Notes Week Ending 6/14

6/9 N1: It always seems too convenient to me for the purposes of remembering that Connie Mack’s last season was 1950. Any round number is easier to remember, but a round number which reflects something amazing particularly enhances recall. And then at least for me, maybe because my parents were alive then, 1950 is something of a modern time, very much not the era when Mack should have been managing (he was 87).

I suppose that 1950 marked a half century also helps, although I don’t know what if anything else stands out to me about the baseball season. I know the Yankees must have won, having done so from 1949-1953, and I think that was the year of the Whiz Kids. Ted Williams crashed into the fence in the All-Star game, and claimed he was never the same from the wrist injury he sustained….

Mack’s having been active at mid-century also seems impossible since he was a 19th-century player….Did his managerial career start in the 19th-century, too, at least as a player-manage? I will check….Indeed, in 1894-1896, with Pittsburgh.

6/9 N2: Could a new dawn be upon us? Whenever I download pitcher statistics, not being a programmer who knows how to do this fast, I spend minutes changing the third of the innings to make them literal (.33, .67) and remove them from their .1, .2 form. I do this so if I do my own per-inning calculations for variant stats, the results are right. Baseball Reference still has the .1s and .2s in each player’s stats, but I note that under the “appearance on leaderboards, awards, and honors” section, .33 and .67 are now being used.

My prayers have been at least partially answered.

6/9 N3: I’d noticed, or thought I’d noticed, a couple of things about Zac Gallen this year.

One, if you look at innings, his total is high — almost uniquely so for a guy who’s largely been ineffective. He’s getting a lot of rope.

Second, he has FIP-ugly games.

Both points, particular the FIP, were in evidence Sunday. He lost against the Reds, giving up 4 runs. The rest of his line was 3 walks, 3 home runs, 5 strikeouts, and 6.2 innings.

So what I thought could do, to represent Gallen, was to take pitchers FIPs and project the number of runs that FIP translated to in their number of innings.

Here are the top 10 this year, with their innings and FIP alongside.

(1) Bowden Francis 46.3 (60.1, 6.90)

(2) Zack Littell 45.2 (80.2, 5.04)

(3) Zac Gallen 43.6 (80.1, 4.88)

(4) Jameson Taillon 40.9 (76.1, 4.82)

(5) Jack Kochanowicz 40.8 (67.1, 5.46)

(6) Tanner Bibee 40.5 (75.2, 4.82)

(7) JP Sears 39.7 (67.1, 5.31)

(8) Jake Irvin 39.2 (78.1, 4.50)

(9) Tomoyuki Sugano 38.3 (75.1, 4.58)

(10) Sean Burke 38.2 (67, 5.13)

The MLB FIP is 4.01. All of these guys do have high FIPs, so I would say this was worth doing, and didn’t just a return a list of the guys with the most innings. You can’t take runs allowed/projected runs allowed or innings just in isolation, but I think it added something to combine them even in haphazard manner.

The exercise revealed there is no real difference between Littell, Gallen, Taillon, and Bibee, except maybe in how they’ve gotten to their FIP. They have indistinguishable FIP, and whoever pitches last is likely to have the most innings.

6/10 N1: Realize the moment with that Denzel Clarke catch….It could not have been more spectacular. Be sure to remember it, and feel lucky.

6/10 N2: The Phillies hit .421 in Monday’s game against the Cubs, going 16 for 38. Thankfully, the won the game, but they could score only 4 runs in 11 innings, meaning their ultimate offensive result was subpar. They added three walks to the 16 hits, although a Nick Castellanos double was the only one an extra-base variety….What did I find the average for singles in a game was? 6-7, right? This will up those numbers….I rarely find that GIDP prove explanatory in these cases of basic production/runs discrepancy, but this time, there is that correlation; the Phillies grounded into three.

Coming back and editing because I just looked deeper….An important postscript seems to be that they won in walk-off fashion. Four of the hits came in the final inning, with two of them bunts, and they didn’t make any outs in the 11th. So, they really scored their 4 runs in 10 innings, and we don’t know how many runs they would have scored in the 11th if allowed to continue to play.

Every game is different. If something doesn’t show up in the box score, that’s because the box score isn’t as complete as it could be, but the sums in a box score certainly don’t tell all.

6/10 N3: It’s funny that the Rays have replaced Chandler Simpson with Jake Mangum, because on the stat line this year, I doubt you could find a more similar player to Simpson. A trade of two equal players.

