MLB Daily Notes - August 5th
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis.
Pitcher Review
Robbie Ray has yo-yo’d us in three starts.
Elite, bad, elite. The full picture shows us elite. Two out of three is pretty good in baseball.
→ 19.2% SwStr%
→ 37% Ball%
You’ll take that every time, but we do have the usual Robbie Ray home run issue going on. He’s always been a fly ball pitcher, so this is to be expected. But the home ballpark in San Francisco can help that a bit.
The fastball has been very good and the slider has been elite so far. I think you’re going to get a lot of dominance from Ray down the stretch with some real stinkers mixed in there when the home run variance does not go in his favor.
Spencer Arrighetti had the best start of his career and still lost.
6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 12 K, 2 BB, 20% SwStr%, 58% Strikes%
This was against the terrible Rays lineup, but still. His 20 whiffs were the best of his career by five full whiffs, and this was just the second time with double-digit strikeouts (10 on 6/26 against the Rockies).
For the season now:
→ 12.6% SwStr%
→ 49% Strike%
→ 36% Ball%
→ 36% GB%
That makes him most like these names:
→ Sean Manaea
→ Reynaldo Lopez
If we’re talking about next year, he would be a fringe SP in a 10-team league. Probably outside of the top 60 or so, but we’ll see how he finishes things. The stuff is clearly lacking at a 92 Stuff+, and there have been command issues in his first go at it here, so the floor is really low. But we’re talking about a young kid (24) who has a lot of time to refine and improve.
Edward Cabrera threw enough strikes to have another good outing. That will happen from time to time.
Who cares, don’t change anything on Edward CaBBrera, a leopard can’t change its spots.
Nick Pivetta has been inconsistent of late. He went for just 4.2 innings yesterday and a lower than usual 12.9% SwStr%.
The season SwStr% is 13.5%, which is great, the 51% Strike% is similarly great, and the Ball% is very low at 33%. He is an extreme fly ball guy. That typically won’t hurt him as bad as other guys since he gets a bunch of strikeouts, but it’s hurt him lately as he’s given up two homers in each of his last three starts and 19 on the season.
HR Allowed 2024
K Crawford 26
Berrios 25
Rodon 24
Gomber 22
Civale 22
Canning 21
Abbott 21
Lopez 20
Cortes 20
Gavin Williams got slapped around by the Orioles. That was pretty predictable, but the silver lining was an 8:2 K:BB. I would say the jury is still out on him. He’s tough to get a finger on, but we have 622 pitches of data on him now this year.
The 12.2% SwStr% is league-average, which we don’t like. The 50% Strike% is quite good, and the 35% Ball% is fine. He’s middling in ground-balls, and the Stuff+ is middling as well at 97. The Location+ at 101 and the Pitching+ at 102. So it would seem by those numbers that Williams is a pretty league-average arm right now. I think that’s a fair way to view him right now, and that would lead us to using him more as a streamer rather than an every-week roster guy. But the fact that he’s young (just turned 25) and has the fastball velo makes me think there’s a lot of upside for him.
Paul Skenes was not very good.
5.1 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 4 K, 3 BB, 10% SwStr%, 41% Strike%, 44% Ball%
You’re not going to have the command every single time out, and that’s what happened to Skenes yesterday against a tough Diamondbacks opponent.
But nothing changes with Skenes. It sounds like he’ll be close enough to a regular in the rotation for the rest of the season to not consider selling him in redraft leagues.
Gerrit Cole returned after a skipped start and did not look very good:
5.2 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 4 K, 0 BB, 6.6% SwStr%, 46.2% Strike%
This would have to be one of the lowest swinging-strike rates of his career. I checked just going back to 2021 and it’s his second-worst in that sample:
Now he sits here with 714 pitches thrown and a 10.9% SwStr%. That’s pretty concerning to me, especially after we heard that he did not recover well at all from his previous start and needed extra time off.
