JT Riddle just hit a two-run homer to put the Marlins on top of the Angels 4-2. With eight of his 16 hits for extra bases, his isolated power stands at .216. He’s not getting on base much, but he is tagging the ball.
If my name were Riddle, however, I would not want a number, but a question mark on the back of my uniform.
Note that the Marlins also cornered the market on JTs.
It’s been difficult to find good pitching match-ups lately, but it appears MLB was saving them for today. The slate starts with the Athletics sending Andrew Triggs against the Yankees and Michael Pineda. Triggs comes into the game with a 2.77 ERA mostly due to three great starts on the road. The only run he allowed in those three games came on a solo home run. Pineda is strong in two of the three true outcomes, with 61 K and 9 BB in 53 2/3 innings. He allowed 11 home runs, however, but with a low OBP of .267, nine of those were solo shots.
The Orioles send Alec Asher to face the Astros and Lance McCullers. Asher worked mostly out of the bullpen this season, but found his control in his two starts. He walked two in 12 1/3 innings as a starter, five in 16 2/3 innings as a reliever. McCullers dominates at home, 3-0 with a 1.74 ERA this year. His 40 K in 31 innings led to a .193 BA allowed.
Lance Lynn takes on German Marquez as the Cardinals and Rockies play the rubber game of their series. The first two games ended in shutouts. Lynn’s ERA is due to his low BA allowed of .188 dropping to .138 with runners on, with an even bigger drop in slugging percentage from his overall .354 mark to just .246 with men on base. Marquez owns a 1.06 ERA on the road this season, but Coors hurt him to the tune of a 6.50 ERA. He gives up the same number of hits home and road, but at home most of them go for extra bases.
Finally, the penultimate game of the day features the ultimate face off between sinister pitchers as Jon Lester and the Cubs take on Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers. Lester uses an assortment of pitches to keep his strikeout rate high. None of the them are overly fast, but changing speeds and location does the trick. Kershaw still throws hard, with the double whammy of an undetectable curve ball. He is very close to a five-year span with an ERA under 2.00.
Enjoy!
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 recently updated the models, and the results of those tests are here.
For 2017, 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.
First, the Log5 Method picks:
0.337 — Jean Segura batting against Rick Porcello
0.335 — Corey Dickerson batting against Kyle Gibson
0.334 — Eric Hosmer batting against Josh Tomlin
0.334 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Christian Bergman
0.328 — Avisail Garcia batting against Jordan Zimmermann
0.320 — Jose Abreu batting against Jordan Zimmermann
0.314 — Michael Moustakas batting against Josh Tomlin
0.314 — Zack Cozart batting against Zach Eflin
0.313 — Whit Merrifield batting against Josh Tomlin
0.312 — Salvador Perez batting against Josh Tomlin
That’s an interesting list, with few of the usual suspects appearing. The top batter is Segura against the reigning Cy Young Award winner. Porcello, this season, allowed a high batting average with few walks, so he is the type of pitcher a batter wants to face to extend a streak. Otherwise, the Royals against Josh Tomlin provides fertile ground for picking a batter.
Here is how the NN with Park ranks the players:
0.334, 0.759 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Christian Bergman.
0.337, 0.755 — Jean Segura batting against Rick Porcello.
0.311, 0.747 — Daniel Murphy batting against Jhoulys Chacin.
0.335, 0.738 — Corey Dickerson batting against Kyle Gibson.
0.320, 0.729 — Jose Abreu batting against Jordan Zimmermann.
0.304, 0.728 — Dustin Pedroia batting against Christian Bergman.
0.328, 0.727 — Avisail Garcia batting against Jordan Zimmermann.
0.301, 0.726 — Mookie Betts batting against Christian Bergman.
0.334, 0.725 — Eric Hosmer batting against Josh Tomlin.
0.311, 0.720 — Chris Owings batting against Jimmy Nelson.
Bogaerts rises to the top of the NN list, but Segura is the consensus pick. Bogaerts comes out on top as Bergman is worse on the three-year hit average parameter (.244 in 2017, .285 2015-2017) while Porcello is worse this season (.280 in 2017, .244 2015-2017). The NN gives more weight to the three year averages for both hitters and pitchers. Daniel Murphy missed two games in a row with an illness, so be careful if you pick him today to make sure he is in the starting lineup.
As always, your top pick will fail to get a hit about 25% of the time. Saturday was a perfect example of that. Everything pointed to Charlie Blackmon getting a hit. Both methods had him on top. The NN gave him the highest probability of the season. He was playing in a great hitters park. He was facing a struggling veteran pitcher, and hit that pitcher well. He went 0 for 4 as Adam Wainwright pitched a gem.
Here is the daily list of active streaks of plate appearances without a hit:
Good luck!
Double threat Jim Bunning died late Friday. He gained election to the Hall of Fame for his pitching exploit, and became the only MLB player elected to Congress:
A strong right-hander with more than 100 wins and a no-hitter in each of the two major leagues, Bunning enjoyed national fame as an athlete before capturing Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District in 1986.
My thoughts go out to his family and friends.
Bunning earned a Hall of Fame spot despite coming to the majors late. His first full season was at seasonal age 25, but he then pitched eleven straight seasons with at least 200 innings. In the last two seasons of that run, he topped 300 innings, leading the league in 1967. Even in that era, it was quite an accomplishment for someone in his mid 30s. Bunning’s 6.8 K per nine innings doesn’t seem that impressive in this day of high Ks, but in 1960 he led the AL with 7.2 K per nine. Bunning was not afraid to hit a batter, leading the NL in HBP four straight seasons from 1964 to 1967.