Simpson: .285, 0 HR, 6 BB, 123 AB

Mangum: .302, 1 HR, 5 BB, 106 AB

Mangum has also (surprisingly, given his minor league record) made an impact as a base stealer, going 10 for 10.

6/10 N4: With Oneil Cruz, Jose Caballero leads MLB with 23 steals, but he’s on pace for just 422 plate appearances. He’s stolen 4 bases and started 4 games since his last hit on May 31 (0 for 14 during that span).

6/10 N5: The Rays are first in MLB with 93 steals, but are at the bottom in triples; they are one of three teams with just 3.

6/10 N6: Ivan Herrera, who has a sick 31 RBI in 118 AB, was briefly the hero in Monday’s game, hitting a 3-run home run that put the Cardinals up 4-3 in the bottom of the 8th inning. If you read last November’s “Line Drive Hitter of the Year” piece, you will have trouble separating him from the admittedly farcical title the system conferred on him for 2024, when he hit only 5 home runs, but was one of only a few National Leaguers of any stripe or playing time who boasted a .300 average. Needless to say, I now always root for Herrera.

The criteria for the award is most home runs with 2B divided by HR of less than or equal to .85, and a .300 average. Herrera is hitting .322, but his 7 doubles and 8 home runs make for a .875 ratio, so he currently doesn’t qualify.

Pete Alonso (.301, 17 HR, 20 2B) leads the National League. Freddie Freeman, who would take second place all alone in major league history behind Stan Musial if he could get a sixth title, is currently in 3rd with 9 home runs among qualifers.

Jeremy Pena (.316, 9 HR, 12 2B) is on top in the American League. Jacob Wilson, Jonathan Aranda, Maikel Garcia, and Paul Goldschmidt are at his heels.

6/10 N7: Xander Bogaerts doesn’t seem to have lost it as an athlete. He’s 13 for 13 in steals. Year after year his sprint speed is consistent, and at 28.0 ft/sec, this is actually his best measurement since 2019. He’s played only shortstop this year, and is 3 Outs Above Average. But the Padres didn’t give him $280,000,000 for his current 80 OPS+. Over his Red Sox career, he had a 117 OPS+, and was at that mark or better for his last six seasons with them.

6/10 N8: Eight games yesterday, and four extra-inning games. Mickey Mouse rules depriving us of a potential classic. There was nothing better than edge-of-your-seat extra-inning baseball. I like edge of your seat; I don’t like not being to go to the bathroom during the commercial break, and missing the end of the game with a measly first-pitch single.

6/10 N9: Although the Diamondbacks score and give up runs, in recent years the data don’t support that their park plays much of a role in this. They have a 102 Batting Park Factor this year, coming off of a 103 and a 100.

6/11 N1: The top 5 in pitch usage by pitch, using Statcast data, with a minimim of 50 innings pitched this year. Had no real goal in compiling this, except to satisfy my curiosity. I know some of it will stick in my head and leave me smarter than I was yesterday, in any event (if knowing more news means you are smarter). All numbers are from percentage of total pitches thrown.

Four-seam FB: (1) Freddy Peralta 59.7 (2) Ben Brown 58.4 (3) Bowden Francis 57.7 (4) Hunter Greene 57.4 (5) Mitchell Parker 55.3.

Cutter: (1) Corbin Burnes 54.9 (2) Chad Patrick 46.0 (3) Drew Rasmussen 30.1 (4) Garrett Crochet 29.4 (5) Randy Vasquez 28.9.

Splitter/Forkball: (1) Kevin Gausman 37.6 (2) Nathan Eovaldi 29.2 (3) Kodai Senga 29.0 (4) Yoshinobu Yamamoto 27.7 (5) Tyler Mahle 27.1.

Sinker: (1) Jose Soriano 51.1 (2) Cristopher Sanchez 48.7 (3) Jack Kochanowicz 47.1 (4) Framber Valdez 46.3 (5) Quinn Priester 44.9.

Slider: (1) Dylan Cease 50.2 (2) Chris Sale 48.5 (3) Max Meyer 46.8 (4) JP Sears 42.3 (5) Dustin May 41.0.

Curve: (1) Landen Roupp 39.6 (2) Charlie Morton 36.9 (3) Jake Irvin 36.8 (4) Framber Valdez 32.5 (5) Sean Newcomb 28.0.

Knucke Curve: (1) Ben Brown 37.9 (2) Shane Baz 31.5 (3) German Marquez 28.1 (4) Jack Flaherty 26.3 (5) Jose Soriano 25.7.