Maybe this is all just a part of the normal recovery process and he’ll get back to form in time, but I would not be feeling like I have an SP1 in Cole right now as far as fantasy leagues go. If you have him and you’re competitive in a keeper league, it might be worth your while to ship away to a team that isn’t competing right now and might to have him for next year. Cole will be 34 for next season, so there’s no guarantee that he ever makes it back to being one of the game’s top SPs.
River Ryan arsenal update:
Good fastball velo but the whiffs haven’t been there. So that’s an interesting topic, which we’ll get to. I don’t think Ryan is someone you want for fantasy this year, but this is an enticing profile to bet on for the future in my estimation. It’s really hard to get Major League hitters out consistently, and most guys that figure out how to do it take a little bit of time to get there. So if we’re guessing “yes or no” on if a guy will get there, I’d be putting my “yes” chips on guys with
Good velocity
Deep pitch mixes
You don’t need 4-5 pitches to have success, you just need like three good ones. And when you have six, as Ryan does, you have a higher probability of finding three that will work. I’d positive on Ryan long-term, but doubt he’ll do much of fantasy use for the rest of this season.
As for the general topic. Looking at four-seam fastball only, velocity does predict SwStr% decently well:
Positive Outliers (“Over Performers”):
Bailey Ober
Lance Lynn
Joe Ryan
Cristian Javier
Nestor Cortes
Negative Outliers (“Under Performers”):
Luis Medina
Jesus Luzardo
Kodai Senga
Hunter Greene
Hunter Harvey
Grayson Rodriguez
You could do a whole study on this. You could probably even write a scientific paper about it. Velocity is the key and most important attribute to a fastball, but it’s certainly not the only one. The other things we would want to include in a SwStr% prediction model would be
Movement (horizontal and vertical)
Locations
What other pitch types you throw
Bailey Ober is on the outlier list because he’s tall and adds effective velocity to the pitch because he releases it much closer to the hitter. Lance Lynn is there because he masks the four-seamer well with a sinker and a cutter. And then there’s the induced vertical break stuff. I’m not an iVB bro so I don’t know who is good and who is bad there, but I think Javier/Ryan qualify as being good at that.
I know a fair amount of college kids studying data stuff follow me, I’ve talked to many of you, so there’s an idea for a final paper some day! Build a model to most accurately predict a pitcher’s SwStr% on an individual pitch using all of the relevant inputs.
Reader Question
Jon - the Padres broadcast said Matt Waldron make some tweak about 15 starts ago (would be 16 starts after today). His surface stats since then have been really good. Any noticeable changes to the underlying metrics that suggest this is something he could keep up long term?
For the season:
23 GS, 9.4% SwStr%, 45.7% Strike%, 36.6% Ball%, 22% K%, 6.8% BB%
Split in half:
First 11: 10.2% SwStr%, 47.0% Strike%, 35.9% Ball%, 24.2% K%, 7.7% BB%
Last 12: 9.2% SwStr%, 45.0% Strike%, 36.8% Ball%, 20.2% K%, 6.6% BB%
Pitch usage in that same split:
KN: 37.5% → 40.8%
FF: 23.2% → 15.0%
SW: 18.4% → 22.2%
SI: 15.4% → 12.4%
FC: 5.5% → 9.7%
Box score stats:
First 11: 3.98 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 0.85 HR/9
Last 12: 3.60 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 1.25 HR/9
So if there was some change around that pivot point I used, then it hasn’t worked out very well in terms of earning strikes. But it has worked out in reducing the walk rate and giving him a better ERA and a much-improved WHIP.
The problem with Waldron is that I can’t evaluate him like I can other pitches.
My whole schtick here is this that I learn from old data and apply those lessons to help predict the future.
