MLB Daily Notes - May 17th
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis.
My parents are here for the weekend so that’ what’s going on. My parents are cool I guess, they did a great job raising me and gave me everything I needed to be successful and nudged me in the right direction on a lot of the most important things in life, so I am eternally grateful for them.
But if my dad could not wake up at 5:45am and be banging around glasses in the kitchen I mean that would slightly better. lol. It’s also funny to see your parents being on their phones way more than you. I guess retired people 10 years ago would just be watching TV or reading the newspaper or a magazine or something and now that’s been replaced with a smart phone, so it’s not like anything is truly new here. But it’s also not like retired people seem to make much better use with their unlimited access to the world’s knowledge and information even with all of their extra free time. It’s just like reading news headlines and facebook posts.
It’s crazy to me how little advantage we have taken out of the incredible developments that the Internet has given us. I mean you can learn basically anything any human has ever been able to learn without getting out of your chair these days, and yet most of our time is spent on brain-rotting news and social media and stuff. I’m not excluding myself here either I am right along with people, although I have been trying to improve on that. There are just so many positive ways to use smartphones but it seems like we just let them ruin everything instead.
The ideas I’m expressing here were much better stated by one George Feeny about 25 years ago.
“Of a generation whose verbal and mathematical skills have sunk so low, when you have the highest technology at your fingertips? Gutenberg's generation thirsted for a new book every six months. Your generation gets a new web page every six seconds. And how do you use this technology? To beat King Koopa and save the Princess. Shame on you. You deserve what you get.”
Do they freaking make TV shows like that anymore? Holy cow man that’s amazing stuff. I’m going to like force my kids to watch Boy Meets World when they’re teenagers. LIKE HEY PUT THAT BOOK DOWN STOP CLIMBING THAT TREE COME WATCH BOY MEETS WORLD.
There’s a growing list of pitchers I just absolutely can’t stand and I think today I put Cristian Javier on that bad boy.
Javier’s SwStr% by start this year:
He’s just all over the place. The correct thing to do of course is to look at the bigger sample and make your decisions on that, so here’s who Javier has been since 2023:
193 IP, 4.30 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 22.7% K%, 9.6% BB%, 1.3 HR/9, 13% SwStr%, 45% Strike%, 39% Ball%
So he’s not good, but he’s not the worst pitcher in the league either. He’s probably like a 40th-percentile pitcher or something like that.
This is also a good chance to point out that the Athletics still remain a good matchup for pitchers. Their team OPS is at .670 now, 12th-worst in the league, and they strike out a lot at 25.8%.
Jared Jones had a good start but he’s come down a bit from the insane heights of his first few starts.
First 5: 24.3% SwStr%, 56.7% Strike%, 26.5% Ball%, 34.8% K%, 3.6% BB%
Last 4: 16.0% SwStr%, 51.5% Strike%, 29.7% Ball%, 25.5% K%, 3.2% BB%
It should not surprise anybody that a pitcher could not maintain a SwStr% above 20%, almost nobody in MLB history has been able to do that. The 16% mark in his last four is still elite, and you can see that he hasn’t lost anything on the walks. In those first five starts he had like the greatest command ever, and since then he’s just had very, very good command. Jones is an ace, but I don’t think it’s the craziest idea to sell-high in a redraft league.
In general dynasty/keeper terms, I also think it’s a pretty nice idea to favor long-term hitters to pitchers, although I guess that’s been made pretty obvious by now. The Jones’s and Skenes’s and Skubal’s of the world are fantastic dynasty players, obviously, but would I still rather have a similarly fantastic dynasty player on the hitting side? Yes.
How about Clarke Schmidt now eh? Last two starts he’s ripped off 14.2 scoreless innings with eight hits allowed and a 14:2 K:BB. For the year now he’s at a 27% K% and a 7.4% BB%, a near 20% K-BB%. The SwStr% is up to 13%, but the Strike of 47.6% isn’t fantastic and he does throw a few too many balls at 36.7% Ball%. So he’s solid but definitely not as good as what we’ve seen in these last two. I doubt you can really sell high on him, but I think it’s fine just to ride out the season and take the decent ratios with the good supply of wins.