Changeup: (1) Kyle Hendricks 36.7 (2) Cristopher Sanchez 34.5 (3) Tyler Anderson 33.2 (4) Tarik Skubal 30.7 (5) Bailey Ober 29.1.

6/11 N2: Zack McKinstry has 7 triples this year? With his .361 OBP, he’s certainly a much improved player as well. Over 2023-24, with 843 plate appearances, his OBP was just .293.

6/11 N3: With a stellar 7.5% strikeout rate, you’d think Caleb Durbin would be holding his own in batting average, but he’s not. Following up on the implication, his BAbip comes out to an extremely low .213. He figures to continue with a very good k rate, as he struck out at just a 9.1% rate in the minor leagues.

Unfortunately, he’s also walking at just 5.7%, but this is likely to improve. He’s really doing his part. His swing rate in the zone is 60%, 7% under MLB average, and he’s chasing less than more than two-thirds of players, according to Statcast. An issue is that he’s seeing strikes — on 54% of pitches, versus the 49% average. Obviously, pitchers aren’t afraid he will make them pay, and aren’t likely to fear him any time soon, but there is something of the appearance of the fluke in the data.

6/11 N4: Astros lead pitching staffs in strikeouts, and lowest batting average allowed.

6/11 N5: Certainly odd at first that the Braves, on pace for 93 losses, are #1 in MLB in Defensive Runs Saved, but DRS isn’t looking at timely fielding, and timeliness has been the Braves downfall: they have outscored their opposition, and have the biggest negative differential in the majors this year between their expected wins and actual wins this year.

6/11 N6: Mitch Keller, who now has a 1-9 record, has gone at least 6 innings in each of his last six starts, with five total walks over that span.

6/11 N7: The Cubs really can’t get Shota Imanaga back fast enough. Maybe Ben Brown has turned the corner, but I look at their starters other than Imanaga, and it’s a a group of guys who either aren’t ready, or have a bit of the journeyman to them.

But the Cub's’ bullpen has been saving them. Over the last month (5/11- 6/10), they have a 1.32 E.R.A. A small sample size, yes, but that’s 0.95 better than any other bullpen, and only four other bullpens are under 3.00 in E.R.A. Amazingly, over this span, their bullpen has the very worst per-inning strikeout rate (7.06 per 9) in the major leagues.

Craig Counsell is earning his keep!

6/11 N8: I guess it’s best to just always bet on good players, particularly when they are young, but Ronald Acuna’s valleys and peaks are hard to predict. Not only was there that history of a first season where he wasn't himself after his first knee surgery, but the healthy 2024 Ronald Acuna also had looked much like that player, at least in terms of results. So, he kind of had two strikes against him in the minds of superficial, narrative-focused analysts (of which I am often one). But game after game now, he is killing it. Managers are intentionally walking him, and children on lawns beyond outfield fences are running for cover. His slash line is .333/.425/.603. Was .337/.416/.596 in his MVP 2023.

6/11 N9: Speaking of 2023, I don’t know if the return of the 2023 Evan Carter alone would make up for all other Rangers’ disappointments, but it would go a long way. Rare is the prospect you could dream on as much as 2023 Carter. He scored 4 runs on Tuesday, and his OPS is now up to .772.

6/11 N10: Boy, just a .518 Pythagorean winning percentage for the Phillies right now.

6/11 N11: I heard Mets’ announcer Ron Darling saying last night Cal Raleigh is the only catcher having a good season. Not sure Alejandro Kirk is in second place, but he’s hitting .323.

6/11 N12: Imagine if the Rockies had a closer and insisted only on using him in save situations? Would be a pretty good gig, or a bad one, depending on one’s perspective. Get out the sunflower seeds and work on a 2025 Ball Four.

6/11 N13: Just getting over the shock of George Kirby’s 14 strikeouts on Sunday, I now have to confront that Jose Soriano struck out 12 last night. He’d had 10 strikeouts in his previous four starts.

6/11 N14: Brent Rooker struck out 172 times in 2023 and 177 times in 2024, all while missing 42 games, so he is an unlikely guy to be the only player in the starting lineup not to strike out, and this has happened twice in less than two weeks: on Tuesday versus the Angels (Jacob Wilson out with hamstring tightness), and on May 28 versus the Astros, when the team struck out 18 times.

Since the beginning of their terrible 4-win-and-23-loss stretch (May 14), there have been seven games where the A’s have struck out 13 or more times, or over a quarter of their games. This month, they have 14 strikeouts exactly four times. However, their strikeout average of 9.33 per game over the 27 games is a good ways behind what the Angels have done all season. The Angels have struck out 9.65 times a game.

