Another Unique and Wondrous No-Hitter, Just Like Yesterday
For the better part of five years, Corey Kluber was borderline unhittable. At his double-Cy-Young peak, he was a one-man dead ball era, putting up a 2.85 ERA even as offensive numbers exploded across the league. Though he never closed the deal, he felt like a threat to pitch a no-hitter every time he started.
Kluber isn’t the same pitcher he once was. His walk rate is nearly double where it sat in those halcyon years; his strikeout rate has declined. His fastball doesn’t always crest 90 mph anymore. But he still has that same vicious cutter/slurve combination that powered his ascent, and let’s be honest with each other: This year, nearly every pitcher feels like a threat to throw a no-hitter every time out.
Kluber no-hit the Rangers last night, a capstone achievement that will forever feel slightly out of place with the arc of his career. That’s not to discount the moment: He was excellent last night. He worked off of his slurve rather than vice versa; he threw 31 of them and only 23 sinkers. From the start of the game, he was placing the pitch exactly where he wanted it, befuddling the Rangers’ lineup:
Kluber’s ceaseless desire to fill up the zone worked in his favor last night. He drew a whopping 25 called strikes, a number he hadn’t surpassed since his glory days. Batters step in against him wondering which breaking ball he’ll embarrass them with, which is a truly awful mindset to take into at-bats against a strike-throwing machine, but that’s always been his unique gift: He throws so many pitches that break at so many strange angles, putting batters at a disadvantage right from the jump.
On the other hand, it’s not like the Rangers prospered by swinging. They came up empty on 28% of their swings, and they somehow swung less frequently at the easy pitch to hit — seven swings on 23 sinkers — than they did at that demon slurve (12 swings on 31 pitches). In fact, they swung in reverse proportion to how easy it is to put bat to ball, and Kluber mainly threw the hard pitches to hit, which resulted in this delightful chart of pitches that Rangers batters put in play (courtesy of Baseball Savant):
One of those “curveballs” — it’s tough to categorize Kluber’s pitches — nearly ended the no-hitter before it really got going. Adolis García put a charge into a well-placed breaking ball, but sent it directly to the largest part of the park, where Brett Gardner made an easy catch:
That was pretty much it, as far as good contact goes. The Rangers hit only four balls harder than 95 mph, and the other three were either pounded into the ground (two Willie Calhoun groundouts) or popped up harmlessly (a Joey Gallo fly ball that came off the bat at 53 degrees). If your plan is to wait Kluber out and then swing at his cutter and slurve, you’re going to have a bad time, as Rangers hitters discovered.
They’ve been having a bad time quite frequently this year. This is the second time they’ve been no-hit; Joe Musgrove got the party started in Globe Life Field this April, the first of six we’ve already seen less than two months into the season (seven if you count Madison Bumgarner’s seven no-hit innings, which I do). This makes the Rangers one of three teams to come up hitless twice this year; Cleveland and Seattle are also in that club.
It feels vaguely unfair to Kluber to lapse into a discussion of the state of offense in 2021, but hey, life’s not fair. He was magnificent, but come on: Spencer Turnbull threw a no-hitter two days ago, and a visiting pitcher has already no-hit these very Rangers in their park this year.
Major League Baseball announced changes to the ball before this year, in an attempt to stem the rising tide of home runs. It worked! Unfortunately, it didn’t do much to stem two other tides: rising strikeout rates and declining BABIP. Here are those rates, with pitcher batting numbers excluded, over the past ten years:
| Year | K% | BABIP | HR/BIP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 18.1% | 0.297 | 3.53% |
| 2012 | 19.2% | 0.299 | 3.90% |
| 2013 | 19.3% | 0.299 | 3.66% |
| 2014 | 19.0% | 0.301 | 3.33% |
| 2015 | 19.9% | 0.301 | 3.90% |
| 2016 | 20.6% | 0.302 | 4.51% |
| 2017 | 21.2% | 0.301 | 4.95% |
| 2018 | 21.7% | 0.297 | 4.57% |
| 2019 | 22.4% | 0.299 | 5.56% |
| 2020 | 23.4% | 0.292 | 5.30% |
| 2021 | 23.5% | 0.289 | 4.77% |
It’s not rocket science (though astrophysicists are on the case). Fewer home runs, more strikeouts, and fewer hits on balls in play mean more no-hitters and less offense. An early-season run of no-hitters is fun, but if we end the season with 20 or more of them, the whole thing will start to feel farcical.
