Questions on umpire grading:

1. Does MLB release its own scorecards anywhere?
2. The current third party ump scorecards - I assume this is basically statcast data downloaded?
3. The zone boxes we see on the various TV broadcasts - is that something official or just the local television extrapolation of what they view the strike zone to be ?

Finally in the Yanks - Cards game there were a ton of issues and the scorecard published showed the three top "bad" calls by RE.

In the game the second worst call (by RE) was a 3-2 pitch to Paul Dejong who was the leadoff hitter in the second Inning. The pitch that was most talked about was a curveball that Wainwright threw to Judge. Situation was Cards down 2-1, yanks have bases loaded 2 outs with Judge at the plate and Wainwright throws what appears to be a get-me-over curveball for strike one. Ump calls it a ball so instead of 0-1, it's 1-0

This miss didn't even make the top three worst calls. It was a huge pitch especially since Waino got two more called strikes before Judge predictably singled home two.

Then the bases load again and the same thing happens with Donaldson on a 1-1 pitch. Another get me over curveball which is clearly a strike, called a ball

From the ump scorecard it's impossible to know if they were even considered bad calls but assuming they were why is the Dejong situation worse than either of these two?

only two teams not to be swept this season in series of 3 or more games are... the Mets and the Braves.

According to umpirescorecards.com, the calls in the Cardinals-Yankees game tilted the run expectancty 3.01 runs in the Cardinals favor, with the most egregious call being the bases-loaded nobody-out called strike three on a 3-2 breaking pitch to Marwin Gonzales that landed a few inches outside.

I wasn't watching the game, but the chatter comments suggest the ump was having a tough time calling curveballs correctly.

From the ump scorecard it's impossible to know if they were even considered bad calls but assuming they were why is the Dejong situation worse than either of these two?

Those grades are grading based upon how 'impactful' the call was to the game, the Judge call was on a first pitch, The Judge was by far the worst call On accuracy (click that link takes you umpire scorecard, if you look at the twitter link, that green dot sitting high middle of the strike zone was the curveball to Judge.)

The Judge was just how incompetent he was, the fact is that he kept constantly missing calls and after the second inning, he kept missing impactful calls that hurt the Yankees a bit more than the Cardinals.

only two teams not to be swept this season in series of 3 or more games are... the Mets and the Braves.

IIRC, Howie, yesterday's loss was the first time this season Atlanta has lost three in a row, period.

4. I don't think you can know that green dot is the Judge pitch. It's unidentified and there were plenty of pitches up in the zone called balls that looked like strikes. There was an identical pitch to Donaldson that could be that green dot.

Which raises another question: the judge pitch and the Donaldson pitch were about the same but there's only one green dot on that graphic - Os it more likely neither of those pitches were strikes and the green dot represents a third unidentified pitch ?

Unless there is some database that you're looking at by pitch, How would you know ?

A missed call on a 3-2 pitch is always impactful -- it either puts the guy on or strikes the guy out. In terms of a missed pitch call, that's the maximum difference you can have in outcomes (in terms of the PA). I'm not sure how much these stats take inning/outs/score into account but the difference between the leadoff batter of an inning reaching vs getting out is also quite large. A missed first pitch to Judge with two outs proably has quite a big impact, maybe the difference between a 250 OBP and a 450 OBP, a 600 OPS and a 1000 OPS but it's still not close to the difference between definitely reaches base vs definitely out. Bases loaded vs empty is a big deal of course but it was probably still a greater than 50% chance that he was gonna get Judge out there with no runs scoring. (Needless to say, what actually happened later is immaterial to these measures. I'm not sure they include batter/pitcher quality measures either.)

That was another question about the math I had. After Dejong you had Molina who is arguably one of the worst hitters in the game and a DP machine. The pitch to Judge is a pitch to the best player in the game with Carp and Donaldson to follow. I would think the chances of Aaron Judge getting a hit off of a pitcher who's thrown 31 pitches in the inning is increased quite a bit as you flip from 0-1 to 1-0 whereas Yadier has a high prob of hitting into one if not two outs (as it were, Yadi walked which is so improbable it can't be measured). Does Aaron Judge ever get out with a 1-0 count and sacks jammed?

Anyone watching would say the Judge pitch was super critical vs the Dejong pitch. But I understand the importance of a first batter walk as well.

Runners 0 Outs 1 Out 2 Outs
Empty 0.461 0.243 0.095
1 _ _ 0.831 0.489 0.214
_ 2 _ 1.068 0.644 0.305
1 2 _ 1.373 0.908 0.343
_ _ 3 1.426 0.865 0.413
1 _ 3 1.798 1.140 0.471
_ 2 3 1.920 1.352 0.570
1 2 3 2.282 1.520 0.736


This is what I got out of fangraphs. Doesn't that show the Judge situation is more impactful to start ? So, now you have to assess how each pitch impacted that, which I don't know how to do. Is there a tool that shows impact of one pitch ?

