MLB Daily Notes - June 21st
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis.
There’s been a lot of talk recently about this new law in Louisiana mandating that the Ten Commandments be posted in all public school classrooms. Obviously that’s causing a lot of anger and fighting and dumb arguments on both sides of it. I figured everybody out there is just dying for my take on it, so here I go. If you want nothing to do with this, just skip down to the next divider line and read from there.
We’ll see where it goes on the legal front, there will certainly be lawsuits and then a judge will have to decide if the law is legit. The separation of church and state stuff is wildly misunderstood by most people so it’s not as clear-cut as people want to think. That’s not as interesting to me at this point anyway.
I’m a Christian, and the Ten Commandments are a core component of the faith, so yeah I believe that we should all know the Ten Commandments, understand them fully, and do everything we can to adhere to them. I also understand that most people in the country aren’t true Bible-believing Christians, and I would probably be uncomfortable if my kids went to a public school and it was mandated that they be taught stuff from a religion I believe to be false.
And listen to this, I’m so radical that I actually believe my religion to be true. I think there’s one and only one way to everlasting life in heaven with God (the doctrine of grace through faith in Jesus Christ). So the logical next step to that is that I want everyone else to find that one way. If you’re a true Bible-believing Christian, converting others is a major concern to you provided you care about other people.
But you can’t convince anybody of anything by force. If I came on these pages every day and gave sermons and arguments, I’d just turn people off, it wouldn’t work. The founders of the country knew this better than anybody. They didn’t set up the freedom of religion because they weren’t religious, they just realized that force is counter-productive. If the government suddenly forces everybody to go to church and read the Bible, they will add very few people to the actual faith because true faith requires freedom to choose it.
People don’t like when other people try to force religion on other people. I don’t like it either but for different reasons. Most people don’t like it because they kind of view everything evenly and think no matter what you believe it’s all the same. I don’t believe that at all. But I don’t like to force stuff on other people for the reason that it doesn’t work. Christians should lead by example, we should live lives that make other people ask questions and hopefully eventually find God that way, and then we should be able and willing to make the arguments when the appropriate time presents itself.
Another point is that the Ten Commandments were given to a very specific group of people (the Israelites) and were given before Jesus came and established a new covenant. In the Old Testament, they had to follow those rules to be right with God. After Jesus died and took the punishment of sin for all of humanity, that changed everything. You are not saved by following rules. Nothing you do or don’t do makes you right with God. That is clear as day in the New Testament, it’s the main point of the entire Bible - and even a ton of Christians don’t seem to understand that. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t follow the Ten Commandments, and it doesn’t really change anything about this specific issue, but I wanted to put it out there for anybody reading this that might be curious about the Bible and Jesus and stuff.
Forcing kids to adhere to the Bible won’t work. That said, the Ten Commandments are pretty good advice no matter what you believe. I don’t think anybody out there would see one of them and be outraged that their kid might be encouraged to follow that. There is definitely a contradiction in public schools with the one about not committing adultery though. A school day that starts with a kid being told that it’s bad to commit adultery and ends with a class on safe sex wouldn’t make much sense at all once you find out what God meant by adultery, lol.
Anyways, that’s it. I’ve been picking and choosing my spots this year on when and how to deviate away from baseball, but I thought this one would be fun to spill out on a Friday. If you want to hear more from me about this, reach out privately, there’s nothing I want to talk about more.
I recorded another quick dashboard demo, this time going through some of the stuff I look at with pitchers like I wrote about here on Wednesday. Check that out here:
Pitcher Review
It was a disastrous outing for Luis Gil yesterday:
1.2 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, 1 K, 2 BB, 10.6% SwStr%, 34% Strike%, 42.6% Ball%
Any time you give up eight hits and seven earned runs, you ran into some bad luck. He gave up six line drives to the 15 batters he faced and that played out to a .700 BABIP. This was also against the Orioles, who have the second-best OPS in the league and the most runs scored, so there is a lot of room for forgiveness here.
What is harder to feel good about is the recent uptick in ball rate and downtick in SwStr%.
For the season, he’s at a 13.6% SwStr% and 38.8% Ball%, and prior to June those marks were 13.9% and 37.9% Ball%. So things have gone the wrong direction in June.
Apr-May: 48.9% Strike%, 13.9% SwStr%, 37.9% Ball%, 32% K%, 12.4% BB%
June: 42.7% Strike%, 12.8% SwStr%, 41.5% Ball%, 22% K%, 12.2% BB%
He’s a fly ball pitcher (38% GB%, 23% LD%, 28% FB%), and to this point that hasn’t hurt him in his home run department with a 0.66 HR/9, but that low of a home run rate never made a ton of sense so I think that will continue to move upwards.
