MLB Daily Notes - July 23rd
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis.
.
Pitcher Review
It was a pretty unremarkable day on the pitching side of things. There really isn’t much here to highlight.
Carlos Rodon was awesome:
7 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 10 K, 2 BB, 15.8% SwStr%, 53.5% Strike%, 33.7% Ball%
This wasn’t as big of a shock as it might have been given his recent game logs. He has been giving up a bunch of runs, but piling up the strikeouts ever since early June. From June 1st on, he has a 29.3% K% and a 7.3% BB%. That’s a sparkling K-BB%, and if it keeps up, he’s going to be great down the stretch. The fastball has been great over this span with a 56% Strike% and 14.3% SwStr%, and then the slider and changeup have been great at getting whiffs behind it.
Pitch mix since June:
He’s a fly ball pitcher, so you will have some bad starts with multiple homers allowed, but it would appear that things will be much more good than bad for the rest of the year.
Tarik Skubal gave up ten hits in seven innings, but avoided any real pain.
7 IP, 10 H, 1 ER, 6 K, 1 BB, 15.5% SwStr%, 50.5% Strike%
He gave up a .417 BABIP on a very low .262 xwOBA, so the fact that he hurt your team’s WHIP was bad luck. He has three pitches above a 50% Strike%:
4-Seam: 53%
Changeup: 50%
Slider: 56%
I don’t write much about guys like Skubal, because what is there to say? He’s still just 27, so he has many dominant years ahead of him.
It wasn’t always this way. I remember some struggles early on for him.
Skubal FIP by Year
2020: 5.75
2021: 5.09
2022: 2.96
2023: 2.00
2024: 2.51
A lot of that was driven by the long ball. His xFIP numbers were much better in those first two years (4.81 and 4.06), so he was getting really unlucky on fly balls.
One key change for him turning into a ground ball pitcher.
Skubal GB% by Year
2020: 29%
2021: 39%
2022: 47%
2023: 52%
2024: 48%
To combine a strikeout rate above 30% with a walk rate below 7% with a ground ball rate above 45% makes you an incredibly hard pitcher to score runs on. And that’s what Skubal has done.
Here are this year’s pitchers above a 27% K%, above a 45% GB%, and below a 7% BB%.
Tobias Myers was pretty good again
5.1 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 6 K, 2 BB, 12.6% SwStr%, 51.7% Strike%
I have not bought into the guy all year long and I’m not going to start now. The ERA is 3.14, but the K-BB% is just 14.7%. That makes his SIERA 4.07.
The K% is 22%, the BB% is 7%, and the GB% is 40%. So he’s not doing anything very well. The BABIP is .267. The Stuff+ is 91, and the command is just fine with a 101 Location+ and the 7% walk rate. He shouldn’t be this good, and I hope he falls apart and brings the Brewers record down with him.
Blake Snell qual-banged against the Dodgers.
6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 4 K, 2 BB, 42.2% Strike%, 37.3% Ball%
Snell is the closest pitcher to being a guy where we don’t care about the numbers. We do still care, but he’s closer than everybody else.
He is so weird. Since last year, he’s allowed a ball in play on just 13.3% of his pitches, that’s the lowest in baseball. His Strike% is bad at 45.3%, and his Ball% is terrible at 41.5%. So for most guys you would think he’s just awful and the wheels will be falling off in short order, but he’s always been this way and he makes it work. He’s now made three starts in July and appears healthy. The pitch isn’t all the way back, he threw just 80 and 83 pitches the last two outings, which makes the fact that he threw seven and six innings really impressive. My guess is that Snell will be quite useful for the rest of the season in all fantasy leagues.
Ranger Suarez saw his strikeout rate drop even more.
5.1 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 4 K, 1 BB
The splits:
First 10: 27.6% K%, 4.9% BB%, 1.36 ERA, 9 wins
Last 10: 20.4% K%, 6.4% BB%, 5.06 ERA, 1 win
Another win for the SwStr% vs. K% plot. Here is what it looked like on May 12th:
So we had Suarez with a 28% K% but an 11.5% SwStr%. That would lead you to predict his K% would come down, and it has.