6/11 N15: Dylan Cease doesn’t miss a start. Obviously there is a logjam, but he has black type for his 14 starts this year, and had it in 2021, 2023, and 2024, too. Is that enough to make you an ace? In addition to durability, I would think the factoid indicates that you are starting opening day, right after the All-Star break, etc., and that the team might skip other starters to get to you when there is an off day. From another standpoint, Cease is not so durable: as a high-pitch guy, his career high in innings is just 189.1. He eats starts, not innings.

6/11 N16: Cease shut out the Dodgers over 7 last night with 11 strikeouts. I was struck by the discrepancy between his 66.0% strikeout rate and his 5 walks. Five walks is season-high stuff for a lot of pitchers, while 66% strikes compares favorably to the 63.9% MLB rate, and is better than the majors’ best control team (the Cubs, who throw 65.6% strikes). Drilling down, what I found is that Cease walked three Dodgers in the 3rd, and 14 of his 21 pitches were balls. Without that inning, his strike rate would have been 74.4%.

Has the look of a dominant outing.

6/11 N17: Whether power hitters leading off is wise is an open question, but I think an overlooked reality is that this could never have happened as long as the RBI count was considered important. Shohei Ohtani is a freak, but to hit leadoff is to sabotage your RBI. When players had it in their mind that the quickest way to get paid was to compile RBI, no manager would have dreamt of putting a power hitter leadoff (maybe Bobby Bonds shows I’m exaggerating a little, but the Giants did have great veteran slugger candidates for the middle of the lineup). Now that RBI aren’t part of the general evaluation, power hitters can be considered for the slot.

6/12 N1: After a few weeks of this season, it seemed to me torn UCLs were down compared to the last couple of seasons. I definitely felt better about the state of pitching, and performances on the field also seemed to mean that we had about five real superstar pitchers backed by about five legitimate stars, something that also was not true a year ago. I was hopeful that maybe baseball had gotten a handle on this torn UCL thing, and maybe 100-pitch-a-start limits were the key. But now with the injuries to Corbin Burnes and Jackson Jobe, it is hard to retain the same optimism. Burnes and Jobe represented separate pillars of current and future star. I feel like we are back where we were at the beginning of 2025.

I guess what is so discouraging is that no one seems safe. Pitchers seem to operate in the context of a 1 in 120 or so chance that they will blow their UCL in any start, a risk that both greatly confines them and has absolutely nothing to do with their true talent. It’s like they operate in a world of work stoppages and pandemics that occur often enough to truly change careers and accomplishments. That’s probably not accurate; some pitchers probably legitimately have sounder arms than others, aside just being injury victims I am probably just not privy to who is who between the healthy and vulnerable. But the appearance of randomness is what exists for a fan.

6/12 N2: Upon seeing that Kyle Schwarber stole his 5th base of the season Wednesday, my initial reaction was that, necessary as the loosening of steal defense was in 2023, maybe base stealing has gotten too easy. But I check the record and see that Schwarber stole 10 of 11 in 2022. I’m not sure what it is about Schwarber that makes people, me among them, assume that he has one of the highest hitter/athlete ratios among baseball players, but I am now making a resolution not to contribute to the continuation of this fallacy.

6/12 N3: 6 runs allowed and a 31 game score for Ben Brown on Wednesday. So much for his turning the corner.

6/12 N4: A 5-2 Dodgers-Padres game on Wednesday (not high scoring), but 15 pitchers used. If any among the 45,481 who attended was able to recite them in order after the game, he or she should have been pulled aside for some very important governmental position in intelligence.

6/12 N5: The Mets are now 20 games over .500. So on cruise control for 90 wins if they can just stay there.

Generally, I make too much of a partial season, as I am learning. But we also must have players who have been so outstanding so far they can be mediocre the rest of the way and still come out with their own version of a 90-win season.

6/12 N6: I’m working with a database of active position players who had 500 career games played at the end of 2024. I thought I noticed something, so checked out the following relation. There is a relationship between a player’s plate appearances per game, and his performance. (These are all career statistics.)

OPS and PA-per-G have a .73 r.

Batting Average and PA-per-G have a .61 r.

HR/AB and PA-per-G have a .47 r.

BB/PA and PA-per-G have a .25 r.

Beyond where a player usually hits in the lineup, PA-per-G indicate how much time a player has spent as a starter and a reserve, I think. I’m not sure whether the quality of the offenses he’s been a part of is behind the correlation; while being on a good team means your team has longer innings, and helps your PA total, a good team can also mean you don’t crack the top of the lineup. Kyle Tucker only rated 76th of 184 players in PA-per-G. Also, wins at home mean you don’t get to hit in the bottom of the 9th, while in losses at home, you do.

