MLB Daily Notes - May 24th
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis.
I kinda forgot about the prop betting stuff for awhile so I figured I’d give that a check-in this morning. I set up a whole prop bet tracker dashboard here at the beginning of the season. How that is working it is hypothetically betting one “unit” on each bet with a value above 0.15 from the prop sheet which paid subs have access to.
If you want to know how the “value” works, here’s an example:
The top prop value right now is Carlos Rodon under 5.5 strikeouts. The line is -115 on the under, which implies a 53.5% chance of him being under that bet (and of course there’s rake built into that, the implied chance of the over hitting is 52.4%, so those two percentages add up to 106%, a six-point edge off the top for the book). My projection on him today is 4.17 strikeouts, which gives us a 75.8% chance of him being under 5.5 (using a poisson distribution), so we subtract the .535 from the .758 and get .223, and that is above 0.15, so we call that a recommended bet.
Overall on the season, the tracker says that bets above 0.15 are +65.7 units. That is on 588 total bets, good for +0.112 units per bet. Nothing earth-shattering, but positive. Here’s the breakdown by bet type, I’m only tracking a handful:
There are more bet types than that in the Google Sheet, but hitter home runs and hits bets never ever give us .15 value, and there are a couple types in the sheet that aren’t in the tracker because I never took the time to amend the tracker as I pretty much forgot about it for several weeks there.
Lots of people like that resource though so become a paid subscriber and request access to it and I’ll hook you up.
Pitcher Review
Limited action yesterday, but some notable pitchers.
Luis Gil: Had another really good start (6.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 8 K, 2 BB). He’s given up just two earned runs in his last four starts across 24.1 innings while striking out 30. Awesome stuff for Gil who knows sports a 31.7% K% and 13.1% BB%. The walk rate is under 10% in his last four while the strikeouts have maintained.
It’s a high Ball%, but you can manage that if you get a bunch of strikeouts, which he does.
Gil is probably owned in your league, but he’s pretty firmly a must-own player now.
Kevin Gausman finally had a big strikeout night, his first double-digit outing of the season.
6 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 10 K, 2 BB
He’s not been himself this year with a 4.47 ERA, a 1.43 WHIP, and a 25.1% K%, but maybe he turned a corner there. It was a really good SwStr% outing as well to raise his season total to 12.8% (still way lower than we expect).
You’re probably stuck with Gausman at this point, and that’s not a bad thing - I just mean you likely can’t sell him at an SP1 pricepoint even after this big outing.
Joey Estes
7 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 6 K, 0 BB
He had 14 whiffs and a 15.1% SwStr% with a huge 56% Strike%, so let’s take a quick look at him.
He posted a 25.4% K% and 7.6% BB% in the minors over the last two seasons, and in the Majors this year he has a 22.4% K% and 6.0% BB%, not horrible stuff.
The 13.2% SwStr% and 30% Ball% are quite good. You can see the good marks there with the four-seame and slider and the pretty decent arsenal depth as well. Interesting names for 15-team leagues or deeper. But I shouldn’t say all this without telling you he’s given up 13 earned runs in four starts, so it’s not like he’s been good.
Grayson Rodriguez
5 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 7 K, 5 BB, 14.9% SwStr%, 38.3% Ball%
We just haven’t gotten that clean breakout dominant season for G-Rod that we were expecting, and he really struggled with command yesterday. The season numbers now have him at a 3.20 ERA and a 3.87 SIERA, so he hasn’t hurt you at all but the 26.6% K% and 10.4% BB% are a long way from elite.
It seems that he just doesn’t have the greatest command with his four-seamers, that’s not a ton of whiffs (11.2% SwStr%) and a lot of balls thrown (39% Ball%) with that pitch. It’s something he can improve, I’m sure, but until he does he will be in this tier of “good” pitchers rather than the elite.
AJ Smith-Shawver debuted and went 4.1 innings without giving up a run, but just a 10.3% SwStr% and a 4:2 K:BB. It wasn’t bad, and he did show us some of that increased velocity from last year (94.5mph on the fastball last year, 96.2 last night), so maybe he will stick around enough for us to see what we have, but for now I wouldn’t do anything with him for fantasy purposes.
Hitter Review
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. homered. I’ve gotten a lot of questions this year about him, from fantasy players annoyed with him. The season stats now:
.282/.374/.404, 19% K%, 12.5% BB%, 5 HR, 1 SB, 12.2% Brl%, .380 xwOBA
You would think a 12% Brl% and 19% K% would translate to more than five homers, but he just hits so many line drive barrels that can’t get over the fence.