Since June 1st now:
He’s still a little bit over-performing, being pretty far below the trend line, but the original prediction was very much correct.
So let’s look that rule and look at who is standing out now. Since June 1st:
Paul Skenes is the biggest outlier here on the “over-performing” side. His SwStr% is just 13.2%, and yet his K% is 34.5%. Skenes could prove to be a guy that out-performs this consistently in his career, given how elite is stuff is (and more importantly, how unique it is), but I would not be projecting a 35% K% moving forward for him.
Tanner Bibee is also here with a 31% K% but a 13% SwStr%. We’ve seen the strikeout rate already start to drop in the last few outings. A 13% SwStr% is still good, but it’s more of a 25-26% K% rather than a 30% mark.
For the under-performers:
Logan Gilbert: 16.7% SwStr%, 26% K%
Tarik Skubal: 17.5% SwStr%, 29% K%
MacKenzie Gore: 16.1% SwStr%, 23% K%
Kutter Crawford: 14.8% SwStr%, 24% K%
Ronel Blanco: 14.4% SwStr%, 22% K%
Corbin Burnes: 14.2% SwStr%, 22% K%
We saw a little bit of that HR/FB regression hit for Reynaldo Lopez last night. He gave up a homer on six fly balls last night, which is a 16.7% HR/FB, right at the league average. So hah! That was only his seventh homer allowed of the season on his 74 fly balls (9.4% HR/FB).
There’s a pretty useful “Raw Pitching” tab on the main dashboard. I don’t use it often, but today I did. It just gives you the raw sums what pitchers have allowed this year. Here it is, sorted by K:BB:
So if you want to know something weird like the total number of swings a pitcher has generated this year, you can do that there.
You can use that to see raw totals of whiffs as well. And did you know that only four pitchers have 300 whiffs this year:
Ragans 329
Cease 324
Skubal 307
H Greene 302
Three of those guys got there just last night, so this is about the part of the season where the elite arms will be reaching 300. But nobody cares about that.
Hitter Review
Bobby Witt Jr. was the man of the day, coming up a single shy of the cycle. He has 11 triples now, here are your triples leaders:
Triples Leaders 2024
Duran 11
Witt Jr. 10
De La Cruz 7
Volpe 7
Abrams 6
Carroll 6
Yastrzemski 6
Varsho 6
You have to be fast to hit a lot of triples, but there’s also a lot of randomness.
Duran’s 11 is really surprising given that Fenway is one of the toughest places to hit triples. There have been only 16 triples in Fenway all year, and he as four of those.
Witt Jr. is having quite a season.
.341/.387/.592, 18 HR, 82 R, 69 RBI, 22 SB, 16% K%, 7% BB%
As long as he stays healthy, I think he’ll be the consensus #1 fantasy pick next year.
Everybody likes some good and bad luck hitters, so let’s take a look at the xwOBA vs. wOBA plot in July:
Here’s everybody with a 0.045 differential or greater in the bad luck direction:
That’s good news for Olson, but it’s less good once you see his expected wOBA isn’t very good at .283. But he shouldn’t be this bad.
And in the other direction:
Pretty much any time you put up a .500 wOBA, you’ve benefited from some good luck. That’s the case with Trea Turner, who still has a great .366 xwOBA over this sample, but a much lower .253 xBA.
I’m not buying much into Max Schuemann, as we’ve mentioned recently. And then there’s some good fortune in the recent hot streaks for guys like Colt Keith, Lawrence Butler, Ezequiel Tovar, and Brent Rooker.
Wrapping it up now. The DFS lineup did not cash last night, so my $121 ticket went to waste. Very sad. Please think about me today.