It is also neat to see a logical relation among the reference variables, with the category most tied to complete offense having the highest correlation, and the category that is the smallest part of scoring runs, walks, having the lowest. That is a sign of a valid measure.

The five players with the highest PA/G were Mookie Betts, Ronald Acuna, Francisco Lindor, George Springer, and Jose Altuve (leadoff hitters, yes).

The five players with the lowest PA/G were Travis Jankowski (lowest), Jake Marisnick, Albert Almora, Austin Slater, and Garrett Hampson.

Because there are issues with whether the leadoff types really show stellar stats more than the guys with PA/G a little lower, and some question if maybe these real fringe guys at the bottom are creating most of the correlation, if this were not at least 51% stupid, I would take the time and generate the stats by each 30 names, or something.

Another question is whether this relation would hold as well or almost as well historically. It might not, since the philosophy of getting your best hitters up the most was less explicit then. Even if it does, I don’t know if at .73 with OPS, there are any practical applications. I don’t know if you could wonder if someone really was as good as you thought if he had low PA-per-G but very good statistics otherwise.

6/12 N7: Am starting The Beer & Whiskey League, a 2004 book by David Nemec about the American Association in the old days when it was a major league. It looks promising, particularly because I love history, and I may have tidbits and reactions to share.

From the chronology at the beginning, it is written that, in 1884, “the AA, on the other hand, becomes the first major loop to adopt a rule giving a batter his base if he’s hit by a pitch.”

6/13 N1: Despite 28.9 ft/sec average speed this year (89th percentile) and 44 steals in 161 games over the last two years, Luis Robert’s advancement rate versus expected on the basepaths, as judged by Statcast, has been below average in five of his six seasons.

6/13 N2: Because Statcast’s “Extra Bases Taken Runs” includes batted balls, I assumed Zach McKinstry was in a tie for 2nd in MLB (at +3) largely because of those 7 triples he has. But then you make your way over to Baseball Reference and find that he’s advanced on 76% of hits, placing him 3rd in MLB there. I haven’t watched him play, but as he has just 28.0-28.5 sprint speed (he’s at the 74th percentile this year), he must run the bases with “hair on fire,” “balls to the walls, ”like a man possessed,” offer your favorite cliche here.

The Tigers, as a team, operate differently than every other team. They have advanced on 55% of hits (same measure on which McKinstry is 76%). No other team is higher than 48%, with team 9 in the rankings still at 45%. The percentiles are rounded, but I get a 2.83 z for the Tigers’ rate, corresponding to a 1 in 500 percentile, using those rounded percentiles.

The Tigers were #1 in XBT% last year too, although at 49%, with the Dodgers at 49% as well. The Dodgers are second again in XBT% this year.

The ultimate question, of course, is whether the Tigers’ gambles have been worthwhile. It could be the case that the advances are offset by runners thrown out, and to analze that would require whole inquiry. For a quick look, though, they have 23 “Out on Base” this year, a total which is exceeded by six other teams, and is just 3 over the MLB average.

The Dodgers have only 15 OOB.

6/13 N3: According to Baseball Reference, Fernando Tatis has 7 OOB this year, the most in MLB. Altuve is one of a lot of guys tied in 3rd position, with 5. Altuve is the worst with this. It would drive me a crazy. How can he do this, year after year? Completely preventable. This isn’t Little League. It doesn’t set a tone.

6/13 N4: Bailey Ober walking 6 in a start, as he did against Texas, is like the perfect student throwing a water balloon at his teacher when the teacher’s back is turned. In 101 previous starts, Ober had only walked 4 or more once (4 on 6/4/24), and had 33 no-walk games.

Ober also gave up 4 long balls. It was his 14th start of the season, but his FIP rose from 3.99 to 4.80. If you note my post on calculating FIP runs, FIP judges this outing as worth 8.7. He actually gave up 7 earned runs, in 4.2 innings.

6/13 N5: Jacob Misiorowski’s debut had me browsing through this year’s International League, where I see that his teammate, Logan Henderson, has as many wins as anyone in the league, and 50 strikeouts versus only 22 hits and 8 runs allowed. In his four MLB starts, all Henderson did was record more strikeouts than innings each time, with a composite 1.71 E.R.A.

Five-foot-eleven and possessed of only a 93 MPH heater, but doing his best to make “results scouting” back in vogue; the 2025 Baseball America Prospect Handbook may look awfull silly with its assessment that “Henderson could carve out a role as a back-end starter.”

