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2.19.20

For the second part of my ongoing case study investigating how pitcher fatigue could possibly be quantified, I chose to focus on Washington Nationals starter Max Scherzer. Scherzer is fresh off a World Series win, and has been one of the most dominant pitchers in the sport. Scherzer is consistent, and in 2019 he posted a 2.92 ERA, throwing 172.1 innings and collecting 243 strike outs. He remains as one of the game’s hardest throwers even at age 35. I thought he would be an interesting pitcher to look at, as he has been a veteran in the game compared to Syndergaard.

I followed the same steps of analysis of the pitches thrown by Scherzer throughout the 2019 season, but unlike Syndergaard, this included the 2019 postseason. Max threw a total of 3286 pitches in 2019, and while he was sidelined for a month in July, he averaged 100+ pitches thrown per start.

To my surprise, Scherzer’s average velocity on his fastball increased as his pitch count rose. Unlike Syndergaard, the difference in means and medians in each of the pitch groupings was statistically significant according to the Kruskal-Wallis test performed. With a p-value of 0.027 for STATCASTs measured pitch speed against pitch count, this falls under the 0.05 significance level.

Additionally, Scherzer’s spin rate vs. pitch count was not statistically significant with a p-value of 0.08. Again, this is contradictory to the findings from Syndergaard’s data.

Perhaps this is all due to Scherzer being a veteran pitcher, and knowing when to use the velocity he has in the tank when he needs it. Like mentioned previously, he was able to get into 100+ pitches in > 90% of his starts.

2.19.20

With pitchers and catchers reporting last week, and full squad practices beginning, 2020’s Spring Training is in full swing. Thankfully, most if not all of the free agent signings have already been handled. However, most of the drama continues to revolve around the Houston Astros and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. Yesterday, on 2/18, Manfred held a second news conference addressing prior comments he had made about the Astros punishment and the 2020 season.

Manfred stated that from the findings of the investigation, evidence pointed to the Astros continuing to do the trash can banging into the 2017 playoffs, which contradicts what many Astros players have said to the media. This is a very bad look for all parties involved.

Manfred was also under fire after referring to the World Series trophy as a “hunk of metal”, making many players including Dodgers 3B Justin Turner irate. It seems that Manfred does not understand the magnitude of the journey it takes to win the World Series while playing the game fair. Instead he chose to defend his stance in not punishing the Astros players after it was stated numerous times in the report that the scheme was player driven.

There have been many players across the league who have strongly voiced their opinions on the matter, including Braves OF Nick Markakis, and to the surprise of many, Angels OF Mike Trout. Trout said that he has “lost respect” for many of the Astros players, and also said that “it would be pretty fun” if he knew what pitches were coming.

It will be interesting to see how the season unfolds for the Astros, however it seems that they and the MLB continue to dig themselves into a bigger hole every time they speak.

1.27.20

A few notable transactions took place in the MLB this morning. 

 

One of the more premier hitters on the free agent market, Nick Castellanos has elected to sign with the Cincinnati Reds. This has been reported to be a 4-year, $64 million deal. This is the Reds most recent move to drastically improve their roster in hopes of increasing offensive production. Earlier this offseason, the Reds signed 3B Mike Moustakkas to an identical deal, as well as outfielder Shogo Akiyama. The club has also improved on the other side of the ball, signing veteran pitcher Wade Miley. 

 

Castellanos looks to be a mainstay in the top of the lineup. Last year with the Chicago Cubs and Detroit Tigers, he .289/.337/.525 with 27 homers and led the big leagues with 58 doubles over 151 games. 

 

Later on in the day, one of the outfielders constantly in trade talks was finally dealt. Pittsburgh Pirates CF Starling Marte was sent to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Brennan Malone and Liover Peguero. The 31 year old Marte alleviates the Diamondbacks pressure to play Ketel Marte in CF, as they prefer to have him at 2B. Marte is a force in the middle of the lineup, and in 2019 he had his second 20 home run 20 stolen base season. 

 

There have been many rumblings about the possibility of a big name outfielder, Mookie Betts, being on the move. It will be interesting to see if any teams are able to meet the Red Sox asking price.

1.20.20

Awhile back, I investigated the question of whether a pitcher’s fatigue can be identified by assessing their velocity as the game progressed. In that investigation, I used a LOESS regression curve to plot pitch velocities against the pitch number in each respective game for a randomly selected starting pitcher.

A few days ago, this question came back into my head and I decided to try a couple of different approaches. This time, I want to look at the average fastball velocity for each pitch number, and compare that to a handful of other pitchers to see if there were any consistencies. 

 

To start, I queried all the pitches thrown by the following pitchers, and filtered each dataframe to only fastball pitch types: 

• Charlie Morton (Tampa Bay Rays)
• Clayton Kershaw (Los Angeles Dodgers)
• Gerrit Cole (New York Yankees)
• Max Scherzer (Washington Nationals)
• Noah Syndergaard (New York Mets)

 

I then grouped the pitch numbers into discreet categories: 

• 0-24 pitches
• 25-49 pitches
• 50-74 pitches
• 75-100 pitches
• 100+ pitches

I did this so that I could run comparison of mean tests to see if there were any statistically significant differences between the average velocities of each pitch group. 

 

I decided to test the procedure with one pitcher (Noah Syndergaard). Syndergaard pitched in 32 games in 2019, posting a 4.28 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, and holding a 10-8 record. His fastball velocity is amongst the highest in the league, which is why I decided to include him in this study. 

Above is the box plot generated comparing the fastball pitch velocity against pitch count. The black line in the middle of the box represents the median velocity value, and a very small positive trend can be observed. However, after running a significance test (kruskal-wallis), the resulting value was 0.5952. This means that there is not a statistically significant difference between the average velocities of each group. 

 

This made me rethink what variables I should investigate. In my prior study, fastball velocity wasn’t a conclusive indicator either. Therefore, I shifted my focus to spin rate. Perhaps there was more of a sign that a pitcher is tiring based on the spin rate of his fastball late in the game.

To my surprise, the box plot comparing spin rate to pitch count shows more of a difference amongst medians, and the kruskal-wallis test came back with a value of 0.05. Therefore, one can state that there is a statistically significant difference between the mean spin rates of each pitch count group. 

Syndergaard’s average fastball velocity was 97.52 mph, and his average spin rate was 2105.93 RPM.

My next steps are to compare these results to the other pitchers I have queried data for and compare the results.

1.19.20

With the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series in 2017 and them being a prominent team in contention for most of the decade, baseball has been fairly strong in Chicago. However, the decade hasn’t fared well for the team on the South Side, as the White Sox haven’t had a winning season since 2013, and their highest finish in the AL Central being 2nd in 2010. It has been difficult for White Sox fans to endure a pretty lengthy rebuild, especially after prospects like Fernando Tatis Jr. were traded away.

However, better days seem to be approaching quickly as the White Sox front office has orchestrated a pretty massive roster overhaul that hopes to accelerate the competitive window by a few years. They have extended young cornerstones in Jose Abreu and James McCann, while adding a solid number of free agents including Yasmani Grandal, Gio Gonzalez, Dallas Keuchel, and Edwin Encarnancion. Outfielder Nomar Mazara was also acquired via trade with the Texas Rangers.

The moves make a lot of sense given the state of the roster before the offseason. The emergence of Tim Anderson and Lucas Giolito got them trending in the right direction. With Spring Training still over a month away, the White Sox are in much better shape and seem to have prioritized finding a balance between fostering young talent, and bringing in experienced veterans to help mold them into solid and productive major league players.