But with a knuckleball pitcher, there just isn’t other data to study. So I’m pretty much useless to you in evaluating him. I’m guessing you’re just asking from the perspective of a Padres fan rather than a Waldron fantasy owner (although I could be wrong). Either way, I can’t really help you. I think it’s probably fair to suspect that a knuckleball pitcher will be more volatile than others. It seems like a pitch prone to randomness. The knuckleball has shown some high highs and some low lows throughout the year.
Overall he’s been fine. Not really a fantasy option, but fine.
Hitter Review
The weekends highest fantasy point scorers:
Luis Garcia 64
Wilyer Abreu 58
Royce Lewis 58
Jarren Duran 57
Anthony Volpe 57
Aaron Judge 55
Corey Seager 52
Willi Castro 49
Ketel Marte 49
Teoscar Hernandez 48
Steven Kwan 48
Tyler Fitzgerald 47
Joc Pederson 47
Zach Neto 46
Bryan Reynolds 46
The dingers keep coming from Tyler Fitzgerald. I have talked about him a few times in these pages as a sell, but with every home I eat my words. He’s homered 11 times now in 149 PA with a 12.4% Brl% and a 31.5% K%. the high K% makes the home rate dubious, but the exit velocity is the real problem for me.
He’s averaged just 102.1 miles per hour on his 11 homers, that’s the 21st-lowest EV for all hitters with at least 10 homers this season. Let’s look at the bottom 50 in this metric and include their home run rates (HR/BIP):
You see the bright green there on Fitzgerald’s HR/BIP. 12.4% of his batted balls have gone for a homer. That makes him tied for fourth in the league in this metric. If we look at the top 10:
The names here that have hit a bunch of home runs all have very high average EV’s on their home runs. Fitzgerald does not.
A home run counts the same whether it goes into the first row or out of the stadium. I’m not saying the lower EV takes away from his first 11 homers. What I’m saying is that to sustain anything close to this kind of home run rate, you’ve gotta be hitting the ball harder than this. I’ve pointed out his mediocre exit velocity profile in the past, so this is just a new way of framing that. The home runs cannot go on! The exit velocity is too damn low!
Three more names to cover!
Luis Garcia had a massive weekend and is having a very nice season.
The weekend:
8 hits, 2B, 2 HR, 5 R, 2 RBI, 2 SB
The season:
369 PA, .290/.322/.460, .783 OPS, 16.3% K%, 4.6% BB%, 13 HR, 17 SB
Advanced:
8.6% Brl%, 41.4% Hard%, 79% Contact%, .348 xwOBA, 46% GB%, 104.9mph 90th percentile exit velocity
Garcia has been making contact at a high rate and hitting the ball hard since he arrived in the Major Leagues. The problem was always just that was pounding the ball into the ground and spraying his fly balls too much to post any kind of useful home run total.
Luis Garcia GB% & Pull% by Year
2021: 57.0% GB%, 43% Pull%
2022: 52.7% GB%, 34.5% Pull%
2023: 53.4% GB%, 32.2% Pull%
2024: 45.5% GB%, 25.7% Pull%
So the ground balls have gone in the right direction (in a big way), but the pull rate has gone in the wrong direction. These two things might have something to do with each other. Maybe he was hitting a lot of ground balls because he was trying to pull, and developing a more all-fields approach has led to more line drives and fly balls. Could be. What we know is that this shift has worked very well for him (wRC+ by year: 80, 93, 84, 117). He’s still far not in the fantasy stud realm, but he’s getting much closer to it with a 15-15 season locked down already and a chance to flirt with 20-20 while hitting for a very nice batting average.
Another lesson to re-iterate with him is that you always have to keep age in mind. He debuted at age 20. So he’s been around for awhile now (basically since the beginning of the new world in 2020), and yet is still just 24 years old. A lot can change when you’re that fresh, and we’ve seen a big step forward for Garcia now. Another big step forward next year and he’ll be a guy potentially returning top-25 value.