Pitcher Reports
Algo SP Ranks - Yesterday
1. Tyler Anderson
2. Tarik Skubal
3. Carlos Rodon
4. Reynaldo Lopez
5. Austin Gomber
6. Tobias Myers
7. Blake Snell
8. Bailey Ober
9. Michael Lorenzen
10. Hunter Greene
11. Hogan Harris
12. Javier Assad
13. Bryce Miller
14. Cole Ragans
15. Ranger Suarez
16. Erick Fedde
17. Zack Littell
18. Spencer Arrighetti
19. Carlos Carrasco
20. Tanner Houck
21. David Peterson
22. Yonny Chirinos
23. Andre Pallante
24. River Ryan
25. Yilber Diaz
26. Mitch Keller
Fantasy Points Leaders - Yesterday
1. Carlos Rodon (vs. TB): 35.35 Points
2. Hunter Greene (vs. ATL): 30.75 Points
3. Hogan Harris (vs. HOU): 27.61 Points
4. Tyler Anderson (vs. SEA): 24.36 Points
5. Bryce Miller (vs. LAA): 23.95 Points
6. Tarik Skubal (vs. CLE): 23.15 Points
7. Bailey Ober (vs. PHI): 20.75 Points
8. Michael Lorenzen (vs. CWS): 18.45 Points
9. Erick Fedde (vs. TEX): 17.24 Points
10. Cole Ragans (vs. ARI): 16.7 Points
Whiffs Leaders - Yesterday
1. Tyler Anderson (LAA): 19 Whiffs (96 Pitches)
2. Carlos Rodon (NYY): 16 Whiffs (101 Pitches)
3. Tarik Skubal (DET): 15 Whiffs (97 Pitches)
4. Austin Gomber (COL): 15 Whiffs (101 Pitches)
5. Reynaldo Lopez (ATL): 13 Whiffs (85 Pitches)
6. Michael Lorenzen (TEX): 13 Whiffs (94 Pitches)
7. Blake Snell (SF): 12 Whiffs (83 Pitches)
8. Cole Ragans (KC): 12 Whiffs (105 Pitches)
9. Erick Fedde (CWS): 11 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
10. Tobias Myers (MIL): 11 Whiffs (87 Pitches)
Strike% Leaders - Yesterday
1. Carlos Rodon (NYY): 53.5 Strike%, 33.7 Ball%
2. Hunter Greene (CIN): 52.7 Strike%, 33.0 Ball%
3. Tyler Anderson (LAA): 52.1 Strike%, 35.4 Ball%
4. Tobias Myers (MIL): 51.7 Strike%, 29.9 Ball%
5. Zack Littell (TB): 51.0 Strike%, 31.4 Ball%
6. Tarik Skubal (DET): 50.5 Strike%, 24.7 Ball%
7. Hogan Harris (OAK): 50.5 Strike%, 30.1 Ball%
8. Austin Gomber (COL): 48.5 Strike%, 33.7 Ball%
9. Michael Lorenzen (TEX): 47.9 Strike%, 39.4 Ball%
10. Carlos Carrasco (CLE): 46.9 Strike%, 34.4 Ball%
11. Ranger Suarez (PHI): 46.8 Strike%, 29.1 Ball%
12. Reynaldo Lopez (ATL): 45.9 Strike%, 30.6 Ball%
13. Bailey Ober (MIN): 45.8 Strike%, 30.1 Ball%
14. Bryce Miller (SEA): 45.7 Strike%, 34.0 Ball%
15. Cole Ragans (KC): 44.8 Strike%, 37.1 Ball%
Pitches/Out (POUT) Leaders - Yesterday
1. Bailey Ober: 83 Pitches, 21 Outs, 3.95 POUT
2. Bryce Miller: 94 Pitches, 21 Outs, 4.48 POUT
3. Mitch Keller: 97 Pitches, 21 Outs, 4.62 POUT
4. Tarik Skubal: 97 Pitches, 21 Outs, 4.62 POUT
5. Hogan Harris: 93 Pitches, 20 Outs, 4.65 POUT
6. Reynaldo Lopez: 85 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.72 POUT
7. Carlos Rodon: 101 Pitches, 21 Outs, 4.81 POUT
8. River Ryan: 73 Pitches, 15 Outs, 4.87 POUT
9. Blake Snell: 83 Pitches, 17 Outs, 4.88 POUT
10. Ranger Suarez: 79 Pitches, 16 Outs, 4.94 POUT
Velo Changes - Yesterday
Austin Gomber's CU velo (25 pitches) UP 2.2mph to 79.6