Given the questions about workload and the history of poor command, I’ve been calling Gil a sell-high all season in these notes. That outing yesterday hurts your chances to do that. He still sits with a 2.77 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, and 16.9% K-BB% - so the numbers are good and maybe you can still move him because of that. I’m not saying abandon ship at all causes, but if you can get a solid starter in return for him I’d do that, I just don’t trust the guy with these ball rates and how fortunate he has been on contact this year (his .223 BABIP is second-lowest in the league).
Here’s a new plot for the hell of it that shows Gil’s xwOBA and xwOBACON (expected wOBA allowed on contact) by start:
The league average xwOBA is about .320 and on contact it’s around .370, so you can see how far below those marks Gil has been. And there is some skill involved in that, but there’s also plenty of variance and luck involved as well, those numbers tend to regress toward the mean much more than other numbers like strikeouts, whiffs, etc.
Gavin Stone
5.1 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 7 K, 2 BB, 15 whiffs, 19.5% SwStr%, 49.4% Strike%
Stone has been trending in the right direction recently so I figured we should take a look at him. If we split his season up into two parts and look at the numbers:
First 8 Starts: 15.8% K%, 8.7% BB%, 12.8% SwStr%, 35.5% Ball%
Last 6 Starts: 23.3% K%, 6.2% BB%, 13.1% SwStr%, 33.2% Ball%
So he is throwing more strikes while keeping about the same SwStr%.
Stone was one of the Dodgers’ big pitching prospects when he was called up last year and he posted a career 32.6% K% and 8.8% BB% in the minors (313.1 innings), so that put a good bit of hype on him, but to this point, his Major League career hasn’t been all that great with a 17.7% K% and 7.9% BB% for a 4.38 ERA and 1.38 WHIP.
Here is the pitch mix data for the 25-year-old righty:
We have six different pitches here, but basically he throws the changeup, two fastball variations, and a slider. The fastballs have both been a tick below the league average in strikes and neither of them generates many whiffs, but given the good changeup (that 19.2% SwStr% is four points above the league average changeup) offsets some of that. If he can just command the fastballs to get ahead in the count then the changeup becomes a really nice weapon. The slider has also been really good in limited usage, so there’s upside for that pitch to have a big impact moving forward.
He ditched the sinker yesterday (9% usage) in favor of the four-seamer (47%). We’ll have to wait and see if that change will stick or if it was just a matchup or feel thing for one outing, but it worked out with his best SwStr% of the season.
If you’re in a 12-team league or deeper and Stone is available, I would add him. There’s nothing in the profile so far that is screaming breakout SP, but the age and pitch mix and recent improvements show that maybe he’s taking a significant step forward here in his second year.
MacKenzie Gore
5 IP, 10 H, 4 ER, 7 K, 2 BB, 13.6% SwStr%, 52.4% Strike%
That’s a lot of hits to give up. Like we said with Gil, any time you give you that many hits, there’s some bad luck there, and Gore was pretty good at earning strikes around those hits. He still has this really nice combination of a 15.1% SwStr% and 35.1% Ball%, so I’m holding on tight to Gore or trying to buy a little bit of a dip here if it exists.
Hitter Review
Jackson Merill
He hit another homer yesterday and now has six in his last eight games. He’s up to a .279/.316/.426 slash line with a mighty impressive 16% K%. Prior to June, he wasn’t much of a fantasy asset with a .678 OPS, three homers, and seven steals. But he’s been awesome in June at a .924 OPS with six homers and two steals.
I thought that maybe the power breakout was facilitated by a launch angle change, but that doesn’t seem to be the case:
Apr-May: 10.5 average launch angle, 11.5 median
June: 9.5 average launch angle, 11.0 median
How about exit velocity:
Apr-May: 89.2 average EV, 93.2 median
June: 89.0 average EV, 93.0 median
So no changes there either. There’s also no change in bat speed:
I guess Merrill has just run into a few more balls at the right angle and EV combo. His Brl% was 7% before June and 11.3% in June. Call it the positive side of variance.
We did notice right away that Merill hits the ball hard and makes contact at a high rate, so that made us believe he could hit some home runs, but I don’t think he’ll be a guy to blast 6+ homers a month, it’s just a good run here in June. He’s a fringe bat in a ten-team league, but everywhere else he’s solid enough to roster even if the power upside doesn’t materialize. Remember that this kid is 21.
Jake McCarthy
He stole two bases yesterday to bring his season total to 12. This guy is super fast and runs a ton (24% attempt rate), and he’s been in the lineup most days recently. So if you need some steals, he’s an option. Alek Thomas might eventually take his job, but Thomas recently had a setback in his rehab so it could be a while before he gets back and you could get some good roto production out of McCarthy. Just don’t expect much other than steals.
That’ll do it for today, thanks for bearing with me here.