Next is Wilyer Abreu. He has been on the IL and is usually absent from the lineup against left-handed pitching, so we haven’t seen a ton of him. The results in that time:
291 PA, .275/.337/.519, .856 OPS, 28% K%, 8.6% BB%, 12 HR, 7 SB
He would not qualify for anything, but that’s a top-30 OPS in baseball.
The way to deal with Abreu in fantasy is straight forward. If you’re in a league that lets you change your lineup every day, Abreu is a very valuable. If you can only set your lineup once a week, he’s not very valuable at all. His .911 OPS against right-handed pitching is 14th-best. He has a 14% Brl%, a .350 OBP, and a .336 xwOBA against them. He’s fantastic against righties, and it’s great to have him your fantasy lineup in those matchups (and for what it’s worth he did homer off of a lefty yesterday so maybe that will even earn him a shot at the next lefty the Red Sox face).
One last guy to look at is Jerar Encarnacion, who the model is recommending as a hitter streamer today. This is for very deep leagues only. But here’s what Jerar did in the PCL this year:
146 PA, .352/.438/.616, 1.054 OPS, 24% K%, 12.1% Brl%, 94.7 average EV
He crushes the ball. He reached 112.2 as a max and a 108.9 as a 90th-percentile. Those are fantastic numbers. The worry, as always, is the GB% and the strikeouts. The GB% was fine in the minors (44%) and so was the strikeout rate, but it’s not uncommon at all to see Major League pitching immediately blow both of those numbers way up, to the massive detriment of the hitter.
So that’s the quick story with him (he’s on the Giants, by the way). Don’t be surprised if you see this guy blast a few homers and generate some hype this year.
That was one heck of a daily notes edition, shout out to me - happy Monday!
Pitcher Reports
Algo SP Ranks - Yesterday
1. Robbie Ray
2. Spencer Arrighetti
3. Edward Cabrera
4. Zack Wheeler
5. Nathan Eovaldi
6. Logan Gilbert
7. Osvaldo Bido
8. Yariel Rodriguez
9. Justin Steele
10. Griffin Canning
11. Max Fried
12. Matt Waldron
13. Simeon Woods Richardson
14. Gavin Williams
15. Miles Mikolas
16. Nick Pivetta
17. Ryne Nelson
18. Carson Spiers
19. Paul Skenes
20. Jose Quintana
21. Tobias Myers
22. River Ryan
23. Corbin Burnes
24. Mitchell Parker
25. Gerrit Cole
26. Cal Quantrill
27. Chris Flexen
28. Michael Wacha
Fantasy Points Leaders - Yesterday
1. Zack Wheeler (vs. SEA): 38.2 Points
2. Spencer Arrighetti (vs. TB): 31.3 Points
3. Edward Cabrera (vs. ATL): 28.25 Points
4. Robbie Ray (vs. CIN): 26.85 Points
5. Matt Waldron (vs. COL): 26.36 Points
6. Griffin Canning (vs. NYM): 25.05 Points
7. Justin Steele (vs. STL): 24.01 Points
8. Logan Gilbert (vs. PHI): 23.1 Points
9. Tyler Alexander - 641302 (vs. HOU): 21.94 Points