6/13 N6: An update on our Brewer twins Frelick and Turang. Turang got off to a hot start but hasn’t been able to sustain it, and because he’s hitting .292, Frelick is now having the better offensive year. But Turang has increased his walk percentage, and Defensive Runs Saved loves him, helping spark his 2.5 bWAR, which has him 25th in MLB among position players. Everyone ahead of him has more home runs than his current 4, although Nico Hoerner has no home runs and 2.4 bWAR.

As Hoerner also plays second base and has stolen base data very close to Turang’s, is he really the twin? That sounds right, although walk and strikeout-wise, they are two different guys: 33 and 62 for Turang, 15 and 20 for Hoerner.

6/13 N7: Nothing new on umpire Hunter Wendelstedt that I can find. The second-generation umpire suffered cuts and a concussion when hit by a foul ball in April.

6/13 N8: Right now, the top five pitchers by total strikeouts are all left-handed (Gore, Skubal, Crochet, Sale, Rodon). It seems unnecessary to check if any season has ever ended with that happening, it seems so improbable.

Checking intuition, since 2016, 28% of starts have been made by left-handers. .28^5 is 1 in 581. We haven’t had 581 seasons, so it does seem unlikely. But if there were individual seasons where the rate was a lot higher, the chance would increase. It’s an unrealistic example, but one season of 90% LH followed by a couple of seasons of no left-handers, has a much better chance to have that 90% season have all five of the top guys be left-handed, than if each season were at 30% exactly.

Last year, Skubal, Sale, and Cole Ragans made for three of the top five left-handed, and I think that’s the only case of 3+ in the top 5 since 2015.

2020 had the top 18 strikeout pitchers all right-handed (it was the COVID season, but I don’t see that this changes the probabilities for this one iota).

2019 had the top 9 SO pitchers all left-handed, so I suppose we were in a bit of a phase there, at about the time Kershaw started losing a little and getting hurt.

There are all other good strikeout lefties now besides these five, too, checking the standings. Framber Valdez has been on a tear, which is what originally prompted this, and you have Robbie Ray, and Jesus Luzardo, back in good graces after his last start. But I think this five lefties in the top five in strikeouts is not only doomed by season’s end, but at just about any other point. Look now, or you’ll miss it, as we are told with certain astronomical events.

6/13 N9: Since 2016, Cleveland only has 115 starts by left-handers, something I at first couldn’t believe. That’s 8% of their games. So many pitchers cycle in and out, you wouldn’t think there could be something so extreme.

6/14 N1: Time for my “ode to Paul Skenes.” A common thought is that the media is guilty of overhyping players, or lionizing too many. I think, for the most part, the error is made in good faith, and the number of performers we have to parse is simply overwhelming. The upshot, however, is that the truly great end are penalized as a result, because the hype they receive is not quite taken seriously, and devalued.

I have no real better idea offhand where anybody ranks than you do, so I brought some numbers into play with Skenes to see if he is really historic. What jumped out at me was his sub-2.00 E.R.A. for each of the last two seasons, and 200+ ERA+s in thos seasons.

Last year, because he came up late, Skenes only started 23 games and pitched 133 innings, but this year he is a third of an inning off Garrett Crochet’s innings lead. I started following baseball in 1985, which also happens to be 40 years ago, and I looked for seasons of a 200 or better E.R.A.+, and 185 or more innings.

This proved to be very hard to do. It’s only happened 17 times over the 40 years.

Particulalry interesting is that it has clustered among pitchers, suggesting that, although it is commonly ackowledged that E.R.A. reflects more than its share of luck, achieving a great one only has so much to do with the stars aligning.

The pitchers who have repeat seasons:

Pedro Martinez 5 times (1997; 1999; 2000; 2002; 2003)

Roger Clemens 3 times (1990; 1997; 2005)

Greg Maddux 2 times (1994; 1995)

Zack Greinke 2 times (2009; 2015)

That only leaves us five more seasons. The one-offs are Dwight Gooden, 1985; Kevin Brown, 1996; Jake Arrieta, 2015; Corey Kluber, 2017; and Jacob DeGrom, 2018.

One does not want to rely too much on one approach with arbitrary components, but I found this exercise clarifying. Because I can find obsessing over precise rankings of the best ever tedious, and I consequently only spend so much time on them, I need all the help I can get.

