Notes and Essays, 7/30/26
N1: Dustin May a 3.16 FIP, a 4.38 E.R.A. 9th of 61 in FIP among the ~108 IP crowd.
N2: Partly just from the inherent relation between pitches per inning in a well-pitched game in contemporary baseball, and partly based on the going tolerance for stressing pitchers, there is the very convenient fact that the likelihood of a starter making 100 pitches this year (it’s happened 360 times) is almost identical to the difficulty of his making 7 innings (it’s happened 356 times). Those numbers are from 3254 games in all, meaning that the attainment comes to almost exactly 11%.
If you think these games are one and the same, though, you are wrong. Base rate pertains; even among starts of 7+ innings or 100+ pitches, chances are that the other condition is not satisfied. The union is just 103 games.
But this does mean that if you throw 100 pitches, your likelihood of going 7 innings jumps from 8.7% to 28.6% — which is to say that it increases over 3 times.
I also had started out with the idea that given, this general equivalence in the frequency of 100+ pitch starts and 7+ IP starts, this meant that 7 IP starts average about 100 pitches, but that, too, would be an error in logic. In fact, starts of 7 IP exactly average 94.4 pitches (the median of them is also 94, for the smart alecks among you).
Since Jacob deGrom remains one of the game’s greatest pitchers, that he has only 3 outings of 7 innings (twice) or 100 pitches (once) from 20 starts,1 while the MLB average is a higher 18.8%, indicates that he has been used cautiously. We could also cite that he is tied for only 54th in innings, and just tied for 12th in innings among the 20 pitchers who have made exactly 20 starts, as he has.
But the 7 IP/100-pitch test could indicate that a conservative ceiling is generally put on him rather than that his average workload also measures up so far on the light side. In this vein, if we lower to at least 6 innings or 90 pitches, the MLB attainment rate is 58.4%.2 DeGrom has hit that in 14 of his 20 starts.
So the hypothesis seems to be right, although one is painfully aware of the limited sample size here. I would really need to see DeGrom with 16 or 17 games of 6 or more innings or 90 pitches to think that this significantly outweighed his lack of 7+ inning, 100+ pitch games. Those basic inning stats I gave earlier really are the main thing with him, although this does qualify them a bit.
N3: The 2026 stolen base success rate against left-handers (76.4%) is very close to the success rate against right-handers (77.0%).
Once you adjust for the much greater frequency of right-handers, total attempts against left-handers also tracks very closely with total attempts against right-handers. 28.6% of attempts have been against left-handers, compared to 28.8% of plate appearances.
I have to say that I find the above numbers surprising enough that I wonder if they are right.
Bobby Witt is 13 for 13 stealing against left-handers.
On the other side, Chandler Simpson and Fernando Tatis, prolific runners in general, are just 4 for 7 against left-handers. Pete Crow-Armstron is just 6 for 10. Austin Martin is 4 for 9 against left-handers, leading MLB in caught stealing against them, while he is 6 for 7 against right-handers.
I could cite quite a few other guys with lousy records this year, but to be honest, it looks like they are more just bad base stealers in general.
N4: I don’t know what it means, but Jackson Holliday has been raining hits since the All-Star break. He’s 15 for 35, and has also drawn 5 walks. The caution is that none of the hits have been home runs, and his average exit velocity since the break is a tepid average 88.1
He’s quite a similar player to Travis Bazzana, isn’t he? Both play second base and grade out poorly on Defensive Runs Saved. They were both #1 overall picks. Holliday has a .767 OPS this year; Bazzana a .739. Holliday is 15 months younger.
N5: The Giants just called up infielder Osleivis Basabe, and in his first MLB plate appearance since 2023, he struck out against position-player Andrew Vaughn.
Basabe’s current .268 BA and .732 OPS in the Pacific Coast League wouldn’t translate well, but his career .288 minor league average looks better. Ironically, his minor league strikeout rates are low — this year, just 10.9%.
N6: Considering the difference in their innings and innings per appearance, it’s amazing that 2026 Misiorowski (.148) almost rates with Mason Miller (.135) in batting average allowed.
Jacob Latz (.129 average allowed) and Colin Holderman (.139) are right with Miller. We can also see the similarity in their total games (40 Latz, 44 Miller, 42 Holderman) and their total hits allowed (22 Latz, 21 Miller, 20 Holderman).
None has avoided having a 3-hit game against him. Holderman has allowed two, and Latz and Miller one.
Miller’s came against the Cubs on April 27. He closed the door in the 9th, but Shaw, Swanson, and PCA led off with singles.
N7: Yesterday, the Reds repeated their odd 6 RA/2 ER Allowed combination from the first game of Tuesday’s doubleheader. They registered a shutout in game 2 of the doubleheader. So eight of their last 12 runs allowed have been unearned.
N8: A Salvador Perez triple yesterday, his first since 2022 (if you bet on whether or not I would mention that, I know you had to take considerable “minus” odds). He’s quite regular; his triple before that was in 2017. As he didn’t play in 2019, he had the same pattern of three triple-less seasons broken.
“Odd” seems to be my word of the day, and it is odd to look back on Perez’s record, and see the missing season of 2019, not 2020. Baseball Reference helps by reminding us it was due to an injured elbow. That 48-home run comeback he had in 2021 certainly stands out, off the backdrop of just 156 2019-2020 plate appearances.
Really not looking forward to the likely stats disruption of next year.
N9: Rockies and Angels now top MLB with 67 losses and are on place to lose 99.6. No 100-win dreams here, as perfection the rest of the way will still see them 5 short. I would say they are officially out of it.
N10: Along with Jacob Wilson and Joshua Kuroda-Groder, this new Athletic third baseman Tommy White certainly stamps himself as a non-walker.
2026 MLB: 2 in 46 PA
2026 PCL: 12 in 252 PA.
He was a teammate of Dylan Crews’s at LSU in 2023. With 102 hits, he wasn’t far behind Crews for the team lead, and killed everyone in total bases, thanks to his .725 SLG.3 But White drew just 23 walks, 8th on the team. Crews had 71. This was despite White’s having 9 of LSU’s 17 total intentional walks.
They are all separate games for deGrom.
25.08% from 6 IP AND 90 pitches; 21.51% from 90 pitches BUT NOT 6 IP; 11.83% from 6 IP BUT NOT 90 pitches.
Crews at .713.