I should clarify: this particular no-hitter didn’t feel farcical. Kluber has been sharp this year. He isn’t the Kluber of old, but he’s still been effective: He had pitched to a 3.48 ERA and 4.01 FIP even before yesterday’s dominant outing. The Rangers looked overmatched, sure, but there’s no cognitive dissonance in my brain when I see him overmatching an opposing lineup. It would almost feel stranger if he’d never thrown a no-hitter.
Still, this era of no-hitters all the time kind of sucks. No-hitters are rare and wondrous feats, on a historical scale at least. When they’re pouring in two a week — two in two days, at the moment — it’s impossible not to downgrade the achievements mentally. Sure, Turnbull and Wade Miley threw no-hitters, but Musgrove and Carlos Rodón threw impressive no-hitters.
What a miserable comparison to have to make. I don’t want to! It’s great to see pitchers living their best lives, accomplishing a goal they’ve all surely had since childhood. But come on: It simply doesn’t feel the same when the league is hitting .236 and striking out nearly a quarter of the time.
I’ll say it one more time: None of this is a reflection on Kluber. He was awesome! This was vintage Kluber, a performance that could have resulted in a no-hitter at any point in the last ten years. The slurves were sharp, the sinkers were mostly painted, and the cutters did their normal spirit-crushing thing to the opposition.
In this, the year of the no-hitter, I wouldn’t blame you for feeling some achievement fatigue. Set it aside for a moment, and delight in Kluber finally getting that elusive no-hitter. After that moment, however, it’s fair to wonder: How many more of these before something has to give?
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
How much do you think the odds that someone will throw two in a row have changed? From, basically, zero to 5%, 10%? Not any particular pitcher, but *someone* before the end of the year?
Roughly 1 in 200 starts has been a no-hitter this year. Even if the current rate of no-hitters continues all year (which it probably won’t, because it’s an extreme small-sample outlier), I’d guess the odds of someone going back-to-back are closer to zero than 5%.
Thanks! I appreciate the level-headed approach to figuring this out. I agree that it must be not much more than zero (but my hunch is that you’d have a better chance of winning that lottery this year than ever before).
I was still curious about this question, so I did some horrifying back-of-the-envelope math, using the following assumptions:
-every starter has a 1/200 chance of throwing a no-hitter every time out (yes, I know this is wrong)
The season is 1/3 over, so we’ve had 1/3 of all our no-hitters. We should expect 12 more (see above)
-ergo, there will be 12 1/200 chances for a starter to go back-to-back (I told you this math is horrifying)
That means my Fermi estimate of the odds of back-to-back no-hitters is 1-(199/200)^12, or 5.8%. Amazingly, the odds someone throws back-to-back no-nos this year might actually be ~5%.
I expect the ball to be different post all-star break
Same. The goal of the ball being changed was to increase balls in play to make for a more entertaining game. This ain’t it. I’d take the juiced ball again in a heartbeat.
Yes, although as an alternative view, they probably need to give hitters and teams a year to adjust and move partially away from the swing-from-the-heels, launch-angle approach. It won’t happen immediately, so maybe they will simply let this ride out and see how the game adapts. It may get them to where they want to be.
I noted something similar below. They accomplished a decrease in homers, but the second part of the equation–more balls in play–hasn’t happened.
Based on what?
Ah, that’s what I was looking for: some horrifying math that, yes, is based on indefensible premises, but which nevertheless suggests that going back-to-back (at least this year) may not be so far-fetched. Thanks, Sarachim!
I see it that after someone throws one no hitter, they have a 1 in 200 chance of doing it again( if you discount other implied odds). That would be .5 percent.
I wrote this first but think the end result (about a 2% chance) seems much too high – can anyone point out my error(s) (other than the simplistic assumptions)?