I assuume that's a run expectancy chart.

The DeJong situation -- the PA starts with 0.46 run expectancy. Let's assume it's the same at 3-2 for simplicity (and because I have no idea if it's changed). If it's strike 3, the situation is then empty with 1 out, a reduction of 0.22 runs; if it's ball 4, run expectancy increases by 0.37 -- so that one call is worth nearly 0.6 runs. That's a lot.

A key aspect for the Judge situation is that the PA continues. Now we do need to know the difference between 1-0 and 0-1 on the outcome of a PA. It's a good bit more than we expect but no Cards fans are dancing in the streets facing Judge with the bases loaded even if he's down 0-1. For MLB 2022, the average batter has a 595 OPS (259 OBP) after 0-1 and a 801 OPS (372 OBP) after 1-0. 200 points of OPS and 115 of OBP are a big deal, especially with the bases loaded, but you're still getting the batter out and ending the inning with no runs scored about 63% of the time. That 115 point difference in OBP is worth a minimum of .115 runs and obviously there's a good chance of 2+ runs plus. If Judge reaches base but doesn't clear them, we also have to account for the chance the next guy knocks in some of the current runners. But even if the average number of runs scored conditional on the batter reaching base is 2, that only gets us to .23 runs (.115 in OBP X 2 runs).

0.6 runs is just a huge difference. It comes from the fact that the PA ends and maybe is "artificial." It's analogous to the win expectancy of the closer -- he comes into the 9th with his team having a 2/3 chance of winning the game, closes it out and gets credit for improving the win expectancy by 1/3.

So contrast to a 3-2 count on Judge with two outs and the bases loaded. Judge takes the pitch. If it's a ball, the run scores and the Yanks still have an additional run expectancy of 0.736. If it's strike three, inning over. So that call would be worth 1.74 runs.

At the opposite end, after 0-2, the average OBP is 193; after 1-2, it's still only 222. So if an ump calls strike three on Judge a ball the Cards are obviously annoyed but it's far from critical.

I think essentially you're confusing the critical nature of the situation with the critical nature of a single pitch. The Judge PA is a bigger deal than the DeJong PA but the 0-0 pitch to Judge isn't that critical. The Cards have gone from a bad situation to a slightly worse situation in the Judge pitch. In the DeJong PA, the Yanks went from an average situation (there's a bases empty, 0 out situation every inning) to a bad one.

If your interest is manager strategy or similar, then ideally you would bring in batter quality, on-deck batter quality and pitcher quality into run/win expectancy. But then you are either dealing with very, very little data (Wainwright v Judge) or you're relying more on some model of batter/pitcher interaction bringing in more estimation error (but maybe doing better overall, maybe not). So sure, sometimes what is obvious to a human being viewing a specific data point is missed in a model based on tens of thousands of data points.

If your interest is umpire grading -- I don't see how any of this matters. The guy blew the call in that the actual pitch location was well within the zone and he called it outside of the zone ... and maybe some of those were particularly egregious. It shouldn't matter who was at bat, what the count or the score was, who was on the mound, etc. A bad call is a bad call whether it's 19-0 in the 9th or a tied game 7. "This guy's a terrible ump but only in games between two sub-500 teams" would not be acceptable.

nevermind

Unless there is some database that you're looking at by pitch, How would you know ?

Sadly on this page it doesn't actually show a pitch as bad as that green dot.


But if you go to game day, it does show that the Judge pitch was pretty much right where that green dot was. Donaldson pitches were a bit more inside.

Cubs claim DFA'd OF Franmil Reyes from Indi-er.... Guardians

current OF is Happ (yes, he's still a Cub), Suzuki, Morel with Ortega and Velasquez as well.
all five have OPS+ above 90 but below 120.

Franmil is a 72 this year after 128 this year, and is 114 career

Unless there is some database that you're looking at by pitch, How would you know ?

My edit was too late on 12. If you click that link and make sure the options are pitch chart, pitch description, batter. Then click the green illustrator button next to scoreboard. Then scroll down.

14. So I did that and it worked !!!

It shows the ball in question as a borderline ball-strike. By my estimate 90% ball and 10% strike. Is there what you see? And doesn't that mean, the ump pretty much got that one right and doesn't it also mean the green dot on the ump scorecard is a different pitch and not the Judge pitch?