He’s coming out of a bit of a slump here, he was pretty mediocre for a large part of this season, but the few weeks things have been better.
Vlad just isn’t a fantasy stud, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a clear top-ten player at first base. If you can still trade him for some of the name value, I don’t think you’ll regret it, but Vlad will have some very big weeks and months moving forward with the continued hard hits and low strikeouts.
Nick Gonzales
He barreled two more balls yesterday, one for a triple and one for a flyout. He has a .762 OPS early on here (51 PAs) with a very high 16.2% Brl% and decent 23.5% K%. The contact rate is 73%, which isn’t bad but not great, a nice .358 xwOBA, and a very low 27% GB%. He seems like a guy that could be a 12-team or deeper option in the middle infield if you need some help. I’m not sure how many homers he’ll hit, but there will be some, and he seems like a guy that could hit a bunch of doubles. He’s also already hit his way into an everyday role in the middle of the Pirates lineup.
Andrew McCutchen
Double Pirates here, but Cutch barreled two more balls yesterday and has made that a trend this year. He has an 18% Brl%, a career best by far. I wonder if he’s not taking the late-career Joey Votto approach to just sell out for some power and try to make your value that way. He’s leading off most games for the Pirates, so he’s a fantasy-relevant player now at least in 14-teamers or so. The .224 batting average is bad and the SLG is still just .388, but he has 7 homers and the K% has come down a bit under 27%. The xBA is .241 and the xSLG is .499, so if he continues this pace he’ll put up some nice power numbers eventually (but maybe he won’t actually keep hitting barrels like this).
Reader Questions
You talked about O’Hearn/Mounty usages/platoons… so who are the most roster-able strong side platoons for 12 teamers? (Wilyer Abreu, Kerry Carpenter, Luke Raley come to mind of late)
~ Zach
I tried to answer this in a tweet yesterday, but in case you missed it:
This is in general a pretty good strategy in a league where you can change your lineup every day. There are plenty of guys in the league that are very good against right-handed pitching but lose production and playing time from being bad against lefties. You can almost platoon guys on your own fantasy team, holding a Kerry Carpenter type and just subbing them out for someone else when the Tigers face a lefty.
The guys on that list that I would do this with would be Carpenter, Cowser, Wade Jr., Abreu, O’Hearn, and Marsh. Decent guys to consider, good question from the reader there!
Ryne Nelson and Ryan Feltner Stuff+ vs results
~ Alex
This brings up the point I need to tell everybody about me losing my access to Drew Haugen’s Stuff+ model. I was paying him dozens of dollars a year to give me his data, but now he’s chosen some other baseball-related organization over me. He says they’re called the “Philadelphia Phillies” or something like that, so whatever man you make your own choices in life I guess.
None of my Stuff+, Location+, or Pitching+ stuff has been updated since late April. I’m hoping to get one update before the summer starts, but then I won’t be able to get anything until the end of the season at least.
Maybe I could mess around and try to figure out how to make my own Stuff+ model, but I think it’s harder than it sounds and I’m not sure I’ll have the time to really get into it until the off-season. But if anybody out there has a solid model, you can join the team here and help me out.
As for your question, where do I even go now to see where these guys’ Stuff+ is at? Here, I guess. Since FanGraphs has an API, I can actually grab the data from there.. so maybe that’s what I’ll do. But what I won’t be able to do is all the other cool stuff with it because it won’t come to me at the pitch level, it will always just be a summary of a certain time period.
For the pitchers you mention, neither guy actually shows up well on the Stuff+:
Look how ugly that screenie is, this is what we’re dealing with. Thanks a lot, Phillies.
Nelson was better than this in the past, but maybe he wasn’t in the the Fangraphs model. I don’t know, I’m a mess right now.
The answer to the general question though, finally, is that Stuff+ is mostly useful in very small samples when we’re talking about making fantasy baseball decisions. If a guy has 100 innings and a 120 Stuff+ but a 18% K%, believe the K% over the Stuff+. Would I take a 120+ Stuff+ pitcher with an 18% K% over a 70 Stuff+ pitcher with the same 18% K%? Yes, I would imagine the former guy has more upside - but I still don’t want either one.
We have gotten too far into the advanced data now. We want box score results, that’s the name of the game, and once we have a large sample of data, we don’t need to get into the crazy advanced numbers. If you have a couple hundred innings from a pitcher, the first thing you should check are the K-BB% and the SIERA. And if those numbers are bad, you can pretty much stop looking.