Well, let’s make some (bad) assumptions:
– every team has 5 starters all year who make 32 starts each, or 31 pairs of back-to-back starts, for a total of 930 back-to-back pairs of starts (obviously not true, but probably doesn’t skew the results that much)
– any starter on any day has a 1 in 200 chance of throwing a no-hitter (obviously not true due to pitcher skill, opponent quality, etc., and also if a pitcher throws a no-hitter on one day, they’ll likely have thrown a lot of pitches, affecting he following start)
So the odds of one given starter throwing a no-hitter in back to back starts is 1 in 40000. Since there are 930 chances, there’s a 930/40000 (or ~2.3%) chance that someone throws no-hitters in back-to-back starts.
This is also an interesting approach. Thanks!
Considering it’s been done once in all of MLB history 5% is preposterously high. I think it went from basically zero to basically 0.0001%. But I may still be an order or two of magnitude too high.
No where near that high. That said, I will be tuning into Kluber’s next start. With the funky ball and Kluber looking sharp, perhaps we’ll see someone match Johnny Vander Meer. He has a tough draw, though. The Blue Jays. Not a team I’d expect to be no-hit!
What is it that COULD give? Lower mound, move it back a bit? Saw someone mention maybe lighter bats for players? I have no idea what can be done about this without doing something annoying that is only a small issue (eliminate shifts, for example).
Lower the strike zone is something that might work too. Maybe an inch lower down, and two inches off the top. If it easier to hit 98 at the knees than 90 at the top end according to fangraphs, that could benefit.
Obviously the easiest fix would be moving mound back. That would also be the most controversial, as it would change a lot. But it would be the most effective, as it would make the avg fastball perceived velocity the same as it was a decade ago. Not saying I support it, though.
A third change would be enforcing a rule on the book: No foreign substances. Who knows if Jomboy is correct, but he says 90% of pitchers are using it. If that is correct (it’s probably not, but I’d assume most are) and they enforced a strict rule similar to PEDs (maybe a tad smaller) it would end basically overnight.
I continue to think that if the problem is too many strikes the most obvious solution is this. There’s a hole at the top of the strike zone right now. If you shrink the strike zone so that hole is gone you get fewer strikeouts.
Of course, you might get more walks but probably not as many as moving the mound back, which would likely result in chaos.
Lower/move the mound is the only thing that makes sense to me as a way to reduce strikeouts. People can talk about batters adjusting and not selling out for power, but it’s not like Joey Gallo can just decide to stop whiffing. Besides, batters and coaching staffs have realized that a TTO-heavy approach creates more runs (for many hitters) than a contact-first approach does – why would they want to adjust away from that?
I’m gradually coming around to the idea of banning the shift though. I’m still offended by that level of tinkering with the rules, but it occurred to me that I’d really never notice it, especially on TV. The fielders would just always be where I’d expect them to be, which is pretty much the least intrusive thing possible.
I think futzing with the mound is going to lead to a big spike in walks, right? It would probably work to inject some offense into the game, but at the expense of additional dead time and non-action.
Yeah, moving the mound back is going to be chaos. Lowering the mound too, although probably not as much. Everyone’s going to have to re-learn how to pitch, people are going to hurt themselves, and it’s going to be wild pitch city for a few months. Players will eventually adjust to most of it, at least so there will be fewer wild pitches and injuries, but I think moving the mound back would result in a permanent increase in walks (not sure if lowering the mound would, probably not).
If the problem is strikeouts, you need to do something to address strikes. I don’t think banning the shift is going to do it. I realize I’m coming from a position where I hate the very idea from banning the shift but I really don’t think that will bring K’s down.
It might. Theory would be if you change the calculations enough to make ground balls (pulled ones, at any rate) a slightly less than awful outcome, you will incentivize teams and players to prioritize putting the ball in play.
I’m coming around to banning todays version of the shift too. I love that all the old-timers on TV love to talk about just simply hitting the ball the other way, like, ya know, you can just do that versus 95+. Hitters all basically guess now because the ball gets there simply too fast to react. There are exceptions, Astudillo, Madrigal, Arraez, etc. But do we really want a league full of those guys? Some of the best hitters in the game have changed their approach with two strikes, like Harper where he goes to no stride, or Soto where he crouches down really low but those guys are obviously incredibly gifted, and that isn’t a tool that most MLB players have. I am not sure exact positioning is right, but the shift isn’t fair to LHBs who not only get balls disproportionately called strikes off the outside edge, they also lose tons of line drive singles to RF because the second baseman is so deep. All infielders on the dirt, two infielders on each side. Shift around as much as you want inside the dirt and on your side of the bag. That seems perfectly fair. Three in the key came about because inside forces were too dominant. Hand-checking came about because defense was getting too dominant. Soon there will likely be more rule changes in the NBA because post play is virtually non-existent and 3 is worth more than 2. And sure, like every rule, there are exceptions and players who aren’t affected, but when it is hurting the general product as the shift seems to be doing something needs to be changed.