First, because he didn’t pitch for as long, in my mind I don’t make a direct comparison of Martinez to Clemens and Maddux, and I always start with the last two guys when I talk about great pitchers of my lifetime. But this approach says that, for peak, Martinez was the greatest. This idea is only strengthened when we see that those five seasons came in seven years. The guy was performing at a 200 ERA+ for seven years!

I’ve been stubborn about snubbing Greinke, for whatever reason. I just couldn’t quite follow his career arc, and Joe Posnanski bothered me by never saying a bad word about him, and treating personal insights that Greinke had that I regarded as rather commonplace as revolutionary. But that he had not just one 200+ ERA+ season, but two, and did everything else that he did, o.k. I give up. He is one of those guys where the numbers just tell, even if, season-by-season, they aren’t packaged quite as they should be, and those two 200+ ERA+ seasons were only two of three Cy Young “top 5” years.

The contrast between Greinke being on this list twice, and Kershaw not at all, since they spent some years as teammates, also stands out to me. I had thought Kershaw was a pair with Martinez in results and longevity, even if he had a different style. But it appears Martinez’s numbers just are a notch better — that when we quantify and get out of the “super great” qualitative mode, Martinez wins out. This is just one approach, though, and Kershaw did have consecutive 194 and 197 ERA+ seasons, with 185+ innings both years. That probably gets him closer to Maddux, but not Martinez, though.

There is an argument on both sides about whether Skenes will prove himself one of these multiple 200+ ERA+ guys, or if he is simply an excellent or better pitcher we’re seeing the best of right now. The note of caution is his strikeout percentage, as it ranks in 2025 (and this is per batter) only 18th of 77 qualifiers. You know Dwight Gooden and 1985 are everything to me, and in Skenes’ regression after striking out a third of batters as a rookie, I see some of Gooden’s decrease in strikeout rate from 1984 to 1985, something that eventually caught up to him.

But on the other hand, my sense is that Skenes really does know how to generate soft contact, and he has quite a high GB/FB ratio. Instead of showing signs that he may not be able to keep up what he is doing, his E.R.A. has dropped in seven straight starts. He’s given up only one home run in those starts, and aside from three against the Cubs on May 1, just two all year.

Offhand, I have to say that I am not sure Skenes is really better than Tarik Skubal. With 90.1 innings, Skubal is well past the 80 that would have him on pace for 185, and he has made his 202 ERA+ look very easy, and one feels there is more in the tank. His SO/BB ratio recalls Martinez, and like Skenes, his E.R.A. has only been dropping. At 1.99 for the year, it’s been 1.47 since his first two starts of the year.

Max Fried currently has a 220 ERA+ in 88 innings. While I like him enough that I said in the off-season he was my free agent pick among the available pitchers over Burnes and everybody else that was on the market, to consider him with Skenes and Skubal would probably be falling into the overhyping trap.

6/14 N2: It also just struck me, regarding 200+ ERA+ seasons in 185 innings….No Scherzer? No Verlander? No Randy Johnson? Here’s some data on these guys.

Scherzer’s best ERA+ was 178. He has won 3 Cy Youngs, and has been top 5 8 times.

Very similar data for Verlander. Best ERA+, 179. Three Cy Youngs, top 5 9 times.

That RJ didn’t have a 200+ ERA+ season was a fluke. He had ERA+s of 197, 195, 193, 188, 184, 181, and 176. He won 5 Cy Youngs, and was top 5 9 times.

6/14 N3: Jackson Holliday’s SO/BB ratio, which was good (1.03 SO per BB) in the minor leagues, has gone to shit in the majors, and not just relative to his own standard. He has 4.62 SO/BB this year, and had 4.60 SO/BB last year. The MLB average is 2.55.

His strikeout rate is average, so statistically, his infrequent walks stand out more (only 6 in 161 PA since May 1). Zone percentage says that pitchers have really been feeding him strikes, and obviously, you can’t walk if they don’t give you opportunities. But why he’s struck out even as much as he has, when his zone swing rate is quite high, and his chase and contact numbers in the average range, I’m not quite sure.

I don’t know whether pitchers these days are actually more accurate with fastballs early in the count than with offspeed pitches, but one thing I checked is if Holliday is seeing more fastballs than other hitters. I thought that could explain why he sees so many strikes. But he’s seen 47% fastballs, which is exactly the average.

6/14 N4: A possible indication that Seattle has played an easy schedule, despite their .500 record, is that the average four-seam velocity they’ve faced is lowest in the major leagues. However, what I noticed is this differs some among individual players on the team. Among players on pace for 502 plate appearaces, J.P. Crawford has seen by far the slowest four-seamers in MLB (92.8 MPH average), and Julio Rodriguez the second slowest (93.3), but quite a few Mariners are not with them on the leaderboard.

