Jay M. Nunez

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Syndergaard Throws At and Thrown Out

Noah Syndergaard was ejected for throwing behind Chase Utley:

With one out and nobody on in the third inning of a scoreless game, Syndergaard’s first pitch to Utley sailed behind the second baseman’s back by a considerable margin.

Plate umpire Adam Hamari immediately ejected Syndergaard, prompting irate Mets manager Terry Collins to come storming out of the dugout. Collins also was ejected.

I’m glad Syndergaard didn’t hit Utley. Intentionally missing behind a hitter is better than hitting him, but players should not be launching balls like weapons. I still getting the out is the best revenge. I suppose if MLB had upheld Utley’s suspension, the Mets would have less of a reason to do this.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1NVruTJ

Reds Win

The Reds broke an 11 game losing streak with a 7-6 win over the Brewers. Down 6-1, the scored five runs in the top of the seventh inning to tie the game and one in the top of the ninth to win it. Even with the win, however, the Reds are just 2-14 in their last 16 games.

The Reds and Braves looked like teams that were tanking entering 2016, cleaning house of many of their older, expensive players. The problem, of course, is that Minnesota, a team that looked like it was building on a good 2015, has the worst record in the majors. That’s why it is very tough in baseball to prove tanking. A good team can go bad without even trying.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1qT7JRG

Darvish Doing Well

Yu Darvish just completed his fourth inning of work against the Pirates in Texas. In his return from Tommy John surgery, he is showing no ill effects, he allowed one hit and one walk while striking out five. The Rangers lead the Pirates 3-0.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1sEL251

Big Comeback

The Royals set a team record with a seven-run ninth to beat the White Sox 8-7. That’s the largest ninth inning comeback in team history.

Brett Eibner, playing his second big league game, singled to cap the biggest ninth-inning comeback in Kansas City Royals history, a seven-run rally off David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle that lifted the World Series champions over the Chicago White Sox 8-7 Saturday.

…

Held to six hits through eight innings, the Royals doubled their total in the 32-minute bottom of the ninth and overcame a six-run deficit for the first time since beating San Francisco on June 22, 2008. The inning included four walks, two of them intentional, and four runs scored with two outs.

Chicago lost for the 13th time in 17 games.

The Royals hit rather poorly in games that were late and close coming into this game, as well as when they were trailing by five runs or more.

Just like in Friday night’s Mets game against the Dodgers, a closer blew a non-save situation. In this case, however, the reliever took the loss.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/20PvHte

Beat the Streak

A couple of weeks ago, I asked a co-worker about his fantasy team. He was in the middle of selecting a player for his daily play of Beat the Streak, the game sponsored by MLB.com. He asked for some advice, and then asked if I played. I didn’t, and I explained the odds are very much stacked against you. He thanked me for ruining his fun :-), but my help kept his streak alive for another day.

It also made me revisit playing the game.

Be the first to reach 57 games and win $5.6 Million

Given that you don’t need to spend any money to play, I started thinking about how to go about doing this. The first thing I did was go to the FanGraphs list of probable starters, and sorting on Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP). I then looked for pitchers with a high BABIP and a low strikeout rate. From today, Alfredo Simon and Aaron Blair are good examples. Giving up a lot of home runs with few walks would be good, too. Simon gives up the homers, but both he and Blair walk batters. Adam Wainwright and Jered Weaver actually do a better job of meeting all three categories.

Of course, once I identified the pitchers, I needed go to the opposing rosters and find hitters with high BABIP who put the ball in play a lot. Needless to say, this takes time. Given that I have an extensive database at my fingertips, I decided to write a program to see if I could do better.

My first try was to write a program that calculated the expected Hit Average of a batter pitcher match-up. Hit Average is hits divided by plate appearances. The amount of at bats a player gets in a game is variable, put the plate appearances are pretty constant. So I figured a hit average for the batter based on 2016 stats, an opposition hit average for the pitcher based on 2016 stats, regressed those for hitters and pitchers with few PA to the league hit average*, and used the Log5 method to figure the probability.

*For the league hit average, I only use player whose position at the time of the PA was not pitcher.

The results were reasonable but they were all based on small sample sizes. So I averaged that number with a three-year weighted hit average, again regressed to the 2016 league average from small sample sizes. Each counted 50%; I’m using it more as a ranking method then call it a true probability. Here is the top of the list it produced for today:

0.369 — Daniel Murphy batting against Adam Wainwright
0.340 — Ryan Braun batting against Alfredo Simon
0.322 — Jose Altuve batting against Jered Weaver
0.320 — Robinson Cano batting against Phil Hughes
0.312 — Francisco M Lindor batting against Ubaldo Jimenez
0.311 — Martin Prado batting against Aaron D Blair
0.310 — Marcell Ozuna batting against Aaron D Blair
0.304 — Jonathan Lucroy batting against Alfredo Simon
0.304 — Wilson Ramos batting against Adam Wainwright
0.302 — Buster Posey batting against Christopher Rusin
0.302 — Kelby Tomlinson batting against Christopher Rusin
0.302 — Jonathan Villar batting against Alfredo Simon

So it agrees with my method of choosing pitchers. The number leading off is again a ranking, but if you want to think of it as a probability, that fine. A player with a .369 probability of getting a hit in a PA would have a probability of 0.84 of getting a hit in four PA, if that’s how you define a game.