Bigger ballparks might help- fewer HRs, but more space on the field= more ground for fielders to cover, compensating for the vast improvement in fielding. Obviously that’s more of a long-term solution. Field dimensions in general haven’t kept up with player skill.
But I would not think that would lower strike outs. Outfielders just play deeper, maybe a few more singles but outfielders would just back up, and pitchers would still strike out tons of guys.
It diminishes the TTO incentive.
I don’t really think that is a change that could be made in between seasons. A whole approach of hitters changing would take a decade.
Not sure why duration of adjustment is a constraint, but I’d be even more hesitant to ask pitchers to adjust between seasons to a more distant mound.
That’s a great way to get to more contact and would personally align with what people supposedly want. It would remove hitter incentives for some types of behavior. But for reducing strikeouts…it’s not likely to fix that in the same way that shrinking the strike zone would.
Don’t get me wrong, if they had made the outfields the size of what you see in Kansas City that would have solved all of the problems of “too many homers” without messing with the ball and creating more problems. But politically it would require getting a lot of owners on the same page and it would be a tough lift.
I wonder what it would do to increase the maximum barrel diameter of the bat?
There have now been 21 CGs this season, some of 7 innings. One-third of them have been no-hitters if you include MadBum’s.
That’s actually not that shocking to me – even with this year’s depressed offense pitchers rarely throw CGs. It makes sense that since they’re throwing no-hitters they’re left in for 9 innings when they otherwise may have been lifted after 7 or 8.
This strikes me as detection of an interesting effect, wherein pitchers are allowed to pursue an individual accomplishment of artificial significance, under circumstances that differ only slightly from those under which both pitcher and team have an interest in the pitcher’s removal.
This is 100% correct. All of those pitchers would have been out in the 7th or 8th inning if it wasn’t for the chance to chase a no hitter.
I don’t find it surprising. I was even wondering if anyone had pitched a shutout this year that wasn’t a no-hitter. Turns out there’s been a few non-no-hitter shutouts too, but not many. We could be heading toward a point when the only shutouts from a starting pitcher will be a no-hitter as teams increasingly limit how deep they’ll allow starters to go.
Who is going to throw it today? My guess is Rich Hill and company because he has it through 2 2/3rds even though he likely won’t go out for the 6th even w a no-no. Second guess is Smyly.
If anyone had Tyler Mahle and the Reds throwing today’s no-hitter, uh, better luck next time.
Darn close–Hill ended up with a two-hitter
“Though he never closed the deal, he felt like a threat to pitch a no-hitter every time he started.” Agreed! There’s a reason we based on ticket purchases around his days to pitch for so many summers. Too bad it had to come in pinstripes, but still tremendously happy for him.
So far 6 official no-hitters this year. But they’ve been thrown against only 3 teams: Cleveland, Seattle, and Texas. All of the AL teams. Which is kind of weird given the fact that you’d expect fewer no-hitters in the AL what with the DH. (the two inter-league no-hitters this year were both in AL parks).
Going back, I don’t see a similar streak in the AL unless you go back to the Deadball era when they had 9 straight no-hitters between Sept 18th, 1908 and August 30th, 1912.
The NL, on the other hand, actually does have a long, recent streak: 8 straight no hitters between May 25th, 2014 and July 25th, 2015.
True, but those teams may as well bat the pitcher.
Actually Cleveland and Texas both get good production from their DHs. Seattle less so, but even they´re 10th in the AL in DH OPS. So while they may have problems on offense, the issue isn’t DH,,,
That is weird, but if you take a look at the BABIPs Cleveland and Seattle are running insanely low numbers–like, under .250. The one that’s harder to understand is Texas, which is running a .295 BABIP (it’s running a high K rate but not in an outlier-ish way).