Reynaldo Lopez's CU velo (12 pitches) UP 1.8mph to 79.1
Michael Lorenzen's FC velo (10 pitches) DOWN -1.5mph to 88.7
Hogan Harris's SL velo (10 pitches) DOWN -1.6mph to 77.5
Cole Ragans's SL velo (13 pitches) DOWN -1.7mph to 85.1
Cole Ragans's CU velo (14 pitches) DOWN -1.7mph to 79.7
Michael Lorenzen's SL velo (16 pitches) DOWN -1.8mph to 83.5
Reynaldo Lopez's FF velo (39 pitches) DOWN -1.9mph to 94.8
Cole Ragans's FF velo (50 pitches) DOWN -2.0mph to 94.1
Yonny Chirinos's SL velo (41 pitches) DOWN -2.0mph to 85.5
Ranger Suarez's CH velo (12 pitches) DOWN -2.4mph to 79.3
Cole Ragans's CH velo (18 pitches) DOWN -2.5mph to 83.3
Hogan Harris's CU velo (14 pitches) DOWN -3.3mph to 71.2
Pitch Mix Changes - Yesterday
Bailey Ober's FC usage (20.5%) up 11.0 points
Blake Snell's CU usage (43.4%) up 22.9 points
Bryce Miller's SI usage (27.7%) up 14.3 points
David Peterson's SI usage (40.9%) up 14.0 points
Mitch Keller's FF usage (41.2%) up 12.9 points
Tarik Skubal's SI usage (29.9%) up 12.1 points
Tyler Anderson's FF usage (54.2%) up 13.1 points
Yilber Diaz's CU usage (23.9%) up 10.2 points
Yonny Chirinos's SL usage (46.1%) up 16.6 points
Pitch Mix Changes - Last 3 Starts
Lance Lynn 4-Seam Fastball: +22.0%
Ryne Nelson 4-Seam Fastball: +19.2%
Logan Webb Changeup: -17.9%
Ryan Feltner Slider: -16.1%
Luis Gil Slider: +15.3%
Drew Thorpe Cutter: +15.0%
Tobias Myers Slider: +14.9%
Blake Snell Curveball: +14.5%
Erick Fedde Cutter: +14.4%
Drew Thorpe 4-Seam Fastball: -14.0%
Joe Ryan Sinker: +13.8%
Yusei Kikuchi Curveball: -13.6%
Joey Estes Sweeper: +13.6%
Kyle Harrison Slurve: +13.0%
Nick Lodolo Sinker: +12.8%
Yariel Rodriguez 4-Seam Fastball: +12.7%
Jonathan Cannon Sweeper: -12.6%
Jose Soriano Sinker: +12.5%
CSW% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Tarik Skubal - 101 TBF, 35.8% CSW%
Kutter Crawford - 92 TBF, 34.9% CSW%
Michael King - 68 TBF, 34.7% CSW%
Nick Pivetta - 72 TBF, 34.2% CSW%
Logan Gilbert - 75 TBF, 34.0% CSW%
Carlos Rodon - 83 TBF, 33.4% CSW%
Brayan Bello - 103 TBF, 33.3% CSW%
Chris Sale - 67 TBF, 33.0% CSW%
Grayson Rodriguez - 97 TBF, 32.8% CSW%
Tyler Anderson - 73 TBF, 32.2% CSW%
K% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Nick Pivetta - 72 TBF, 38.9% K%
Dylan Cease - 90 TBF, 37.8% K%
Carlos Rodon - 83 TBF, 36.1% K%
Tarik Skubal - 101 TBF, 33.7% K%
Hunter Greene - 72 TBF, 33.3% K%
Chris Sale - 67 TBF, 32.8% K%
Yusei Kikuchi - 98 TBF, 32.7% K%
Gerrit Cole - 71 TBF, 32.4% K%
Grayson Rodriguez - 97 TBF, 32.0% K%
Shota Imanaga - 75 TBF, 32.0% K%
Become a paid sub today to get the rest of the daily notes. It’s just $9/month and you get everything I do here. Check out the about page here for more. 10% of your subscription goes to charitable organizations such as Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian humanitarian aid organization.