The recent example of this was with this fastball iVB stuff. Some of the smartest dudes out there are still trying to say Casey Mize is a top-50 starter in the league because he has one good number on one of his pitches. And yet, the pitch has never been good.
I know we all love the advanced numbers, that’s why we’re here, but we have to use them properly. The Moneyball rule applies:
Sample size is everything, I’m not backtracking too far into 2002 Athletics analytics here, but I hope I’ve made my point clear enough.
Don’t worry about the crazy advanced granular analytics that much with players that have proven over large samples to just not be very good.
And now I’m off to my daughter’s preschool graduation. Proud of myself for getting up early enough to blast out a quality daily notes even with the busy morning ahead of me. Have a great Friday, everybody!
Pitcher Reports
Algo SP Ranks - Yesterday
1. Kevin Gausman
2. Jack Flaherty
3. Erik Miller
4. Joey Estes
5. Luis Gil
6. Ben Brown
7. Grayson Rodriguez
8. Paul Skenes
9. Ryan Feltner
10. Matt Waldron
11. Mike Clevinger
12. AJ Smith-Shawver
13. Zack Wheeler
14. Andrew Heaney
15. Frankie Montas
16. Luis Castillo
Fantasy Points Leaders - Yesterday
1. Kevin Gausman (vs. DET): 32.5 Points
2. Luis Gil (vs. SEA): 32.44 Points
3. Ryan Feltner (vs. OAK): 21.9 Points
4. Zack Wheeler (vs. TEX): 21.55 Points
5. Jack Flaherty (vs. TOR): 21.44 Points
6. Grayson Rodriguez (vs. CWS): 20.45 Points
7. Ben Brown (vs. ATL): 19.2 Points
8. Jeremiah Estrada (vs. CIN): 17.9 Points
9. Matt Waldron (vs. CIN): 16.45 Points
10. Joey Estes (vs. COL): 15.55 Points
Whiffs Leaders - Yesterday
1. Kevin Gausman (TOR): 18 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
2. Jack Flaherty (DET): 14 Whiffs (103 Pitches)
3. Grayson Rodriguez (BAL): 14 Whiffs (94 Pitches)
4. Luis Gil (NYY): 14 Whiffs (96 Pitches)
5. Mike Clevinger (CWS): 14 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
6. Joey Estes (OAK): 14 Whiffs (93 Pitches)
7. Paul Skenes (PIT): 13 Whiffs (93 Pitches)
8. Ryan Feltner (COL): 12 Whiffs (94 Pitches)
9. Zack Wheeler (PHI): 12 Whiffs (91 Pitches)
10. Luis Castillo (SEA): 11 Whiffs (91 Pitches)
Strike% Leaders - Yesterday
1. Joey Estes (OAK): 55.9 Strike%, 21.5 Ball%
2. Luis Gil (NYY): 55.2 Strike%, 32.3 Ball%
3. Ben Brown (CHC): 53.0 Strike%, 36.4 Ball%
4. Kevin Gausman (TOR): 52.0 Strike%, 38.8 Ball%
5. Matt Waldron (SD): 51.1 Strike%, 35.6 Ball%
6. Grayson Rodriguez (BAL): 50.0 Strike%, 38.3 Ball%
7. Ryan Feltner (COL): 50.0 Strike%, 33.0 Ball%
8. AJ Smith-Shawver (ATL): 49.4 Strike%, 36.8 Ball%
9. Jack Flaherty (DET): 48.5 Strike%, 36.9 Ball%
10. Mike Clevinger (CWS): 46.9 Strike%, 37.8 Ball%
11. Paul Skenes (PIT): 46.2 Strike%, 33.3 Ball%
12. Frankie Montas (CIN): 43.6 Strike%, 31.9 Ball%
13. Andrew Heaney (TEX): 41.5 Strike%, 36.6 Ball%
14. Mason Black (SF): 41.2 Strike%, 41.2 Ball%