Is part of the issue that teams haven’t been nimble enough in making adjustments? Ostensibly the thinking behind deadening the ball is to incentivize swinging for base hits rather than home runs, so isn’t this essentially what we might expect if teams are still starting the exact same players swinging in the exact same way?
2019 saw 42,823 K’s vs. 42,039 hits. 1.018 k per hit. So far in 2021 we have 11,443 k and 9,957 hits 1.149 k per hit. K% was 25.7% 2019 . This year 27.1%. Between high velo /spin from starters going just 5 or so innings, more innings out of high velo/spin bullpens and no one caring about striking out and abandoning 2 strike plate approaches, (add in the shift) and here we are….a much different game from a few years ago . I can look back at my fantasy league final standings and stats going back several years….it is amazing to see 5 years ago what BA, OPS or ERA , WHIP had you in the top 3 of your league vs. today. I hope smarter minds are trying to figure something out.
Throughout this season there have been many suggestions about why hitting. both for average and for power, has dropped so precipitously and what can be done to regain a better balance between hitting and pitching. I think most will agree that the pitchers have simply become to good. There are plenty of excellent reasons for that. Physically there is no comparison between the average pitcher of today and those of even 2000. Height alone adds effective velocity to a pitch. Players are conditioned to their maximum and we haven’t even begun to talk about advances in nutrition and other enhanced training techniques. The modern game has seen an entire new group of scientists add much knowledge about the effects that the Laws of Physics, when applied to a thrown ball, can have on the movement of the pitch. In the past when a pitcher was said to have hop on his fastball nobody knew that it was because he had a high spin rate. Baseball isn’t cricket but the cricket ball is constructed with two hemispheres connected by a high seam. This seam is the basis for all bowling and how the seam is aligned during the delivery determines the path the ball will travel. This “seam shifted wake” is only now being utilized by major league teams but it is fundamental to ball movement. Add all the improvements in physical development, conditioning and understanding of ball flight and the answer is easy to see.
What can the poor batter do to counter this much improved pitcher that he has to face? Not much is the honest answer, Finally, after decades of misunderstanding about the effects of spin, launch angle, plane of swing through the zone and its effect on energy transfer, Hitters recognized that trying to beat balls into the ground probably wasn’t the best approach but by then the true culprit in this story, extreme velocity gains by the pitchers, was too much to overcome. There are talent limitations in everyone of us. Most of us couldn’t hit 75 mph stuff but until the range of velocity hit
95-100+ there were enough talented players that could catch up to most pitchers heaters. There is a shrinking number of stars who can still handle heat while the slightly less talented players, who could once hit .275 are now hitting .225. These men can still hit some of the super fastballs but not enough to keep averages from dropping and dropping until the cliff was reached this year.
The Lords of Baseball played right into the situation that the game is facing now by making an ill-conceived change to the ball. By lessening HR’s without first addressing the contact issue first the scene was set for less hitting and scoring. There also appears to be a consensus that the 2021 ball moves more than previous ones. My untrained, but experienced, eye agrees and has added to the hitters woes.
What might work? Lowering the mound might help. How much additional leverage does a pitcher get working slightly downhill and just how much will the pitches flatten out as against a 5″ bump or flat ground? Does this add stress to the pitcher’s arm?
If we are going to change the mound does moving it back make more sense? This would alter the effectiveness of velocity more than anything else. That is without debate, but is it enough to make difference. Are there unforeseen consequences that off-set that perceived gain? The ball would move more but the batter would see it longer. I will admit to never missing an opportunity to bash the umpires but, in their defense, it is more difficult to call pitches that are darting in all directions. I want to see this in action.
Shrinking the strike zone does not lessen velocity. There is still no solution if the hitter can’t react in time.
Too much blame has been aimed at the hitters and their swing for the fences mentality. Why not? If smallish men like Francisco Lindor can hit 38-33-32 HR’s in consecutive seasons there is no reason slap and dash, but, and this is the crux of my approach to this dangerous time in baseball, everything possible must be done to curb the strikeouts that is killing the pace of the game, the action on the field, the action on the bases while depriving the fans of the defensive wizardry of these great athletes. Then, but not until the number of hits exceeds the number of K’s, the ball can be returned to a level in which Judge, Acuna, Ohtani and the other great power hitters still hit 35-50 HR’s a year but the Lindor’s drop back to 10-15. I want to reiterate that the ball cannot be deadened until hits exceed K’s. Then there would be a return to a more broad based offensive attack with diversified ways to score.
