MLB Daily Notes - March 31st
Welcome to the first official version of the MLB daily notes!
Typically, these notes will come out much earlier in the day - but I had to do a lot of code updating this morning since the season changed.
What you’re looking at here is a daily e-mail that subscribers will receive from me that covers what happened in Major League Baseball yesterday and what’s been happening over the full season and over the last few weeks.
I have built a ton of automation into this so the heavy lifting is done for me, and that allows me to get this out every day even while having another real job and three beautiful kids (well, two… Trea baby still has to grow into his face a little bit).
When I have extra time, I will go more in-depth into things that are standing out to me. That will not happen every day, but most likely at least a few times a week you’ll get some extra analysis from me if you’re into that sort of thing.
My MLB 2023 Dashboard will also require a paid subscription this year, so if you’re looking for that access - subscribe below to get on the mailing list if you aren’t yet!
check out the 2022 dashboard for free if you want to know what goes into that.
More important notes. The below report is pretty bare. That is because most of the automation relies on having at least two weeks of data. Right now, you will only see the things I have currently coded that analyze yesterday’s data. But by the time we’re into late April, there will be a ton of stuff below including my favorite part - THE MAGIC FORMULA QUALIFIERS! These help us identify guys like Christian Walker, Rowdy Tellez, Kyle Wright, and Nestor Cortes very early on last year.
And in three weeks you’ll see “hot hitters”, “hot pitchers”, “cold hitters”, and “cold pitchers”. This is my least favorite part of the notes because I do not believe in hot or cold - it’s a part of my religion, don’t ask any further questions at this time or I will have to report you. But look, the door is open to the fact that I could be wrong about hotness and coldness - and I have yet to find more than two people that even remotely agree with me - so chances are, I am wrong! If I’m wrong, then those players that will be identified could really help you in fantasy - at the very least, I’m calculating those in ways that make mathematical sense. Much more on the process of that when that stuff starts showing up in a few weeks.
I always get a lot of questions about “JA” scores, which makes sense because “JA” is not descriptive at all and I never bother to explain myself on that.
The long history of the JA scores is below:
JA are my initials. Last spring, I concocted some rough math to grade hitters and pitchers based on pitch-by-pitch basis. So for every pitch a pitcher throws and every pitch a hitter sees, they get positive or negative points based on the scoring system I decided on. Basically, it considers whiffs, strikes, balls, quality of contact, walks, homers, etc. and scores everything individually and then adds them all up and averages things out to get one overall score number for each player.
If you’re really wanting to see the formula, I can provide that - just reach out. By no means is this some back-tested, proven system - but maybe someday we’ll get to that. I do plan to refine it a bit when I find some time early on in this season.
Only a portion of these notes will be free, and all of the stuff I find actually valuable will go behind the Paywall. I want your money, please give me your money.
New this year (behind the Paywall) will be Drew Haugen’s stuff+, location+, and pitching+ data. I am paying him for his model, so we get access to that - and that is huge!
These metrics are really, really great for learning about pitcher performance over small samples. That stuff will be integrated into the MLB Dashboard & these notes once we really get rolling.
In addition to the full notes, you get access to the daily projections and betting prop sheets, and all the other stuff that I will cook up as time passes.
