General Baseball Chit-Chat Thread

[Bertz]

https://www.thelewsletter.lewispoll.is/p/the-case-for-leaving-the-starter

This is really really really good.  Empirical data behind the idea of the chad innings eaters

Quote

If you regress the bullpen’s performance on when they were called into duty across every game in the dataset, each additional out a starter records is associated with a four-point improvement in bullpen ERA. Which equates to 12 points of ERA improvement per inning.

 

Quote

Staying with the sixth inning, the cost of going to the bullpen after 15 outs (0.56 earned runs) implies a breakeven point of a 5.04 ERA for leaving your pitcher in the game. In other words, if a starter can continue to pitch at a level befitting a sub-five ERA, you are better off letting them pitch the sixth inning than going to a league-average bullpen.

 

[PackLandVA]

[We Got The Whole 9]

This guy will tear his ACL some day

[Stratos]

I thought this was cool.  Tangotiger made a bat-speed aging graph using the Baseball Savant data from 2023 vs 2024.  Data for age 21 is skewed because there's so few MLB players that young.

On average, bat speed is pretty steady through age 31, then consistently decrease.  Looks like it peaks in the early 20's like pitcher throwing speed.

http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/comments/aging-curve-swing-speed

[Stratos]

On 2/27/2025 at 6:36 PM, We Got The Whole 9 said:

This guy will tear his ACL some day

This is the MLB in 5 years haha.  Complete with ball-strike challenge, which doesn't seem very fun in the above video.

Edited March 3, 2025 by Stratos

[Derwood]

3 hours ago, Stratos said:

This is the MLB in 5 years haha.  Complete with ball-strike challenge, which doesn't seem very fun in the above video.

[Stratos]

3 hours ago, Derwood said:

 

 

[Derwood]

huh?

[Irrelevant Dude]

7 hours ago, Stratos said:

I thought this was cool.  Tangotiger made a bat-speed aging graph using the Baseball Savant data from 2023 vs 2024.

Interesting graphic.  I'm curious, for the outlier hitters who are have success into their late 30's and early 40's, are they maintaining their swing speed better than most?  Or are they succeeding despite their reduced swing speed?

[Stratos]

1 hour ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Interesting graphic.  I'm curious, for the outlier hitters who are have success into their late 30's and early 40's, are they maintaining their swing speed better than most?  Or are they succeeding despite their reduced swing speed?

Well Justin Turner's bat speed has been horrendous the last 2 seasons, among the worst in baseball, but he has had excellent launch angles and doesn't chase or whiff and takes BBs, puts the ball in play etc.

I looked up Freddie Freeman and he has a very similar profile, though 20th percentile bat speed, but elite launch angles that produce good results.

[Bertz]

There's just no chance he tops 100 innings this year.  And honestly at his age and with the value he generates as a hitter good chance he never does again.

[Rex Buckingham]

After the season he had last year as a hitter, there just doesn't seem to be any reason to risk losing his bat. If he blows out his arm again, you've lost an MVP.

[Derwood]

[CubinNY]

Hal Steinbrenner crying PTR is the richest of ironies. Pun intended. 

[cl smooth]

[17 Seconds]

On 2/19/2025 at 5:04 PM, cl smooth said:

 

now i know why new era makes size 8 1/4

[cl smooth]

Bob Nightengale outdid himself this time: 

[soccer10k]

13 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Ha

They also haven’t had a player hit 30 HRs in a season since Bonds in 2004. Belt hit 29 in 2021 but got hurt and only played 97 games.

[JHBulls]

Opening day is here, so I thought I should just get this out of the way now

[We Got The Whole 9]

Tyler O'Neill homers on opening day for the 6th year in a row. He already had the record, which is becoming pretty close to unbreakable, I'd bet.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

In 2009 I went to a Friday afternoon Cubs-Pirates game. It was one of my favorite games I ever attended. Cubs won 17-2 and the Air & Water Show was going on so there were constantly Cubs crossing home plate or planes buzzing over Wrigley. That Pirates team was awful. They lost 99 games that year.

 

The starting pitcher for the Pirates was Charlie Morton. Andrew McCutchen batted leadoff and hit a single. 16 years later and Charlie Morton is the #2 pitcher for one of the favorites in the AL and McCuthcen is batting 5th for the Pirates. 

[ToolDRT]

2 hours ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Tyler O'Neill homers on opening day for the 6th year in a row. He already had the record, which is becoming pretty close to unbreakable, I'd bet.

I love it! One of the things I was hoping for today. 

[imb]

1 hour ago, ToolDRT said:

I love it! One of the things I was hoping for today. 

my fantasy league group text ERUPTED when it happened because one of the owners took him late, specifically mentioning "im gonna get an opening day homer out of him and drop him." and sure enough lol

 

[ToolDRT]

Just now, imb said:

my fantasy league group text ERUPTED when it happened because one of the owners took him late, specifically mentioning "im gonna get an opening day homer out of him and drop him." and sure enough lol

 

Haha that’s awesome! Think it’s really cool he kept that streak alive. 

[Bertz]