Edit: If go down two more batters in the 2nd, you can see the strike to Donaldson that is called a ball. I think it is this pitch that shows up on the ump scorecard

10. Walt, incredibly helpful and I think I am intertwining pitch and situation. I guess my only quibble would be that 0-1 going to 1-0 for a guy like Aaron Judge is huge. He's a lot different than an average batter, but never mind that. Your explanation is excellent

The zone boxes we see on the various TV broadcasts - is that something official or just the local television extrapolation of what they view the strike zone to be ?

I would like to know the answer to this question too.

IIRC, Howie, yesterday's loss was the first time this season Atlanta has lost three in a row, period.

This is correct and pretty interesting given that they were 23-27 at one point.

That low water mark was also when they were furthest back at 10.5 games (May 31st). Since then, they’ve played .680 ball over 60 games and have only made up four games. Mets have played .630 ball over the 58 games in that time. They got off to a great start but really have been an excellent team all year, with June being merely adequate at 13-12. And really most of that is localized to a blip at the end where they played HOU, MIA, and HOU, losing all four games against the Astros going 2-5 overall in their worst seven game stretch. That stretch is a part of a 4-6 ten games which I believe is their worst record of any ten game segment.

The cubs jumped on Reyes and snagged him before Colorado had a chance to pick him up alongside Lamet.

The zone boxes we see on the various TV broadcasts - is that something official or just the local television extrapolation of what they view the strike zone to be ?

Unless something has changed in the past couple of years, it's created by the tv broadcaster.

Lindor has really been showing off his power lately. He’s not a huge guy but everything that he hits lately has been smashed.

I’m surprised at how tightly they call these replay reviews. In the NFL, though there are anomalies, it generally has to be very clear to overturn. Seems like the standard is lower in MLB. I’m thinking of the one the other day when Alonso was out at home but then called safe because it sort of looked like his spike tapped the plate before the tag. I mean, if I had to guess, I’d say that it did touch but I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess if my life depended on being correct.

Today McCann throws out the runner stealing second, throw clearly beats him. On review though, it looks like Lindor may have missed the initial tag on the arm and didn’t get him until it hit the runner’s body though. That’s probably right, but looking real close, it’s possible that the strings on Lindor’s glove touched the runner’s arm before he reached the bag. I feel like in the NFL, that would be enough uncertainty to let the call on the field stand. Again, both replay calls seem reasonable but certainly shows that the call on the field doesn’t carry much weight in deciding. And I only mention the NFL because I’ve heard baseball announcers also say “clear and obvious” is the standard for reversing the call which is the same language they use in football.

#13 ... the Cubs released Andrelton yesterday (and optioned Bote). This will keep Morel on the IF more often. Still, I assume Reyes will mostly take time away from Schwindel and Higgins/Gomes with Contreras getting more 1B time I'd guess. Zach McKinstry may not be long for the 26-man either. Note, Franmil is in the minors not the majors so the Cubs don't have to make a move if they don't want to. If he sticks longer-term, I assume they'll try to teach him 1B.

Duke, glad to be of help. A final point of clarification -- it doesn't necessarily have to matter who's at bat. I mean it probably does but what these measures (used for this purpose) are trying to get at is the change in run expectancy. The run expectancy with Judge at the plate is obviously higher than with Aaron Hicks at the plate but the run differential for Judge 1-0 vs 0-1 might not be greater (or at least not substantially greater) than the run differential between those counts for Hicks.

That said, that's probably not true. It's not that anybody really disagrees with the notion of "FFS, the last thing you want to do is fall behind against Judge with the bases loaded; that's much worse than falling behind Hicks." It's a question of "can we accurately measure that difference and, if we can, is it big enough to worry about for what is just a moment-by-moment stat?" And even if we do shift to count-batter measures, you or some other troublemaker will say "yeah, but it's much worse with the bases loaded in Coors against the back of the Rox bullpen" which is surely true but you have to give up at some point.

As it stands, for his career Judge has about a 1200 OPS after 1-0 (hey, that's pretty good) but still about 750 after 0-1. Hicks is around 860 and 570 so (surprise!) an even bigger difference for Judge. These count difference can be really big and it's what gets the framing geeks off. Even Aaron Hicks posts an OBP over 400 after 1-0 (while it's 263 after 0-1). Judge is indeed near a 500 OBP after 1-0. The average batter has a split of 372/259. A big difference ... but the average batter at 4-2 has a 1000 OBP while at 3-3 it's 000. :-) And that's true whether you're Barry Bonds or Bill Bergen.

This may be popular with some: Cubs to release Jason Heyward at end of season with 1 year left on his contract.

