball%
3. Thyago Vieira (MIL): 56.0 Strike%, 34.0 Ball%
4. Dean Kremer (BAL): 53.8 Strike%, 24.2 Ball%
5. Ryan Yarbrough (LAD): 52.7 Strike%, 23.6 Ball%
6. Sean Manaea (NYM): 52.2 Strike%, 35.9 Ball%
7. Ryne Nelson (ARI): 51.0 Strike%, 34.7 Ball%
8. Gavin Stone (LAD): 50.6 Strike%, 36.4 Ball%
9. Chase Silseth (LAA): 49.5 Strike%, 38.5 Ball%
10. Luis Gil (NYY): 49.5 Strike%, 43.2 Ball%
11. Bowden Francis (TOR): 49.4 Strike%, 42.9 Ball%
12. MacKenzie Gore (WSH): 48.9 Strike%, 37.0 Ball%
13. Garrett Crochet (CWS): 48.1 Strike%, 33.8 Ball%
14. Dakota Hudson (COL): 47.7 Strike%, 29.5 Ball%
15. Dane Dunning (TEX): 47.4 Strike%, 35.1 Ball%
Pitches/Out (POUT) Leaders - Yesterday
1. Ryan Yarbrough: 55 Pitches, 14 Outs, 3.93 POUT
2. Logan Webb: 85 Pitches, 21 Outs, 4.05 POUT
3. Marco Gonzales: 77 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.28 POUT
4. Colin Rea: 81 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.5 POUT
5. Dean Kremer: 91 Pitches, 20 Outs, 4.55 POUT
6. Max Meyer: 83 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.61 POUT
7. Dane Dunning: 97 Pitches, 20 Outs, 4.85 POUT
8. Dakota Hudson: 88 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.89 POUT
9. Ronel Blanco: 90 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.0 POUT
10. Garrett Crochet: 77 Pitches, 15 Outs, 5.13 POUT
Velo Changes - Yesterday
Ryne Nelson's FC velo (27 pitches) UP 5.4mph to 91.3
MacKenzie Gore's SL velo (14 pitches) UP 2.4mph to 91.2
MacKenzie Gore's FF velo (49 pitches) UP 2.1mph to 97.2
Cristopher Sanchez's CH velo (32 pitches) UP 1.9mph to 84.0
Chase Silseth's FS velo (19 pitches) DOWN -1.5mph to 85.4
MacKenzie Gore's CH velo (13 pitches) DOWN -1.5mph to 84.4
Andrew Abbott's CH velo (16 pitches) DOWN -1.6mph to 84.9
Joe Boyle's SL velo (21 pitches) DOWN -1.6mph to 86.4
Colin Rea's SI velo (24 pitches) DOWN -1.7mph to 90.8
Colin Rea's FF velo (18 pitches) DOWN -2.0mph to 91.1
Pitch Mix Changes - Yesterday
Alec Marsh's SI usage (20.5%) up 12.9 points
Bowden Francis's FS usage (14.3%) up 12.3 points
Chase Anderson's FC usage (39.7%) up 11.8 points
Chase Silseth's ST usage (30.8%) up 25.0 points
Chris Sale's SL usage (50.0%) up 11.9 points
Dane Dunning's SL usage (34.0%) up 10.4 points
Dean Kremer's FS usage (24.2%) up 23.0 points
Garrett Crochet's FC usage (18.2%) up 10.6 points
Gavin Stone's SL usage (18.2%) up 11.3 points
Jose Suarez's ST usage (35.9%) up 20.8 points
Kyle Gibson's FC usage (28.7%) up 11.7 points
Logan Webb's CH usage (56.5%) up 15.3 points
MacKenzie Gore's CH usage (14.1%) up 10.3 points
Marco Gonzales's FC usage (29.9%) up 17.7 points
Marco Gonzales's SI usage (24.7%) up 22.7 points
Matt Waldron's ST usage (15.3%) up 12.5 points
Ronel Blanco's CH usage (31.1%) up 17.9 points
Ryne Nelson's FC usage (27.6%) up 13.1 points
Sean Manaea's ST usage (20.7%) up 14.7 points
Sean Manaea's FC usage (17.4%) up 16.0 points
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