Two hitters had three barrels yesterday. Aaron Judge and Jarren Duran. That brought Judge’s Brl% to 25.4%, and that’s higher than his season K% of 24%. There are four hitters now with barrel rates higher than their strikeout rates:
Juan Soto: 17.8% Brl%, 14.1% K%
Shohei Ohtani: 22.5% Brl%, 19.4% K%
Aaron Judge: 25.4% Brl%, 24.1% K%
Salvador Perez: 16.4% Brl%, 16.1% K%
And some other guys that are very close:
Josh Naylor: 12.2% Brl%, 14.0% K%
Vinnie P: 10.7% Brl%, 12.7% K%
Kyle Tucker: 13.5%, 16.2% K%
Jung Hoo Lee: 4.5% Brl%, 8.2% K%
Judge is doubling up the entire league in barrels in May:
May Barrels
Judge 20
O Cruz 10
McMahon 8
Soto 8
Jimenez 8
Seager 8
As for Jarren Duran, his season hasn’t gone as well as we thought it would.
200 PA, .272/.340/.444, .784 OPS, 2 HR, 9 SB
There’s nothing bad there besides just the two dingers. He’s never hit many homers, but I was hoping some of that exit velo would translate into more barrels if he could lift the ball a bit more. That hasn’t happened (48% GB%), but his game yesterday got the season barrel rate to 8.8%, which you’ll certainly take from a speed guy. Six of those nine steals came in the season’s first six days. So there’s a stat for you.
First 28 PAs: 6 steals
Last 172 PAs: 3 steals
Life is random. Duran is a must-start player in my estimation, he is a high-ceiling player with the bat speed and the foot speed, he’s a lead-off hitter (against righties at least), and he’s limiting the strikeouts (22%) which should help him put up more than enough numbers to be quite good in roto leagues.
I cannot ignore Elly’s four-steal game last night, and he actually attempted five steals last night. Tyler Glasnow has long been a pitcher you can steal bags off of, and Elly stole second and third consecutively off of him twice.
His attempt rate is an insane, insane 70%. He’s running darn near every single time he has the chance to.
2024 SB Attempt% Leaders
1. Elly De La Cruz 70%
2. Jose Caballero 67.6%
3. Bobby Witt Jr. 40.8%
4. Will Benson 36.7%
5. Brice Turang 36.4%
6. Zach Neto 32.4%
7. Ceddanne Rafaela 30.4%
8. CJ Abrams 28.9%
9. Ronald Acuna Jr. 28.6%
10. Willi Castro 27.0%
He has 30 steals, nobody else has more than 17. He has been caught five times, only Caballero has been caught more often (this is not a knock at all, it’s just another way of showing you how often he’s running). So Elly will be worth his salt on steals alone, and then consider the strikeout rate which is somewhat under control below 31% and the much-improved barrel rate of 13%.
And that will do it, I am going to try to go get a short waiver wire adds piece done and then get back to entertaining my parents so my wife doesn’t go crazy.
Pitcher Reports
Algo SP Ranks - Yesterday
1. Cristian Javier
2. Jared Jones
3. Tyler Glasnow
4. Clarke Schmidt
5. Brent Suter
6. Justin Steele
7. Jose Quintana
8. Joe Ryan
9. Cooper Criswell
10. Joey Estes
11. Zack Littell
12. Taijuan Walker
Fantasy Points Leaders - Yesterday
1. Clarke Schmidt (vs. MIN): 36.2 Points
2. Cristian Javier (vs. OAK): 31.7 Points
3. Nick Martinez (vs. LAD): 22.65 Points
4. Jared Jones (vs. CHC): 21.3 Points
5. Tyler Glasnow (vs. CIN): 15.05 Points
6. Jose Quintana (vs. PHI): 13.59 Points
7. Justin Steele (vs. PIT): 12.56 Points
8. Hogan Harris (vs. HOU): 12.29 Points