10. Mitchell Parker (vs. MIL): 19.9 Points
Whiffs Leaders - Yesterday
1. Spencer Arrighetti (HOU): 20 Whiffs (100 Pitches)
2. Nathan Eovaldi (TEX): 18 Whiffs (99 Pitches)
3. Edward Cabrera (MIA): 18 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
4. Robbie Ray (SF): 18 Whiffs (86 Pitches)
5. Logan Gilbert (SEA): 17 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
6. Osvaldo Bido (OAK): 16 Whiffs (100 Pitches)
7. Zack Wheeler (PHI): 14 Whiffs (96 Pitches)
8. Griffin Canning (LAA): 14 Whiffs (97 Pitches)
9. Max Fried (ATL): 13 Whiffs (82 Pitches)
10. Simeon Woods Richardson (MIN): 13 Whiffs (89 Pitches)
Strike% Leaders - Yesterday
1. Spencer Arrighetti (HOU): 58.0 Strike%, 33.0 Ball%
2. Robbie Ray (SF): 53.5 Strike%, 36.0 Ball%
3. Zack Wheeler (PHI): 53.1 Strike%, 29.2 Ball%
4. Edward Cabrera (MIA): 52.0 Strike%, 38.8 Ball%
5. Nathan Eovaldi (TEX): 51.5 Strike%, 33.3 Ball%
6. Logan Gilbert (SEA): 51.0 Strike%, 33.7 Ball%
7. Miles Mikolas (STL): 50.0 Strike%, 31.8 Ball%
8. Yariel Rodriguez (TOR): 48.7 Strike%, 32.9 Ball%
9. Gavin Williams (CLE): 47.7 Strike%, 38.4 Ball%
10. Carson Spiers (CIN): 47.7 Strike%, 33.7 Ball%
11. Justin Steele (CHC): 47.5 Strike%, 34.3 Ball%
12. Ryne Nelson (ARI): 47.4 Strike%, 39.2 Ball%
13. Simeon Woods Richardson (MIN): 47.2 Strike%, 39.3 Ball%
14. Tyler Alexander (TB): 46.6 Strike%, 36.2 Ball%
15. Max Fried (ATL): 46.3 Strike%, 43.9 Ball%
Pitches/Out (POUT) Leaders - Yesterday
1. Zack Wheeler: 96 Pitches, 24 Outs, 4.0 POUT
2. Tobias Myers: 64 Pitches, 15 Outs, 4.27 POUT
3. Tyler Alexander: 58 Pitches, 13 Outs, 4.46 POUT
4. Matt Waldron: 80 Pitches, 17 Outs, 4.71 POUT
5. Mitchell Parker: 87 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.83 POUT
6. Justin Steele: 99 Pitches, 20 Outs, 4.95 POUT
7. Nick Pivetta: 70 Pitches, 14 Outs, 5.0 POUT
8. River Ryan: 75 Pitches, 14 Outs, 5.36 POUT
9. Carson Spiers: 86 Pitches, 16 Outs, 5.38 POUT
10. Yariel Rodriguez: 76 Pitches, 14 Outs, 5.43 POUT
Velo Changes - Yesterday
Logan Gilbert's CU velo (22 pitches) UP 2.7mph to 84.0
Tyler Alexander's ST velo (11 pitches) UP 2.7mph to 79.5
Gavin Williams's CU velo (18 pitches) UP 2.5mph to 80.0
Ryne Nelson's CU velo (13 pitches) UP 1.8mph to 78.9
Gavin Williams's FF velo (51 pitches) UP 1.8mph to 97.8
Yariel Rodriguez's CU velo (10 pitches) UP 1.7mph to 79.8
Tobias Myers's FC velo (13 pitches) DOWN -1.9mph to 87.4
Nick Pivetta's ST velo (26 pitches) DOWN -2.3mph to 80.6
Nick Pivetta's FF velo (30 pitches) DOWN -2.5mph to 91.9
Pitch Mix Changes - Yesterday
Logan Gilbert's CU usage (22.4%) up 10.5 points
Nick Pivetta's ST usage (37.1%) up 21.6 points
Osvaldo Bido's FF usage (48.0%) up 16.7 points
Osvaldo Bido's CH usage (22.0%) up 11.3 points