15. Luis Castillo (SEA): 40.7 Strike%, 40.7 Ball%
Pitches/Out (POUT) Leaders - Yesterday
1. Zack Wheeler: 91 Pitches, 21 Outs, 4.33 POUT
2. Joey Estes: 93 Pitches, 20 Outs, 4.65 POUT
3. Luis Gil: 96 Pitches, 19 Outs, 5.05 POUT
4. Paul Skenes: 93 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.17 POUT
5. Frankie Montas: 94 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.22 POUT
6. Ryan Feltner: 94 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.22 POUT
7. Ben Brown: 66 Pitches, 12 Outs, 5.5 POUT
8. Jack Flaherty: 103 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.72 POUT
9. Kevin Gausman: 98 Pitches, 17 Outs, 5.76 POUT
10. Matt Waldron: 90 Pitches, 15 Outs, 6.0 POUT
Velo Changes - Yesterday
Grayson Rodriguez's SL velo (18 pitches) UP 2.7mph to 86.2
Matt Waldron's KN velo (30 pitches) UP 2.7mph to 79.7
Luis Castillo's SL velo (21 pitches) UP 2.5mph to 88.2
AJ Smith-Shawver's FF velo (47 pitches) UP 1.5mph to 96.2
Mason Black's ST velo (18 pitches) UP 1.5mph to 81.9
Mason Black's SI velo (18 pitches) UP 1.5mph to 93.4
Matt Waldron's ST velo (18 pitches) UP 1.5mph to 80.1
Pitch Mix Changes - Yesterday
Jack Flaherty's FF usage (61.9%) up 13.3 points
Joey Estes's ST usage (22.6%) up 13.8 points
Kevin Gausman's SI usage (20.0%) up 18.7 points
Mike Clevinger's SI usage (14.3%) up 11.1 points
Zack Wheeler's FC usage (16.5%) up 13.6 points
Pitch Mix Changes - Last 3 Starts
Sean Manaea Sinker: +20.3%
Bailey Falter Sinker: +17.9%
Patrick Sandoval 4-Seam Fastball: -17.8%
Sean Manaea 4-Seam Fastball: -17.2%
Bailey Falter 4-Seam Fastball: -16.1%
Javier Assad Sinker: +15.2%
Garrett Crochet Slider: -14.4%
Jake Irvin Curveball: +14.4%
Ryan Feltner Slider: -14.2%
Trevor Rogers Slider: +13.8%
Pablo Lopez 4-Seam Fastball: -13.7%
Jose Soriano Sinker: +13.0%
Dakota Hudson Curveball: +12.7%
Kutter Crawford 4-Seam Fastball: +12.5%
Frankie Montas Slider: +12.4%
Joe Ryan Split-Finger: +12.4%
Kyle Hendricks Changeup: +12.3%
Jordan Montgomery Sinker: -12.2%
Hunter Brown Cutter: -12.1%
Alec Marsh 4-Seam Fastball: +12.1%
CSW% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Jack Flaherty - 96 TBF, 42.6% CSW%
Kevin Gausman - 88 TBF, 39.7% CSW%
Seth Lugo - 80 TBF, 36.8% CSW%
Chris Sale - 76 TBF, 35.6% CSW%
Tarik Skubal - 93 TBF, 35.0% CSW%
Jesus Luzardo - 70 TBF, 34.7% CSW%
Clarke Schmidt - 94 TBF, 34.1% CSW%
Michael King - 101 TBF, 33.3% CSW%
Sonny Gray - 100 TBF, 33.1% CSW%
Corbin Burnes - 75 TBF, 32.1% CSW%
K% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Chris Sale - 76 TBF, 36.8% K%
Tyler Glasnow - 93 TBF, 36.6% K%
Dylan Cease - 94 TBF, 35.1% K%
Kevin Gausman - 88 TBF, 34.1% K%
Seth Lugo - 80 TBF, 33.8% K%
Tarik Skubal - 93 TBF, 33.3% K%
Luis Gil - 91 TBF, 33.0% K%
Taj Bradley - 71 TBF, 32.4% K%
Jack Flaherty - 96 TBF, 32.3% K%
Garrett Crochet - 86 TBF, 31.4% K%