There is a fair number that seem to think hitters can simply choose to go the other way against the shift. Most hitters are hoping to simply hit the ball. Shifting should be attacked by the offense, if they can or choose to do so, not eliminated by decree. Does anybody think some guy, with little power, hitting below the Mendoza Line wouldn’t try to go to the opposite field against the shift if he could?
Most of us here are true fans with a deep-seated love for this beautiful game. The contest between the pitcher and the hitter, the talent of players, the artistry of the brilliant defenders, the strategy and the drama, at any point in the game, all woven together since we first played catch with our dad. The game is shrinking and I fear that the top management, truly incompetent at this time, will not recognize the situation before the headline reads “Bogaerts Gets 2 Hits, 6 no-hitters pitched yesterday”.
Lengthy, I didn’t really read this – but yes, there never was any left-handed pitcher who threw 95MPH in 2000, and now they are a dime a dozen.
It’s computer modeling – they show the young guys their stick figures on tv, and then they show them the Kershaw stick figure for comparison. Some of them pick it all up.
Hence the injuries.
Oh, and also the PED part that you guys don’t want to talk about…
Randy Johnson was a LHP in 2000. He might have…maybe…thrown 95+ mph
I said “dime a dozen” – Yes, I remember Randy Johnson, and the Bill King call when he served it up for his USC teammate Big Mac in The Kingdome.
“There it goooes!”
==
Hope it’s going great under the bridge in “Eastern Europe,” there, uh, Conner?
I was so confused last night, hearing about Kluber’s no hitter while also seeing that the Indians gave up two runs. Kluber on the Yankees might always be disorienting to me.
A few days ago I posited the idea that we could see a situation where a person throws a no-hitter and still loses the game with the “ghost runner” rule. Someone told me that this was too implausible to ever happen; I countered with the notion that at the rate we’re seeing no-hitters we’d probably see it in about 15-20 years. Given Sarachim’s number above of 1 in 200 starts being a no hitter, would someone like to calculate the joint probability of one pitcher throwing a no-hitter and the other team throwing a shutout in 9? And then with an error / bunt / sac fly combo in extras to get the ghost runner home? I’m now legitimately curious to see how long it would take.
Every time an article like this pops up on Fangraphs I feel an overwhelming compulsion to state out loud that intentionally messing with the ball is a really, really bad idea. It’s not even so much that you get unintended side effects; this is the actual intended effect of deadening the ball. What did they expect? That there would only be increased drag on the ball by the warning track?
Well, yes and no. They’re hoping the slightly deadened ball will cause less home runs, and in the process hitters will change their approaches, increasing balls in play. Appears not to have happened!
Why would it make them change their approach? That’s the flaw in this reasoning. In order for hitters to change their approach they would need to change their swing (which is not at all easy to do, despite what some people think) and they would need to see a reason to change the swing. If you’re deadening the ball enough for it to be better to hit balls on the ground than in the air then you’ve really screwed offense in a meaningful way.
This is why the best way to increase contact would have been to make the outfield fences way, way deeper. But for political reasons that’s harder to do than just change the ball behind the scenes.
Sadtrombone, I’m surprised somewhat by your question, although maybe it’s not so much directed at me, but instead at what MLB is attempting to do here.
We are in the age of hitting known as “elevate and celebrate.” The trend in recent years has been to swing hard, maximize launch angle in an attempt to get the ball over the wall. We have definitely seen data showing that “second tier” power hitters are the ones who have benefited the most from this approach, particularly with what appeared to be a jacked up ball prior to 2021. An Aaron Judge or a Mike Trout (get well Mike!) will be unaffected. Their power is true. The second-tier power hitters, or warning-track guys, or medium-range guys, were the ones being rewarded. If all of sudden those balls are no longer going over the wall and are landing in the gloves of OFers for outs, then they’ll eventually be forced to change their approach. You don’t get paid for making outs.