Among Mariners players with at least 120 plate appearances, the complete list in four-seam velocity faced is

(RH) Arozarena 94.2

(RH) D. Moore 94.2

(LH) Tellez 94.1

(SH) Raleigh 94.0

(SH most L) Polanco 93.9

(RH) Williamson 93.4

(LH) Mastrobuoni 93.4

(RH) J. Rodriguez 93.3

(LH) Crawford 92.8

It doesn’t seem to correlate with batting side (I just thought it might because a batter might see a disproportionate number of RH or LH pitchers depending on his side, and RH and LH pitchers could differ in velocity).

My second theory was it might reflect which pitchers will challenge you with fastballs. In other words, maybe hitters who are good fastball hitters rarely see a fastball unless it’s from someone who has Jack Fisher-like confidence in it.

This could explain the case of Crawford. Of the guys listed, he faced 41% four-seamers, easily the highest on the team. If you throw in sinkers for a composite fastball, he is still over 4% higher than anyone else.

But the other three guys to face 50%+ fastballs are Williamson, Arozarena, and Moore. And Arozarena and Moore have seen the hottest heat, despite seeing a lot of it. Moreover, pitchers avoid the fastball facing Polanco (36%), Tellez (39%), and Raleigh (42%), but that hasn’t translated particularly to a faster average velocity.

Another theory for differences within team is if pitchers hump up a little against the best hitters. Kansas City has faced a tough schedule velocity-wise, but Witt Jr. is #1 overall in MLB by an eyelash. In the top 10 with him are Judge, James Wood, Austin Riley, and Ozuna. Freddie Freeman is 11th, Mookie Betts 12th, and Tatis 15th.

Seeing those two Dodgers begs the question of whither Ohtani? He’s right in the middle, 82nd of 163 qualifiers, although the 94.4 average four-seamer he’s faced certainly isn’t that different than the 94.8 Freeman and Betts have faced.

Returning to evaluate the other theory, which would say that Freeman and Betts have faced faster fastballs than Ohtani because they’ve seen a lower percentage, it basically doesn’t hold. Along with Andy Pages, Betts is the only Dodger to have seen 50% fastballs, while only Max Muncy on the team has seen a lower percentage than Ohtani’s 40.6%.

What do Ohtani and J.P. Crawford have in common? Not much, in general, I would venture, but both hit leadoff. So what these data could reflect is that leadoff hitters have a higher percentage of their plate appearances versus starters than other batters, and starters don’t throw as hard as relievers. (Bingo?) Julio Rodriguez, too, who’s seen slow fastballs on average, hasn’t hit lower than 3rd in the order this year. On the other hand, Witt has seen the game’s highest velocity, and hits 2nd for the Royals.

6/14 N5: WAR, Baseball Reference version, has Julio Rodriguez at an excellent 3.3, quelling panic about this contract he has. He has 11 Defensive Runs Saved already, well over his rating for any other season.

6/14 N6: So when I gave you Jack Fisher as an example of a guy who loved his fastball, the reference was that Ted Williams said that he could see that Fisher couldn’t wait to try to throw one by him when Williams hit #521. Williams sat fastball and connected. I also contemplated the pitcher who gave up Roy Hobbs’ home run, but couldn’t uncover his name, and ChatGPT was telling me he was unnamed.

It occurred to me I could also have gone with Sean Doolittle. Doolittle loved the “rising life” on his fastball, even though he didn’t throw hard. He threw 87% fastballs over his career.

I know he’s supposed to a brain and a mensch, but isn’t it weird that Doolittle only threw fastballs, and yet he’s a “pitching strategist”? He also was a late convert to pitching, drafted as a hitter (I thought as an outfielder, but I’m seeing more with him as a first baseman). All the less time to have developed a repertoire.

6/14 N7: According to ESPN’s box score, Luis Severino generated just one swing and miss versus the Royals, yet was able to work into the 8th inning and give up only 1 run. I will say that if a pitcher were to do that against any team, it would have to be the Royals.

6/14 N8: Apparently, the accuracy of those sports tickers at the bottom of the screen is not one of life’s guarantees. During the Mets game, SNY is showing Max Muncy of the A’s as having swatted his 14th home run and driven in his 50th run today. The Max Muncys came into the day with 13 home runs and 48 ribbies combined. They are now apparently a unit. I suppose any data merges from now on had better key player and team. The Y2K menace has nothing on this.