K-BB% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Chris Sale - 76 TBF, 35.5% K-BB%
Seth Lugo - 80 TBF, 31.2% K-BB%
Tyler Glasnow - 93 TBF, 31.2% K-BB%
Tarik Skubal - 93 TBF, 29.0% K-BB%
Dylan Cease - 94 TBF, 28.7% K-BB%
Taj Bradley - 71 TBF, 28.2% K-BB%
Jack Flaherty - 96 TBF, 28.1% K-BB%
Garrett Crochet - 86 TBF, 26.7% K-BB%
Kevin Gausman - 88 TBF, 26.1% K-BB%
Jesus Luzardo - 70 TBF, 25.7% K-BB%
GB% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Jose Soriano - 94 TBF, 70.6% GB%
Framber Valdez - 103 TBF, 67.9% GB%
Cristopher Sanchez - 80 TBF, 63.2% GB%
Max Fried - 106 TBF, 61.6% GB%
Reese Olson - 80 TBF, 60.3% GB%
Corbin Burnes - 75 TBF, 60.0% GB%
Tanner Houck - 101 TBF, 58.3% GB%
Cal Quantrill - 95 TBF, 58.3% GB%
Luis Severino - 76 TBF, 58.0% GB%
Brad Keller - 68 TBF, 57.7% GB%
Magic Formula Qualifiers - Pitchers - Last 3 Weeks
Brady Singer - 95 TBF, 28.4 K%, 4.2 BB%, 44.4% GB%
Cal Quantrill - 95 TBF, 28.4 K%, 7.4 BB%, 58.3% GB%
Chris Sale - 76 TBF, 36.8 K%, 1.3 BB%, 46.7% GB%
Cooper Criswell - 78 TBF, 29.5 K%, 6.4 BB%, 51.0% GB%
Garrett Crochet - 86 TBF, 31.4 K%, 4.7 BB%, 49.1% GB%
Jack Flaherty - 96 TBF, 32.3 K%, 4.2 BB%, 47.5% GB%
Paul Skenes - 62 TBF, 33.9 K%, 6.5 BB%, 55.6% GB%
Ranger Suarez - 102 TBF, 27.5 K%, 6.9 BB%, 49.2% GB%
Sean Hjelle - 52 TBF, 32.7 K%, 1.9 BB%, 64.7% GB%
Seth Lugo - 80 TBF, 33.8 K%, 2.5 BB%, 45.1% GB%
Sonny Gray - 100 TBF, 27.0 K%, 6.0 BB%, 44.6% GB%
Tarik Skubal - 93 TBF, 33.3 K%, 4.3 BB%, 46.6% GB%
Tyler Glasnow - 93 TBF, 36.6 K%, 5.4 BB%, 44.4% GB%
SIERA vs. ERA Comp, Last 30 Days
Unluckiest
Keaton Winn: 11.3 ERA, 4.78 SIERA
Edward Cabrera: 11.33 ERA, 5.07 SIERA
Reid Detmers: 10.21 ERA, 4.12 SIERA
Paul Blackburn: 8.4 ERA, 3.97 SIERA
Aaron Civale: 8.25 ERA, 4.2 SIERA
Bryce Elder: 9.01 ERA, 5.06 SIERA
Trevor Rogers: 8.85 ERA, 4.98 SIERA
Matthew Liberatore: 7.63 ERA, 3.82 SIERA
Mason Black: 8.79 ERA, 5.49 SIERA
Joe Musgrove: 6.39 ERA, 3.15 SIERA
Luckiest
Grayson Rodriguez: 1.08 ERA, 4.18 SIERA
Javier Assad: 1.42 ERA, 4.43 SIERA
Alex Wood: 2.04 ERA, 4.84 SIERA
Yu Darvish: 0.0 ERA, 2.79 SIERA
Trevor Williams: 1.85 ERA, 4.56 SIERA
Austin Gomber: 1.6 ERA, 4.31 SIERA
Bryse Wilson: 2.52 ERA, 5.21 SIERA
Reese Olson: 0.94 ERA, 3.54 SIERA
Jameson Taillon: 2.28 ERA, 4.87 SIERA
Griffin Canning: 2.93 ERA, 5.5 SIERA
Hot Pitcher Tracker - Last 3 Weeks vs. Career
Jack Flaherty - +3.6% CSW%, -4.8 BB%
Clarke Schmidt - +4.1% CSW%, -2.9 BB%
Seth Lugo - +7.0% CSW%, -3.3 BB%
Chris Sale - +3.0% CSW%, -4.2 BB%
Carlos Rodon - +2.2% CSW%, -5.1 BB%
Taj Bradley - +3.1% CSW%, -3.7 BB%
Jesus Luzardo - +3.7% CSW%, -6.5 BB%
Yu Darvish - +2.8% CSW%, -1.5 BB%
Chris Flexen - +2.3% CSW%, -3.4 BB%
Nick Pivetta - +3.9% CSW%, -6.8 BB%
Bryan Woo - +3.5% CSW%, -3.9 BB%
Cole Irvin - +2.8% CSW%, -2.7 BB%
Sean Hjelle - +4.4% CSW%, -4.5 BB%
Brad Keller - +2.0% CSW%, -7.5 BB%
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