That’s a strange thing to announce to reporters. Yet they say they respect Heyward’s presence enough that he’ll remain on the roster this year. I’m assuming this isn’t news to Heyward, but I still find it odd that the Cubs would announce that so much in advance of doing it. I just clicked on the linked article and the tweet from the ESPN reporter, I’d sort of like to see the actual quote from Hoyer… though I probably don’t care enough to actually search for it.

funny post-game moment yesterday, as Mets MGR Buck was a bit angry that with a big 5-game, 4-day NYM-ATL series, the Braves are off today - the day after - while the Mets are not. not sure who logical that is, but I like spunk.

:)

anyway, he said FIVE Mets relievers were not available on Sunday (so since Diaz was, basically no one else). he used Joely Rodriguez - a forgotten lefty almost all year - as the lone bridge from deGrom to Diaz.

tonight, Mets lead 3-1 and badass Bassitt takes the mound in the 8th. pitch 101 is a fly out for the leadoff batter.

hey, real baseball! even if Bassitt spits the bit, this feels like old times - and I like it.

UPDATE: Bassitt punches put a Reds batter for the final out in the 8th on pitch No. 114.

I mean, I remember 1971 Mickey Lolich - 45 starts, 29 CG, 376 IP.

but I'm not greedy. just asking for a veteran SP to be given a bit of leash when he is in command. 8 is enough, just like the old TV program said.

Is the Mets' pen overly taxed or something? Curious why they're having Bassitt up to 115 pitches in the 8th (up 3-1) when he hasn't had a 1-2-3 inning all night and is constantly dealing with baserunners.

EDIT: OK, 114 pitches through 8.

Very professional outing for Bassitt tonight. 8 IP, 8 Ks on a season high 114 pitches. He gave up 9 hits but Spencer Strider would say that about half of them shouldn’t have counted.

Of course, it’s against the Reds too, so the whole game might deserve an asterisk.

26, the Mets did just have have just played 12 games in 11 days, so the bullpen is a bit tired. They had Givens up that inning but he’s been frightening. And Diaz has worked the last two days, so it looks like they want Ottovino to close.

That said, I was a little surprised they ran Bassitt out there. Most of his innings tonight have had some degree of stress. I basically can never predict Buck’s BP usage.

I don't have anything against Bassitt being in there---I, too, enjoy seeing starters "go long"---just curious as it seems rare for ANY starter who's not dominating to be kept in there that long these days.

Between hits, walks, HBP, catcher's interference, and an error, the Reds have had 13 baserunners in 8 innings, but have plated just one.

I have really enjoyed the Buck Showalter experience

Mets had a four day, five game series against the Braves and the bullpen has been taxed

They changed the scoring so Bassitt only gave up eight hits now and no runs. His ERA is 3.39, which has dropped a ton since I started complaining about him a touch a few weeks ago.

Mets score 2 but still bring in Ottavino in up by four. I’d prefer Medina here. I kinda like him but the Mets hardly use him. Buck’s kept Ottavino in a bit lately in situations where I’d go to one of the lesser guys. It’s probably not enough to wear him out, but still.

Bassitt's 8-inning outing only the 85th in MLB this season, SNY informs me.

one pitcher has TEN of them.....

Yeah, there’s something like 18 CGs this year, I looked up like a week ago.

So the Reds get two more on in the 9th and fail to score. That’s 15 baserunners resulting in one unearned run. I’m assuming that’s sort of par for the course for them this year.

Mets division lead at 7. I like that number because even if the Braves won every remaining matchup against them, it would only result in a division by tie.

Getting close to “it’s over and always been over” territory but I don’t have the chutzpah for such proclamations. To me, ‘07 and ‘08 feel simultaneously a million years ago and yesterday.

Bassitt again has really turned it on after a rough stretch in May and June. After tonight, his ERA+ should be around 118, matching his career mark and he leads the Mets with 130 IP. He’s on pace for 180ish, which would obliterate his career high mark of 157.1, set last year. So in the last month he’s gone from a little disappointing (for me) to really meeting and exceeding most reasonable expectations I had when they traded for him. Good for him, he seems like a nice fella too (as opposed to say Scherzer, who I think the nicest thing you can say is that you’re happy when he’s pitching for you!)

LeMahieu’s single, Judge’s double, and Donaldson’s 2-run single gives the Yankees a 2-0 lead in 1st @ Seattle.

Yankees lead in the AL East now back up to 10 games with the Blue Jays loss to the Orioles.

Good night for Josh Donaldson, as his solo HR (#11) to LF (415 feet) makes it 3-1 Yankees in 3rd.

EDIT: Torres single & Benintendi RBI double makes it 4-1. Torres would have been out by 10 feet, but the catcher couldn’t hold the less than stellar relay throw.