I made those three things free yesterday, so you can check them out here if you just wanna see what you get:
I have more to say to catch everybody up, but let’s leave some for tomorrow. Long way to go! Here’s the short report, and paid subscriber links below the paywall (the new dashboard links are there for paid subs)
CSW% Leaders - Yesterday
1. Logan Webb (SF): 16.3 SwStr%, 41.3 CSW%
2. Luis Castillo (SEA): 17.1 SwStr%, 36.8 CSW%
3. Dylan Cease (CWS): 17.4 SwStr%, 36.0 CSW%
4. Marcus Stroman (CHC): 16.7 SwStr%, 35.6 CSW%
5. Pablo Lopez (MIN): 20.0 SwStr%, 34.1 CSW%
6. Shohei Ohtani (LAA): 14.0 SwStr%, 33.3 CSW%
7. Blake Snell (SD): 21.5 SwStr%, 32.3 CSW%
8. Jacob deGrom (TEX): 13.7 SwStr%, 31.5 CSW%
9. Mitch Keller (PIT): 15.0 SwStr%, 31.0 CSW%
10. Framber Valdez (HOU): 10.6 SwStr%, 30.6 CSW%
Top Pitcher JA Scores - Yesterday
1. Dylan Cease - 6.33 IP - 75.75 JA Points
2. Logan Webb - 6.0 IP - 74.75 JA Points
3. Blake Snell - 4.33 IP - 73.5 JA Points
4. Gerrit Cole - 6.0 IP - 72.0 JA Points
5. Luis Castillo - 6.0 IP - 70.5 JA Points
6. Pablo Lopez - 5.33 IP - 64.75 JA Points
7. Marcus Stroman - 6.0 IP - 64.25 JA Points
8. Shane McClanahan - 6.0 IP - 61.0 JA Points
9. Shohei Ohtani - 6.0 IP - 57.25 JA Points
10. Julio Urias - 5.67 IP - 46.5 JA Points
Pitcher JA Scores - Season
1. Blake Snell (SD) - 1 GS - 84.81 JA Points
2. Logan Webb (SF) - 1 GS - 62.29 JA Points
3. Pablo Lopez (MIN) - 1 GS - 60.7 JA Points
4. Gerrit Cole (NYY) - 1 GS - 60.0 JA Points
5. Dylan Cease (CWS) - 1 GS - 59.8 JA Points
6. Luis Castillo (SEA) - 1 GS - 58.75 JA Points
7. Jacob deGrom (TEX) - 1 GS - 57.95 JA Points
8. Marcus Stroman (CHC) - 1 GS - 53.54 JA Points
9. Shane McClanahan (TB) - 1 GS - 50.83 JA Points
10. Shohei Ohtani (LAA) - 1 GS - 47.71 JA Points
Multiple Barrels
Brendan Donovan (STL) 6 PA, 12 Swings, 2 Barrels, 1 HR
C.J. Cron (COL) 5 PA, 12 Swings, 2 Barrels, 2 HR
Gleyber Torres (NYY) 4 PA, 6 Swings, 2 Barrels, 1 HR
Jake Cave (PHI) 4 PA, 6 Swings, 2 Barrels, 0 HR
Matt Olson (ATL) 5 PA, 14 Swings, 2 Barrels, 0 HR
Top Hitter JA Scores - Yesterday
1. C.J. Cron - 5.0 PA - 74.0 JA Points
2. Oneil Cruz - 5.0 PA - 65.0 JA Points
3. Adley Rutschman - 6.0 PA - 63.0 JA Points
4. Mike Trout - 4.0 PA - 55.0 JA Points
5. Spencer Steer - 4.0 PA - 53.0 JA Points
6. Brendan Donovan - 6.0 PA - 53.0 JA Points
7. Ty France - 4.0 PA - 51.0 JA Points
8. Gleyber Torres - 4.0 PA - 50.0 JA Points
9. Andrew McCutchen - 5.0 PA - 46.0 JA Points
10. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. - 6.0 PA - 46.0 JA Points
Hitter JA Scores - Season
1. C.J. Cron (COL) - 5.0 PA - 592.0 JA Points
2. Mike Trout (LAA) - 4.0 PA - 550.0 JA Points
3. Spencer Steer (CIN) - 4.0 PA - 530.0 JA Points
4. Oneil Cruz (PIT) - 5.0 PA - 520.0 JA Points
5. Ty France (SEA) - 4.0 PA - 510.0 JA Points
6. Gleyber Torres (NYY) - 4.0 PA - 500.0 JA Points
7. Adley Rutschman (BAL) - 6.0 PA - 420.0 JA Points
8. James Outman (LAD) - 4.0 PA - 410.0 JA Points
9. Alec Bohm (PHI) - 4.0 PA - 370.0 JA Points
10. Andrew McCutchen (PIT) - 5.0 PA - 368.0 JA Points
Hardest Hit Balls
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (TOR) - 115.5mph - single
Randy Arozarena (TB) - 114.0mph - field_out
Giancarlo Stanton (NYY) - 113.2mph - single
Matt Olson (ATL) - 112.8mph - single
Daulton Varsho (TOR) - 112.5mph - double
Carlos Correa (MIN) - 112.0mph - single
Yordan Alvarez (HOU) - 111.9mph - home_run
C.J. Cron (COL) - 111.9mph - double
Jake Fraley (CIN) - 111.7mph - single
Shohei Ohtani (LAA) - 111.6mph - single
and here comes the paywall!