Now, I’m not saying this is going to happen, but it’s what Manfred and Company are shooting for. Less elevate, more line drives, less swing from the heels, more in-action play.
The issue is that won’t happen overnight. It could take a few years as these MLB hitters have all been trained to elevate and celebrate.
I was watching this game and turned it off!😣
I blame the current game, which is so boring with the preponderance of TTO and the damned strike zone box on every pitch which has ruined TV viewing for me.
Ben, your comment — “Kluber no-hit the Rangers last night, a capstone achievement that will forever feel slightly out of place with the arc of his career” — may turn out to not be entirely correct. We simply don’t know the full arc of his career yet. We may end up looking back, see a great pitcher 2014-2018, two lost injured seasons, and then a return to greatness in 2021. Kluber during latter Spring Training and his first four starts of the year really struggled with his command and control, but his pitches still had decent movement. No surprise his command was off after missing almost two seasons. The Kluber over the last five starts looks very close to peak Kluber. Throughout his career, Kluber’s highest ERA is in March/April. It’s good in May, and then his peak months are the summer, June/July/August. We may simply be watching Kluber round into form. I feel like many were expecting peak Kluber to show up in April on a new team after multiple injuries and two lost seasons. That’s probably a bit unfair.
Kluber at his peak was a HOF-caliber pitcher. Two Cy Young Awards, and a decent argument he could have had a third. For a five-year stretch, he may have been the best pitcher in the game factoring in he was in the DH league. Very few pitchers throughout MLB history can make that claim. Kluber likely doesn’t make the HOF for the same reason Johan Santana hasn’t. Very high peak, but not quite enough length. Maybe, just maybe, Kluber is about to do something Santana couldn’t. A second act. Based on what I’ve seen from him recently, and what I know of him from his time in Cleveland, I wouldn’t bet against him, at least comfortably.
Your description of Kluber’s career to date reminded me of Johan Santana – best pitcher in the league for 5 years, arguably didn’t win another Cy that he should have, missed two years for injuries and finally put it all together for a gem of a no-hitter.
Unfortunately, that was the capstone on Santana’s career. Hopefully, Kluber’s will turn out differently, but I don’t think there is any guarantee.
To me, great on these pitchers and every respect.
It’s really all about the game’s acceptance of the hitters’ strikeout, and the shifts. Plus some very few pitchers seem better adapted to the modern ‘Joey Gallo’ game.
Years in the making. Exit velocity stats and such, kinda no.
The top players can beat the shift now and then, but the B and C players will go from hitting .200 down to .100 if they don’t keep to their game. That’s the reality.
For me, it comes down to whether there are chalk circles in the field for the defenders vs. Satchel Paige’s right to pull all the defenders off the field.
I am admittedly an idiot, with terrible ideas, but one solution I have is to shrink the strike zone, both width and length. Could it not be the knees to the belly button, and maybe chop 1/2 an inch off each side of the plate? Those are basically just spit ball numbers, just throwing things out there. I understand it could just lead to more walks but clearly something has to be done.
Walks are even boring-er (if that’s a word) than K’s.
I think no hitters are really cool and do not want anything to change. If you look at the top of the hitters leader board there are players having extremely good years. Walks seem to be still common, so offense still exists. Everyday lately someone has a 10+ run scoring game. Giants scored 19 yesterday. Lets keep the no hitters cause they are very cool and fun to watch!
I expect many down votes for this comment for going against the grain!
I gave you an upvote for emotional support. 🙂
Related, it would be more informative to see the total up and down votes, as opposed to a cumulative total. A -1 with only a single vote is quite the bit different than a post with 25 ups and 26 downs, which right now would also show as a -1. The first example shows an indifferent response, the second shows a note that struck a chord.
way too hard to hit in the big leagues right now. Never been harder.
Some probabilities: If hitters are hitting on average .236, and there are about 3 runners on base in an average no-hitter, the chances of throwing one in any given game by an average pitcher is 1 in 3,215. The odds that the rate we’re seeing this year (7 in about 1300) could occur by chance alone is less than one in a million. So most likely something’s going on here related to increased variability of pitching performance (or conceivably hitting peformance), meaning there are fewer “average” pitching performances and more outliers.
Tangotiger has a nice piece on the current increase in no hitters. http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/article/math-behind-no-hitters