This may be popular with some

Not popular with me. Inevitable, overdue but much like Soriano before him, Heyward was totally professional and positive and did his best. It's not his fault he was offered the contract (and I'm not sure offering it was a bad idea). I don't know how his swing got so messed up but it's not like the Cubs managed to fix it. And yes, per the article, Hoyer and Heyward have already talked about it, Cubs going a different direction while Heyward hopes to play again. It is still weird to announce it this far in advance.

So down 6-3 in the bottom of the 9th with 1 out, runner on 1st, 2 strikes on the batter, the Nats decide it's time for a hit and run. Strike three and in an act of defensive difference, Contreras fires down to second to get the runner. A game-ending strike em out, throw em out DP has to be rare to begin with, one when down by 3 has to be very rare. Probably not the smartest play.

Fergie on the postgame. Looking good for 79-239, handling the post game analyst role just fine.

Allow me to be the first…

Inevitable, overdue but much like Soriano before him,

Jason Heyward is (almost) available.

Highest %age of HRs from rookies, 2022

KC 47%
Pirates 38%
Cubs 30%

What those 3 teams have in common is left as an exercise for the reader.

In his 1st PA, Yankees DH Matt Carpenter fouled a pitch off his foot and limped around quite a bit. Although he completed the AB, light-hitting Tim Locastro pinch hit for him next time up, a consequence of the unfortunate unavailability of Stanton & Rizzo. Not optimum.

Former LOOGY and current Giants broadcaster Javier Lopez pitched a total of 533.1 innings…in 839 career games. That’s unbelievable. I do not miss those days in the slightest.

Donaldson leads off the 5th with a double, leaving him but a triple short of the cycle.

EDIT: Gleyber Torres double off the base of the RF wall only moves Donaldson to 3rd, but Benintendi’s double to LF scores them both. 6-2 NYY.

Uh, oh. Matt Carpenter reportedly has a fractured foot. That’s a bad break, interrupting his remarkable comeback season at the worst time with Stanton & Rizzo also unavailable. I’m no doctor, but sounds like he might miss much or all of the remainder of the season. Carpenter is at .305/.412/.727, which should interest teams for next season even if he done for this one.

Aaron Judge solo HR (#44) to CF (423 feet) gives the Yankees an 8-3 lead in the 9th. With that HR, Judge ties Bill Dickey (202) for 17th place on the Yankees Career Home Run Leaderboard.

I had the feeling, backed up by nothing, that Carpenter is overextended and AL-overexposed, that he was about to hit .120 for the remainder of the season.

I feel personally bad for Carpenter, but my guess is that this isn't actually awful for the Yankees. The obvious move for them is to bring up and play Andujar, who deserves regular PT.

Does he though? Since his rookie year he's had 328 PAs scattered over 4 seasons with an OPS of .583. It's not like he's dominating AAA - he's hit an OPS of .835 there this year, which is good but not amazing or anything. It's worse than Estevan Florial has hit.

46. Matt has always blown super hot and then super cold. As for his vaunted rebuild of his swing, I see nothing in his swing that is different. His hands look quicker - maybe a new or different bat?. Looks like the same old Matt Carpenter to me. In STL all his fly balls were either foul or warning track flyballs which is exactly how he looked to me last year.

Since the All-Star Game, Aaron Judge is hitting .400/.519/.985 for a 1.504 OPS, with 11 HRs, 28 RBI & 19 Runs in 17 games. Impressive.

The upside for Carpenter is that he's gonna have a rocking Strat card next year.

Sportsman of the Year candidate, Junior Division
that's from the Little League World Series - and even better as it's archrival states Texas and Oklahoma.

meanwhile, Pete Alonso has 17 PA against lefties since the All-Star break and has reached base.... 16 times.

that seems like a lot.

Former LOOGY and current Giants broadcaster Javier Lopez pitched a total of 533.1 innings…in 839 career games. That’s unbelievable. I do not miss those days in the slightest.

But he did average 2.71 BF/game which is not far off the required 3 ... and if some of those appearances came when there were already 2 outs, it's possible that the vast majority of his appearances satisfied the current rule. Has anybody tracked mid-inning changes to see if they've actually come down and by how much? It seems to me I regularly see the SP removed mid-inning (now in the 5th, not the 6th) and plenty of times when a new reliever is lifted after 3 batters when 1-2 of them reach. I assume the rule has made the >1 mid-inning change inning nearly extinct but there weren't really that many of those, it just seem like there were because they're so annoying.

I checked his 2008 gamelog (not an extreme year for him) and 10 of his 21 sub-3 BF appearances did not end an inning. So 49 of his appearances he faced at least 3 batters and 60 of 70 would have satisfied the current rule. (Of course some of those times he may have been replacing a reliever who hadn't faced three batter.)