Paul Skenes's SI usage (30.0%) up 22.1 points
Simeon Woods Richardson's FF usage (52.8%) up 12.2 points
Zack Wheeler's FC usage (17.7%) up 12.9 points
Pitch Mix Changes - Last 3 Starts
Luis Gil Slider: +24.6%
Patrick Corbin Cutter: +21.6%
Brady Singer Sinker: +18.4%
Yusei Kikuchi Curveball: -18.1%
Luis Gil 4-Seam Fastball: -17.6%
Tyler Glasnow 4-Seam Fastball: -17.5%
Blake Snell Curveball: +16.2%
Bailey Falter Slider: +15.4%
Sean Manaea 4-Seam Fastball: +15.2%
Kyle Harrison Slurve: +15.0%
Tyler Glasnow Sinker: +14.7%
Jose Quintana Curveball: +14.4%
Ryan Feltner Slider: -13.9%
Randy Vasquez Cutter: +13.9%
George Kirby 4-Seam Fastball: -13.4%
Kyle Freeland 4-Seam Fastball: -13.3%
Hunter Brown Sinker: +12.9%
Framber Valdez Curveball: +12.8%
Tanner Houck Slider: -12.8%
Jonathan Cannon Sinker: -12.7%
Tanner Bibee Slider: -12.6%
Jose Soriano Sinker: +12.4%
Cade Povich Sinker: +12.4%
Framber Valdez Sinker: -12.4%
Sean Manaea Sinker: -12.3%
Gavin Williams Slider: +12.3%
Logan Gilbert Cutter: -12.2%
Andrew Abbott Sweeper: +12.2%
Edward Cabrera Sinker: +12.0%
CSW% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Blake Snell - 74 TBF, 39.3% CSW%
Framber Valdez - 73 TBF, 36.1% CSW%
Sonny Gray - 77 TBF, 35.2% CSW%
Spencer Schwellenbach - 75 TBF, 34.9% CSW%
Yusei Kikuchi - 69 TBF, 33.7% CSW%
Carlos Rodon - 71 TBF, 33.0% CSW%
Spencer Arrighetti - 73 TBF, 33.0% CSW%
Tyler Anderson - 75 TBF, 33.0% CSW%
Ronel Blanco - 67 TBF, 33.0% CSW%
Joe Ryan - 72 TBF, 31.8% CSW%
K% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Blake Snell - 74 TBF, 40.5% K%
Spencer Schwellenbach - 75 TBF, 38.7% K%
Carlos Rodon - 71 TBF, 35.2% K%
Yusei Kikuchi - 69 TBF, 34.8% K%
Dylan Cease - 72 TBF, 34.7% K%
Gavin Williams - 87 TBF, 34.5% K%
Framber Valdez - 73 TBF, 34.2% K%
Nick Pivetta - 85 TBF, 34.1% K%
Sonny Gray - 77 TBF, 32.5% K%
Spencer Arrighetti - 73 TBF, 31.5% K%
K-BB% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Spencer Schwellenbach - 75 TBF, 38.7% K-BB%
Blake Snell - 74 TBF, 31.1% K-BB%
Nick Pivetta - 85 TBF, 30.6% K-BB%
Carlos Rodon - 71 TBF, 28.2% K-BB%
Logan Gilbert - 64 TBF, 28.1% K-BB%
Grant Holmes - 66 TBF, 27.3% K-BB%
Sonny Gray - 77 TBF, 27.3% K-BB%
Gavin Williams - 87 TBF, 26.4% K-BB%
Framber Valdez - 73 TBF, 26.0% K-BB%
Dylan Cease - 72 TBF, 25.0% K-BB%
GB% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Dylan Cease - 72 TBF, 62.5% GB%
Zac Gallen - 76 TBF, 59.2% GB%
Charlie Morton - 64 TBF, 58.7% GB%
Logan Webb - 87 TBF, 58.5% GB%
Nathan Eovaldi - 96 TBF, 57.5% GB%
Taj Bradley - 64 TBF, 57.1% GB%
Nick Lodolo - 83 TBF, 56.9% GB%
Patrick Corbin - 71 TBF, 55.8% GB%
Cristopher Sanchez - 77 TBF, 55.6% GB%
Bryan Woo - 64 TBF, 55.1% GB%
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