9. Jose Ruiz (vs. NYM): 10.5 Points
10. Joe Ryan (vs. NYY): 9.79 Points
Whiffs Leaders - Yesterday
1. Clarke Schmidt (NYY): 16 Whiffs (103 Pitches)
2. Cristian Javier (HOU): 15 Whiffs (80 Pitches)
3. Jared Jones (PIT): 15 Whiffs (91 Pitches)
4. Tyler Glasnow (LAD): 14 Whiffs (92 Pitches)
5. Nick Martinez (CIN): 12 Whiffs (68 Pitches)
6. Jose Quintana (NYM): 11 Whiffs (81 Pitches)
7. Joe Ryan (MIN): 11 Whiffs (93 Pitches)
8. Joey Estes (OAK): 9 Whiffs (89 Pitches)
9. Justin Steele (CHC): 9 Whiffs (88 Pitches)
10. Cooper Criswell (BOS): 9 Whiffs (100 Pitches)
Strike% Leaders - Yesterday
1. Tyler Glasnow (LAD): 55.4 Strike%, 29.3 Ball%
2. Jared Jones (PIT): 52.7 Strike%, 27.5 Ball%
3. Justin Steele (CHC): 51.1 Strike%, 29.5 Ball%
4. Cristian Javier (HOU): 50.0 Strike%, 35.0 Ball%
5. Nick Martinez (CIN): 48.5 Strike%, 33.8 Ball%
6. Cooper Criswell (BOS): 48.0 Strike%, 39.0 Ball%
7. Clarke Schmidt (NYY): 46.6 Strike%, 33.0 Ball%
8. Joe Ryan (MIN): 46.2 Strike%, 35.5 Ball%
9. Joey Estes (OAK): 46.1 Strike%, 37.1 Ball%
10. Zack Littell (TB): 42.9 Strike%, 35.2 Ball%
11. Taijuan Walker (PHI): 42.4 Strike%, 37.3 Ball%
12. Jose Quintana (NYM): 40.7 Strike%, 39.5 Ball%
Pitches/Out (POUT) Leaders - Yesterday
1. Clarke Schmidt: 103 Pitches, 24 Outs, 4.29 POUT
2. Cristian Javier: 80 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.44 POUT
3. Nick Martinez: 68 Pitches, 15 Outs, 4.53 POUT
4. Justin Steele: 88 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.89 POUT
5. Jared Jones: 91 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.06 POUT
6. Jose Quintana: 81 Pitches, 16 Outs, 5.06 POUT
7. Tyler Glasnow: 92 Pitches, 16 Outs, 5.75 POUT
8. Joe Ryan: 93 Pitches, 16 Outs, 5.81 POUT
9. Taijuan Walker: 59 Pitches, 10 Outs, 5.9 POUT
10. Zack Littell: 91 Pitches, 15 Outs, 6.07 POUT
Velo Changes - Yesterday
Joe Ryan's FS velo (35 pitches) UP 3.6mph to 88.6
Joe Ryan's SL velo (16 pitches) UP 2.6mph to 87.6
Taijuan Walker's FS velo (13 pitches) DOWN -1.6mph to 86.2
Cristian Javier's FF velo (24 pitches) DOWN -1.7mph to 91.0
Tyler Glasnow's SL velo (25 pitches) DOWN -1.9mph to 88.3
Cristian Javier's CH velo (25 pitches) DOWN -2.1mph to 80.3
Cristian Javier's SL velo (28 pitches) DOWN -2.4mph to 76.8
Pitch Mix Changes - Yesterday
Clarke Schmidt's FC usage (48.5%) up 18.7 points
Cristian Javier's CH usage (31.2%) up 23.6 points
Jared Jones's SL usage (49.5%) up 12.0 points
Joe Ryan's FS usage (37.6%) up 10.6 points
Joe Ryan's SL usage (17.2%) up 10.9 points
Justin Steele's SI usage (12.5%) up 10.4 points
Nick Martinez's SL usage (17.6%) up 14.9 points
Taijuan Walker's FC usage (30.5%) up 10.9 points
Zack Littell's SI usage (22.0%) up 10.3 points
Pitch Mix Changes - Last 3 Starts
Patrick Sandoval 4-Seam Fastball: -20.8%
Zach Eflin Cutter: +17.5%
Yu Darvish Slider: +15.9%
Carlos Rodon Slider: +15.9%
Jose Soriano Sinker: +15.9%
Cole Irvin Sinker: -15.2%
Chris Flexen Slider: +14.9%
Pablo Lopez 4-Seam Fastball: -14.0%
Kevin Gausman 4-Seam Fastball: +13.8%
Dakota Hudson Curveball: +13.6%
Frankie Montas 4-Seam Fastball: +13.5%
Jose Soriano 4-Seam Fastball: -13.4%
Joe Ross Sinker: -13.3%
Erick Fedde Sweeper: -13.1%
Ross Stripling Slider: +12.4%
Zach Eflin Sinker: -12.4%
Dakota Hudson Slider: -12.3%
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