In 2010, he had 77 appearances with 30 of them less than 3 BF. 17 of those 30 would not qualify today although a whopping 8 of those came in Sept after being traded to the Giants who may have been prepping for their playoff usage.

Alonso’s having an interesting season. It feels like he’s doing much better than last season, but really, his underlying numbers are practically identical. Same walk rate, only very slightly better K and HR percentage, which have been fallen fairly substantially from his rookie year. Biggest difference is probably his BAbip, only .274 last year to a career high of .289 this year (his career mark is .276 largely thanks to a very poor .242 in 2020). His HR percentage is still down quite a bit from his historic rookie year (7.7 to 6.2) but that’s probably about the same relative to the league. Offense still being a touch down from last season along with improved BAbip makes up the rest of the difference between his 152 OPS+ now and 132 OPS+ last year. And of course, leading the league in RBI virtually all season has greatly aided the perception of this year.

He’s really remarkably consistent thus far in his young career. Barring any sort of major change, he seems like he should be good for around a 140 OPS+, 4.5 WAR player year in and year out. It’s sort of interesting to have a Met who is one of those very good players who will also likely be a bit overrated because of how his production is created. Lindor is more of a classic Met superstar, where it’s a lot of little things that contribute to overall excellence that is somewhat underrated. Not sure the average person would realize that Lindor has been worth exactly 1 WAR more than Alonso thus far this year, 4.3 to 3.3.

Marte and Nimmo are also at 3.3. Nimmo is a little interesting in that he hasn’t been quite the OBP machine that he has been in the past, but he’s also been far healthier (his 102 games is already the second most of his career), so really it’s a good trade off. He’s also really become a plus defender in center field, which is really remarkable when I look back to a few years ago, he’s quite the interesting player when it comes to development, really since they drafted him. A bold tools pick that actually worked out. Marte has just been really impressive and surpassed my expectations after a slow start. He’s looking like a classic first ballot HoVGer if he can perform at this around this level for three or four more seasons.

Scherzer is second on the team at 3.9, even after missing six weeks and only at 95 IP. That’s really impressive.

And everybody should be keeping an eye on the NL Central where an epic battle is brewing among the Cubs 44-64, Reds 44-64 and Pirates 44-65.

Offense still being a touch down from last season along with improved BAbip makes up the rest of the difference between his 152 OPS+ now and 132 OPS+ last year

that doesnt sound quite right to me. OPS+ is based on runs created, park effects, and some other stuff. If the average player creates 85 runs in say 600 AB, then that should be worth 100 OPS+ all other factors being league average.

If he his BaBip jumped 15 pts, that would be good for say 9 hits over 600 AB. Say 5 runs of offense. thats like adding 6 OPS+.

Unless park factors in NYM were down or league offense went down. I mean I guess it is down a little.

I think...

With 2 more homers allowed today vs. KC, Lance Lynn has now given up 18 in just 59.2 ip since his late start to the season, in mid-June.

His 1.96 HR/9ip is the 7th highest in MLB this year:

3.06 Elieser Hernandez, Mia
2.54 Mike Minor, Cin
2.39 Bruce Zimmerman, Bal
2.05 Yusei Kikuchi, Tor
2.01 Hunter Greene, Cin
1.96 Lance Lynn, ChW
1.92 Nathan Eovaldi, Bos

56,

It did seem a bit extreme to me too, but I don’t know what else it can be that’s causing the 20 point difference in OPS+.

Alonso 2021: 262/344/519
Alonso 2022: 280/358/545

The 14 points in OBP matches the BABIP almost exactly. The 26 points in slugging is something like four extra singles, a double, and a homerun (granting your 9 hits over 600 ABs). The rest must be park effects and the overall league, though I feel like the Mets offensive numbers have been on the high side all year. I’m not savvy enough to dig much deeper and there aren’t any slash numbers that are close enough to really compare any 2021 line to a 2022 line.

ance Lynn has now given up 18 in just 59.2 ip

That should be 13 (not 18) homers allowed in 59.2 for a 1.96/9.

Orioles have bases loaded in the first, none out.
Or the Jays have turned a triple play to get off the field.
To the replay we go...

Tick tock
Tick tock
...
Ruled a catch on the field, overturned on replay.
Bases loaded, none out.

From the Aaron Judge HR Pace Tracker:

Most HRs in a season -- with totals through 110 team games:

2001 Barry Bonds: 73 -- 46
1998 Mark McGwire: 70 -- 45
1998 Sammy Sosa: 66 -- 42
2022 Aaron Judge: 65 (current pace) -- 44
1999 Mark McGwire: 65 -- 44
2001 Sammy Sosa: 64 -- 37
1999 Sammy Sosa: 63 -- 42
1961 Roger Maris: 61 -- 41
1927 Babe Ruth: 60 -- 36

Good company.

