Games of the Day

The Red Sox and White Sox continue their series with Eduardo Rodriguez facing Carlos Rodon. Rodriguez gives up home runs on the road, with nine of his twelve allowed coming away from Fenway. Rodon owns a 1.71 ERA at home where he allowed just 11 of his 36 walks.

The Diamondbacks and Dodgers split the first two games of their series as Patrick Corbin and Clayton Kershaw join the battle for the NL West title. Corbin improved since the All-Star break, 4-1 in seven starts with just one home run allowed in 46 1/3 innings. Kershaw, too has been much more Kershaw like since the break, with a 3-1 record and a 1.85 ERA in seven starts. He allowed just three home runs and three walks in 48 2/3 innings.

Enjoy!

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Little Has Changed

Brewers Stock Up

Brew Crew Ball nicely sums up the move the Brewers made at the August 31 trade deadline, acquiring Curtis Granderson, Gio Gonzalez, and Xavier Cedeno. None are superstars on the order of Justin Verlander, but all have strengths that can help the team. It also sends a message to the team that in the franchise’s 50th season (yes, I count the Seattle Pilots), they are going all in to try to win the World Series.

Given the current standings and my love of long championship droughts ending, I will be rooting for a Brewers-Indians World Series.

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Players of the Month

Justin Turner appears to be an easy choice for offensive players of the month. His .402/.491/.722 slash line ranks 1st/1st/2nd in the majors for any player with at least 80 PA. He collected 39 hits, tied for second in the majors, despite many fewer plate appearances (PA) than the other hit leaders. The argument against Turner would be that his averages are helped by fewer PA, since he had less of chance to go cold. Ronald Acuna and Christian Yelich each hit 11 home runs to tie for the MLB lead, but none of their averages are close to Turner’s. Miguel Andujar and Rougned Odor led the majors in RBI with 29, but both have weaknesses in their games. Turner did it all, so Justin Turner is the Baseball Musings Offensive Player of the Month for August 2018.

Cole Hamels made six starts, posted a 4-0 record, and recorded a 0.69 ERA. That’s the best in the majors for August. Except for Hamels no home runs allowed, it wasn’t a great month for the leaders in the three-true outcomes. Trevor Cahill did not allow a home run, but posted a 4.15 ERA. Jose Musgrove walked just 0.60 batters per nine innings, but posted a 4.20 ERA. Justin Verlander struck out 13.9 batters per nine IP, but ended August with 5.29 ERA for the month.

The main competition for Hamels comes from two Mets starters, Zack Wheeler and Jacob deGrom. Both bested Hamels in strikeout rate and walk rate. Both posted extremely low ERAs, in more innings than Hamels. The argument for Hamels is that he moved into a tight division race and responded magnificently. That and the much lower ERA makes Cole Hamels the Baseball Musings Pitcher of the Month for August 2018.

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Beat the Streak Picks

Here are the top picks my programs produced for use in Beat the Streak. This post mostly explains the ideas behind the calculations. In addition, this post shows tests on the Neural Network (NN). This post discusses an NN that includes the ballpark. I updated the models, and the results of those tests are here.

For 2018, I am just going to publish the Log5 hit averages and the NN probabilities with parks factored in. I am keeping track of the results here. I added a graph that gives a visual representation of the probability and success each day.

I have been asked to expand the list to the top 25 players for an econometric project.

First, the Log5 Method picks:

0.318 — Daniel Murphy batting against Zach Eflin.
0.308 — Matt M Duffy batting against Shane Bieber.
0.305 — Joey Wendle batting against Shane Bieber.
0.305 — Mallex Smith batting against Shane Bieber.
0.302 — Albert Almora batting against Zach Eflin.
0.301 — Javier Baez batting against Zach Eflin.
0.298 — Jean Segura batting against Daniel Mengden.
0.298 — Jose Martinez batting against Luis Castillo.
0.297 — Corey Dickerson batting against Kevin Gausman.
0.293 — Miguel Andujar batting against Daniel Norris.
0.293 — Eddie Rosario batting against Yovani Gallardo.
0.292 — Jose Altuve batting against Felix Pena.
0.291 — Wilson Ramos batting against Kyle Hendricks.
0.290 — Whit Merrifield batting against Dylan Bundy.
0.289 — Freddie Freeman batting against Chris Archer.
0.287 — Nolan Arenado batting against Robert Erlin.
0.286 — Nick Markakis batting against Chris Archer.
0.285 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Robert Erlin.
0.284 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Robert Erlin.
0.284 — Starling Marte batting against Kevin Gausman.
0.284 — Carlos Gonzalez batting against Robert Erlin.
0.283 — Charlie Culberson batting against Chris Archer.
0.283 — Gerardo Parra batting against Robert Erlin.
0.280 — Ben Zobrist batting against Zach Eflin.
0.279 — Christian Yelich batting against Stephen Strasburg.

Murphy only faced Eflin twice, and is 0 for 2 against him. Reading through the list, I hope to see an Eflin versus Erlin game sometime. Jean Segura did not play again Friday night.

Here is how the NN with Park ranks the players:

0.318, 0.750 — Daniel Murphy batting against Zach Eflin.
0.292, 0.739 — Jose Altuve batting against Felix Pena.
0.298, 0.735 — Jean Segura batting against Daniel Mengden.
0.298, 0.725 — Jose Martinez batting against Luis Castillo.
0.293, 0.725 — Miguel Andujar batting against Daniel Norris.
0.302, 0.724 — Albert Almora batting against Zach Eflin.
0.301, 0.719 — Javier Baez batting against Zach Eflin.
0.291, 0.719 — Wilson Ramos batting against Kyle Hendricks.
0.308, 0.717 — Matt M Duffy batting against Shane Bieber.
0.297, 0.716 — Corey Dickerson batting against Kevin Gausman.
0.293, 0.716 — Eddie Rosario batting against Yovani Gallardo.
0.305, 0.714 — Joey Wendle batting against Shane Bieber.
0.290, 0.713 — Whit Merrifield batting against Dylan Bundy.
0.305, 0.710 — Mallex Smith batting against Shane Bieber.
0.285, 0.708 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Robert Erlin.
0.289, 0.707 — Freddie Freeman batting against Chris Archer.
0.284, 0.705 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Robert Erlin.
0.262, 0.705 — Scooter Gennett batting against Daniel Poncedeleon.
0.287, 0.704 — Nolan Arenado batting against Robert Erlin.
0.275, 0.703 — Ronald Torreyes batting against Daniel Norris.
0.279, 0.702 — Christian Yelich batting against Stephen Strasburg.
0.284, 0.702 — Starling Marte batting against Kevin Gausman.
0.283, 0.699 — Gerardo Parra batting against Robert Erlin.
0.271, 0.698 — Dee Gordon batting against Daniel Mengden.
0.286, 0.697 — Nick Markakis batting against Chris Archer.

While the systems agree on Murphy, they disagree on the the players trailing. Matt Duffy is the consensus second choice, but Altuve is usually a very good choice.

Remember, your best pick will fail about 25% of the time. Good luck!

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Best Batter Today

Alex Bregman remains at the top the Baseball Musings Batter Rankings. He drew a walk as the Astros lost to the Angels 3-0 Friday night. Mike Trout drew a walk and hit a sacrifice fly in the same game, and he drops to fourth on the list. Christian Yelich went two for four as the Brewers finished Washington’s season with a 4-1 win. He moves into second place on the list. Justin Turner singled and homered as the Dodgers beat the Diamondbacks 3-2 to move into third place, while Paul Goldschmidt doubled and homered in the same game to move into fifth place, pushing out J.D. Martinez.

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Saturday Update

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

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