24-year old Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing leads ALL of MLB in xwOBA over the last 14 days (.696).
Ahead of Shohei. Ahead of Judge.
Problem: there’s no spot for him. Here’s how LA fits him in👇
Bryan Reynolds is in a great position to hit for the cycle today after getting a HR and a triple in his first 2 ABs.
Definitely something to watch! The @Pirates are hitting.
@tangotiger There will always be that “but it’s right there, it should be a strike” people.
I think they need to just stick with the strike zone and let it be what it is. It is frustrating to see a pitch miss by 0.1” but it’s also just part of the game!
@UnderdogMLB The twins are a hitting machine!! When this guy is healthy, he is a top CF in the league. He has speed, he can make plays on defense and he’s got the bat to match. What more could you want?!
@Handsmanns@TalkinBaseball_ That is true! Consistently being off for the whole game and not being able to find it again is a tough spot to be! If he isn’t injured then I’m sure he’ll look just fine by his next outing
My Bayesian projection system beats Marcel on Brier score for every rate stat I project - hitter and pitcher. Walk-forward, no leakage.
On CRPS, Marcel still wins most stats. The intervals need player-specific recalibration. Getting there.
Boston’s number 2 prospect is destroying AA pitchers.
Franklin Arias through 16 games: .407/.476/.870, 7 HR, 17 RBI, 7.9% K rate.
His ISO jumped from .080 to .463.
For context, he had 8 home runs in 526 plate appearances ALL of last year across three levels.
The pitch design era gets talked about in terms of adding velocity or inventing sweepers. But the biggest gains are often subtractive. Identifying the pitch that's leaking runs and having the discipline to shelve it.
Kumar Rocker's cutter was horrible last season. On 286 pitches, a .380 xwOBA. This year, he's thrown it a few times and the xwOBA is .936. Instead of trying to fix it, he killed it.
The slider he replaced it with is holding a .279 xwOBA on 161 pitches. That's a real sample.
Jose Soriano’s 0.24 ERA is about to triple and that’s still a crazy good ERA.
His BABIP is .207. His ERA-FIP is -2.13.
But his K% jumped from 21% to 31%. His whiff rate is 97th percentile. Knuckle curve has been elite for 3 years now.
0.24 was never real but the breakout is.