Orioles won the challenge, loaded the bases with none out.
Ended up pushing across two runs to take an early lead over Toronto.

Mets starters have completed 5 innings or more 27 times in the last 28 games.

that stat has to make quite a few of MLB managers wildly jealous....

You're certainly right Howie but it sure brings out the old man in me to (kind of) scoff at 5 innings being the mark to note.

a bit of trivia, or aka How the Game Has Changed:

In 1977 Nolan Ryan walked over 200 batters, while finishing 3rd in the Cy Young voting.

When is the last time any Major League pitcher walked even 100 batters in a season?

66, I thought of Oliver Perez in ‘08, but don’t know if that’s the last time.

I had a couple other more recent thoughts, but I looked them up (disqualifying me from future guesses) and they also weren’t correct (only in the 90s).

When is the last time any Major League pitcher walked even 100 batters in a season?

Most recently, it's actually two pitchers in the same season, and I'll be impressed if anyone knows both.

I was going to guess Edinson Volquez, and it looks like he did walk more than 100 batters in one season. I don't know how to check if that is the most recent time it's happened though.

Volquez is one of them.

that doesnt sound quite right to me. OPS+ is based on runs created, park effects, and some other stuff. If the average player creates 85 runs in say 600 AB, then that should be worth 100 OPS+ all other factors being league average.

If he his BaBip jumped 15 pts, that would be good for say 9 hits over 600 AB. Say 5 runs of offense. thats like adding 6 OPS+.

Unless park factors in NYM were down or league offense went down. I mean I guess it is down a little.

I think...

That seems like a weird way to look at it, why not start with his actual ops which was .863 in 2021 and .904 in 2022. That looks like it could be a 20 point ops+ difference. pretty much all of that difference can be attributed to his batting average and extra base hits as his walk rate is exactly the same. If you want to try to figure out why his babip/iso went up, you can see he's at a career high in linedrive % and career low in groundball %

Basically compared to last year, almost all of these are small differences, but they all are on the better side of this year, babip, iso, hr%, linedrive% are all better than last year and strikeout% and groundball % are lower(better) this year. So he's getting more at bats per plate appearances, he's hitting the ball slightly better, and putting it in the air and on drives more. It would be a shocker if he wasn't getting noticeably better results.

I'll say Edwin Jackson and Ricky Romero.

Robbie Ray?

Edit: nope.

Basically compared to last year, almost all of these are small differences

This was basically my point, it’s amazing how some very small differences add up to a 20 point OPS+ difference. It shows again how year to year variance can seem extreme but often is the difference between a dozen or so outcomes.

Romero and Vazquez in 2012, both with 105 BB.

I thought from the way the question was phrased that the pitchers would be from further back than 2012, but that is ten years ago now. Time flies when you’re turning into an old fart.

That looks like it could be a 20 point ops+ difference. pretty much all of that difference can be attributed to his batting average and extra base hits as his walk rate is exactly the same.

yeah his ba is up 18 pts and his .slug up 26 pts. So it's not just babip thats driving a 20 pt OPS+ surge. Its probly slightly more to do with slug. That's all Im sayin.

It's a hot'n'sticky night in Baltimore, everyone's got sweat running down their face, neck, and arms.
Top 6, it's up to the bullpens.
Bichette hammers a ball over the wall to RF for 3 runs and a Jays 5-3 lead, his second HR of the night.
(It threatens to get wetter, as the grounds crew hustles out and crouches behind a tarp.)

So Ryan walked 204 in '77, as TomH noted. The only pitcher to exceed 150 BB since then is Big Unit in '91. So those are the two worst performances for BB in the last 45 years, both by guys who would win 300 and sail into the Hall.

Well, 863 to 904 would be about 10 points of OPS+ if the lgOBP and lgSLG context remained the same. (A 5% increase but OPS+ double-counts.) Or more precisly, Alonso is up about 4% in raw OBP and 5% in raw SLG. But that's raw difference and lgOBP and lgSLG are down 9 points (about 3%) and 19 points (about 4.5%) respectively.

1.04/0.97 = 1.07
1.05/0.955 = 1.10

If last year his OBP+ and SLG+ were equal, then this year his OPS+ would be ... 152.

For those that don't know, at b-r, when you are on a batter's page, there's a tab for "finders & advanced stats" and then a tab for "advanced stats." There's a table in there called "sabermetric batting" and it gives you the lgOBP and lgSLG numbers -- the league average (non-pitcher) OBP/SLG park-adjusted to that player's context. For the park factor for batters, I think you have to go to the team-page but the 3-year BPFs for Citi haven't changed between 2021 and 2022. So Alonso is putting up better raw numbers (about 8%) in a tougher offensive context (about 3.5%) relative to 2021. Multiply it all by 2 to put it closer to a OPS+ scale.