At 6 foot-3, Bunning was physically imposing, and on both the baseball diamond and Capitol Hill he was known for a toughness that could be intimidating.
“He was a hard man, but you’d want him on your side because you knew he would be ready to play and he would give you everything at his command,” a Detroit News sportswriter, Joe Falls, wrote years ago.
Those qualities led him to great success in two fields.
Among his other feats, Charlie Blackmon leads the majors in RBI. He is accomplishing this from the lead-off slot. That, of course is extremely unusual, but is part of a recent trend. Instead of looking at the overall leader in RBI, this chart shows the MLB leader in RBI in a particular batting slot. So if one player led the league with 140 RBI, but split time between two slots, he will not be on the list. The player who drove in 130 from one slot will be at the top. The Day by Day Database goes back to 1974 with this information:
| Batter | Season | Lineup Position | Runs Batted In |
| Charlie Blackmon | 2017 | 1 | 45 |
| Miguel Cabrera | 2016 | 3 | 107 |
| Josh Donaldson | 2015 | 2 | 113 |
| Mike Trout | 2014 | 2 | 109 |
| Miguel Cabrera | 2013 | 3 | 137 |
| Miguel Cabrera | 2012 | 3 | 139 |
| Prince Fielder | 2011 | 4 | 120 |
| Miguel Cabrera | 2010 | 4 | 126 |
| Prince Fielder | 2009 | 4 | 141 |
| Ryan Howard | 2008 | 4 | 143 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 2007 | 4 | 156 |
| Albert Pujols | 2006 | 3 | 137 |
| David Ortiz | 2006 | 3 | 137 |
| Mark Teixeira | 2005 | 3 | 130 |
| Albert Pujols | 2004 | 3 | 123 |
| Carlos Delgado | 2003 | 4 | 145 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 2002 | 3 | 136 |
| Sammy Sosa | 2001 | 3 | 142 |
| Luis Gonzalez | 2001 | 3 | 142 |
| Frank Thomas | 2000 | 3 | 141 |
| Manny Ramirez | 1999 | 4 | 164 |
| Juan Gonzalez | 1998 | 4 | 157 |
| Ken Griffey Jr. | 1997 | 3 | 147 |
| Albert Belle | 1996 | 4 | 146 |
| Albert Belle | 1995 | 4 | 126 |
| Kirby Puckett | 1994 | 3 | 112 |
| Albert Belle | 1993 | 4 | 129 |
| Cecil Fielder | 1992 | 4 | 122 |
| Cecil Fielder | 1991 | 4 | 133 |
| Bobby Bonilla | 1990 | 4 | 120 |
| Kevin Mitchell | 1989 | 4 | 125 |
| Jose Canseco | 1988 | 3 | 116 |
| George Bell | 1987 | 4 | 133 |
| Mike Schmidt | 1986 | 4 | 118 |
| Eddie Murray | 1985 | 4 | 124 |
| Tony Armas | 1984 | 4 | 111 |
| Jim Rice | 1983 | 3 | 126 |
| Cecil Cooper | 1982 | 3 | 121 |
| George Foster | 1981 | 4 | 90 |
| Al Oliver | 1980 | 3 | 115 |
| Eddie Murray | 1980 | 4 | 115 |
| Cecil Cooper | 1980 | 3 | 115 |
| Don Baylor | 1979 | 4 | 139 |
| Jim Rice | 1978 | 3 | 139 |
| Greg Luzinski | 1977 | 4 | 112 |
| Joe Morgan | 1976 | 3 | 110 |
| Greg Luzinski | 1975 | 4 | 113 |
| Jimmy Wynn | 1974 | 3 | 108 |
Notice that from 1974 through 2013, the player with most RBI in a batting slot was always a three or four hitter. That’s the way managers constructed their lineups. Modern analytics point to having the great hitters higher in the lineup (see the Lineup Analysis Tool). Teams are starting to implement this strategy, so we are seeing number two hitters, and now a lead-off hitter, driving in the most runs in a slot.
New ideas take time to catch on, and this one is starting to bear fruit.
The Rangers and Blue Jays are both on four game streaks, the Texas losing and Toronto winning. Yu Darvish tries to end the losing side as Marco Estrada throw to extend the winning. Darvish’s 2.83 ERA is equal to his best season, 2013. While two of his three true outcomes are not that impressive, his high strikeout total is limiting hits, as opponents own a .204 BA against him. Estrada is about even with Darvish in strikeouts and home runs, but much better limiting walks. Despite that, his ERA is about half a run higher. He allowed just two of hit eight home runs at home, however, where his ERA stands at 2.52.
A five-game losing streak dropped the Orioles to third place in the tight AL East as they face the team with the highest win percentage in baseball, the Astros. Wade Miley tries to best Dallas Keuchel. Miley continues to impress with both a higher strikeout rate than his career norms, and allowing less power, especially with men on base. Keuchel comes off a 10-day stint on the 10-day DL due to a pinched nerve. I’d say this is the perfect situation for the 10 day DL; a pitcher has a minor injury, so you can give him rest without losing a roster spot. He comes into the game with a 1.84 ERA, 0.94 at home. He allowed just one of his six home runs in Houston.
Enjoy!