Pitcher Reports
Algo SP Ranks - Yesterday
1. Gavin Stone
2. MacKenzie Gore
3. Bryse Wilson
4. Mitch Spence
5. Simeon Woods Richardson
6. Chris Flexen
7. Seth Lugo
8. Spencer Arrighetti
9. Zack Littell
10. Luis Castillo
11. Ryne Nelson
12. Andre Pallante
13. Cole Irvin
14. Logan Allen
15. Adam Mazur
16. Ty Blach
Fantasy Points Leaders - Yesterday
1. Gavin Stone (vs. COL): 22.39 Points
2. Seth Lugo (vs. OAK): 21.61 Points
3. Mitch Spence (vs. KC): 19.3 Points
4. Chris Flexen (vs. HOU): 18.7 Points
5. Ryne Nelson (vs. WSH): 17.95 Points
6. Simeon Woods Richardson (vs. TB): 17.9 Points
7. Zack Littell (vs. MIN): 13.05 Points
8. Tayler Scott (vs. CWS): 11.16 Points
9. Logan Allen - 671106 (vs. SEA): 10.7 Points
10. MacKenzie Gore (vs. ARI): 10.05 Points
Whiffs Leaders - Yesterday
1. Gavin Stone (LAD): 15 Whiffs (77 Pitches)
2. MacKenzie Gore (WSH): 14 Whiffs (103 Pitches)
3. Mitch Spence (OAK): 13 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
4. Simeon Woods Richardson (MIN): 12 Whiffs (92 Pitches)
5. Seth Lugo (KC): 12 Whiffs (95 Pitches)
6. Chris Flexen (CWS): 11 Whiffs (96 Pitches)
7. Bryse Wilson (MIL): 11 Whiffs (77 Pitches)
8. Zack Littell (TB): 9 Whiffs (95 Pitches)
9. Ryan Helsley (STL): 8 Whiffs (23 Pitches)
10. Spencer Arrighetti (HOU): 8 Whiffs (80 Pitches)
Strike% Leaders - Yesterday
1. MacKenzie Gore (WSH): 52.4 Strike%, 30.1 Ball%
2. Bryse Wilson (MIL): 50.6 Strike%, 28.6 Ball%
3. Zack Littell (TB): 49.5 Strike%, 35.8 Ball%
4. Gavin Stone (LAD): 49.4 Strike%, 33.8 Ball%
5. Mitch Spence (OAK): 48.0 Strike%, 34.7 Ball%
6. Chris Flexen (CWS): 47.9 Strike%, 35.4 Ball%
7. Simeon Woods Richardson (MIN): 47.8 Strike%, 34.8 Ball%
8. Seth Lugo (KC): 47.4 Strike%, 36.8 Ball%
9. Luis Castillo (SEA): 47.3 Strike%, 34.4 Ball%
10. Cole Irvin (BAL): 46.4 Strike%, 33.3 Ball%
11. Adam Mazur (SD): 43.7 Strike%, 37.9 Ball%
12. Andre Pallante (STL): 43.2 Strike%, 40.0 Ball%
13. Logan Allen (CLE): 41.4 Strike%, 37.9 Ball%
14. Spencer Arrighetti (HOU): 40.0 Strike%, 41.2 Ball%
15. Ryne Nelson (ARI): 34.3 Strike%, 34.3 Ball%
Pitches/Out (POUT) Leaders - Yesterday
1. Ryne Nelson: 70 Pitches, 21 Outs, 3.33 POUT
2. Seth Lugo: 95 Pitches, 20 Outs, 4.75 POUT
3. Gavin Stone: 77 Pitches, 16 Outs, 4.81 POUT
4. Logan Allen: 87 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.83 POUT
5. Simeon Woods Richardson: 92 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.11 POUT
6. Chris Flexen: 96 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.33 POUT
7. Mitch Spence: 98 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.44 POUT
8. Bryse Wilson: 77 Pitches, 14 Outs, 5.5 POUT
9. Andre Pallante: 95 Pitches, 16 Outs, 5.94 POUT
10. Cole Irvin: 84 Pitches, 14 Outs, 6.0 POUT
Velo Changes - Yesterday
Ryne Nelson's SL velo (11 pitches) UP 3.5mph to 85.7
MacKenzie Gore's SL velo (14 pitches) UP 2.5mph to 92.1
Zack Littell's FF velo (11 pitches) DOWN -1.5mph to 92.0
Pitch Mix Changes - Yesterday
Andre Pallante's SI usage (22.2%) up 13.0 points
Cole Irvin's FF usage (47.6%) up 16.9 points
Cole Irvin's CU usage (33.3%) up 13.4 points
Gavin Stone's FF usage (46.8%) up 16.9 points
Luis Castillo's CH usage (29.0%) up 13.5 points
Mitch Spence's SI usage (20.4%) up 12.4 points
Spencer Arrighetti's FC usage (35.0%) up 12.1 points
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 charitable organizations such as Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian humanitarian aid organization.