I decided to try another method as well. I built a neural network using the same five parameters; current year pitcher hit average, three year weighted pitcher hit average, current year batter hit average, three year weighted batter hit average, and the current year league hit average. I then trained the net, and here is the top of the list it produced for today:

0.302, 0.760 — Buster Posey batting against Christopher Rusin.
0.322, 0.752 — Jose Altuve batting against Jered Weaver.
0.291, 0.745 — Joe Panik batting against Christopher Rusin.
0.320, 0.743 — Robinson Cano batting against Phil Hughes.
0.289, 0.742 — Matt M Duffy batting against Christopher Rusin.
0.369, 0.741 — Daniel Murphy batting against Adam Wainwright.
0.285, 0.737 — Denard Span batting against Christopher Rusin.
0.279, 0.735 — Ben Revere batting against Adam Wainwright.
0.312, 0.734 — Francisco M Lindor batting against Ubaldo Jimenez.
0.302, 0.734 — Kelby Tomlinson batting against Christopher Rusin.

(Dee Gordon was on the list, but he’s not playing due to a drug suspension.)

The first number is the weight hit averages I used in the previous list. The second number is the probability of the player getting a hit in a game started by this pitcher.

The neural net (NN) likes the Giants chances against Chris Rusin. The biggest difference in the lists is the absence of Ryan Braun from the NN. Having looked at bit at the parameters, the NN seems to favor the three-year hit averages over the current year hit averages, but a big current year boost counts for something. Murphy drops, but stays high on the NN because his prior three years are okay, and this particular match-up is good for him.

I am still back testing to see how well these methods work, but if it can help you beat the streak, I’ll publish these top lists daily. I’ll also continue to work to see if there are better NN combinations for predictions.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/20OjKEq

Games of the Day

Rick Porcello and Marcus Stroman square off as the Red Sox continue their series with the Blue Jays. Porcello lowered his ERA almost a run and a half compare to last season, and it may be due to better defense behind him. He’s allowing fewer hits, but not fewer home runs. His xFIP is about the same. Stroman, in his short career, proved good at keeping the ball in the park, with just 13 home runs allowed in 227 innings.

The Giants try to hold off the Rockies in Colorado as Madison Bumgarner takes on Eddie Butler. Bumgarner pitched some good games at Coors, but in general the ballpark took a toll on him. Butler found his control this season. In his first two year he walked 49 batters in 95 1/3 innings. This season he walked just three batter in 27 2/3 innings.

Yu Darvish returns to the mound for Texas as they host the Pirates. Recovering from Tommy John surgery, he walked six and struck out 21 in 20 minor league innings.

Finally, Kenta Maeda faces Noah Syndergaard as the Mets and Dodgers continue their series in Queens. Maeda pitched better on the road so far, with a 2.31 ERA in 23 1/3 innings. Only one of his five home runs allowed came on the road. Syndergaard owns the third highest K per 9 innings in the majors this season, 11.34. With very low walks and home run rates, Syndergaard is only surpassed in three-true outcomes by Clayton Kershaw.

Enjoy!

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1qRRmES

Gotham Police Officer - Ready for The Table

Two models finished in two weeks? Some might call it madness, others might call it momentum. Either way, a second model on and off my desk inside a couple of sessions and it's Fat Cop from BMG.

He's not my finest work, but as the title says, he is ready to take to the tabletop, and in only 5 or 6 hours, which is an improvement in speed without sacrificing too much quality (I hope).

Up until this week, he had been sat awaiting paint since I took this picture last September.

I started off by working on the skin, which I'm getting better with, probably due to this being the third model in a couple of months that I've painted with a darker skin tone.

Once I had the skin tone sorted, I realised that I hadn't cleaned him up as well as I could have done initially, so his tonfa hand still has a load of flash on it but realising mid paint job I didn't feel like stopping for a 16 Rep model to be perfect so carried on.

One thing that did change was the tone of the uniform. Above in the old picture, he has quite a bright navy uniform but I moved in a much darker, muted direction with my current favourite combination of S75 Necro Grey, Rlyeh Grey and GW Fenrisian Grey. The shirt was Fenrisian Blue followed by a few washes of Ryleh Grey to mute it down slightly - a complete contrast to the GW Ice Blue it had been previously.

I kept the rest of his gear simple and dark to keep his face the focal point.

I also thought it was about time for a group photo. These guys are three of the four that will be going to the local gaming show next month (first wargaming show in Cumbria!) to take part on the demo table as I want to re-learn the game after being a year since my only two games.