In breaking chatter-y news ...

1. Wisdom needs more work at 1B than I realized. He messed something up yesterday or the day before (I forget what) and just now gave Stroman a terrible (nonexistent) target for a throw that ended up hitting the runner.

2. Keibert?

BAL grounds crew ceases hiding behind the tarp, and rolls it out.
Mid-6, not raining but wind is whipping, broadcast says temp has dropped suddenly.
Bullpens are emptying in opposite directions, towards each clubhouse.
TOR@BAL in delay.

Reds SP Mike Minor has now surrendered 18 HR in 60 IP, which seems like a lot.

Franmil at DH today. 0-2, missing piece still missing. :-)

Today's all-name team just from Cubs-Nats

C: Keibert
1B: Willson (not actually playing 1B today but Patrick and Luke are pretty boring and C/DH are taken)
2B: Cesar
SS: Nico
3B: Ildemaro
LF: Yadiel
CF: Lane
RF: Seiya
DH: Franmil

(yes I do worry about ethnocentrism but, other than Cesar (which is just an awesome name), I'm pretty sure these are not common Latin names. Seiya I'm not sure about though.)

Reds SP Mike Minor has now surrendered 18 HR in 60 IP, which seems like a lot.

Not if you are Cubs AAAA guy Matt Swarmer who gave up 12 in 34 IP. He added 20 BB and 7 earned runs to post an RA9 near 7. But he cost a lot less than Mike Minor.

Mets are going through a stretch right now where their pitching staff looks like a nightmare in the postseason. deGrom, Scherzer, Bassitt, Carrasco, Ottavino, and Diaz looks like enough for a championship they way they’ve been going.

Last year's MLB "leader" in pitcher BBs was Lance McCullers, who walked 76 while putting up a 13-5 W-L record.

If you had asked me to guess this #, I surely would have guessed too high. And I suspect 90% of fans would have joined me.

There goes Miles ERA.

12-0 bottom of the third still, Cardinals aren't winning.

The Rockies have 3 players who have 3 hits today, it's still the third inning.

Carrasco strikes out the side then flames out. Come on bullpen, hold on to this win

Rockies have more hits than Cardinals have batters today (15-14) going to the fifth.

Not if you are Cubs AAAA guy Matt Swarmer who gave up 12 in 34 IP. He added 20 BB and 7 earned runs to post an RA9 near 7. But he cost a lot less than Mike Minor.

You know, I didn't realize Swarmer had given up THAT many. He's second on the team in HR allowed! In 34 IP! He's 12th on the team in IP!

Ortega getting thrown out at home on a shallow fly to center with only 1 out in the inning when he was the tying run really pisses me off.

That's more like it Franmil!! Franmil the Franchise! 4-4

I had missed the Voit to Nats part of the Soto deal.

After 1:15+ delay, TOR@BAL ready to resume after rain delay.
Bradley Zimmer replaces Whit Merrifield in CF for TOR.
Many fans replace other fans, and empty seats, as everyone moves down low from the shelter of the concourse. Looks like a full stadium from the CF camera!
A pitcher named Zach Pop was announced into the game for TOR as the tarps rolled, so he gets a credit for an appearance, but didn't throw a pitch.
Anthony Bass (TOR) takes the hill, but Alek Mahoah is the pitcher of record in line for the win, Jays lead 5-3, bottom 6.

Going back to Swarmer ... you were being admirably charitable by calling him an "AAAA guy". He's pitched almost 300 IP in AAA, with an ERA of 4.93 and allowing nearly 2 HR per 9 IP. That is not a AAAA guy - that's a guy who has no business being in AAA in the first place.

The Cubs have been patting themselves on the back a lot lately about the "Pitch Lab" and the strides they've made shoring up the pitching in the org, but they're still running guys like Swarmer out there. Wonder why I never really bothered to look at his stats until now. Never knew how good we had things when Casey Coleman was around.

didn't realize Swarmer had given up THAT many.

It was a staggering 11 in his first 24 IP, including 6 (solo) in one game. After giving up those 6, he decided BBs were the better part of valor with 17 BB in 17 innings. He had 153 BF with 68 TTO, a batting against line of 250/346/583, turning the average batter into (give or take) Pete Alonso.

Given I was about to make fun of how many HRs he'd given up, I thought I'd be kind.

For those desperate to collect on their Cub 40-man roster bets, Schwindel was optioned out for Reyes. As to the game, Nico Nico'd to give the Cubs a 5-4 lead but then the pen remembered they are supposed to suck and it's 6-5 Nats now. Cubs threatening.