Win-or-go-home games are old hat for the Pirates. Pittsburgh has hosted the NL Wild Card in each of the past two seasons. In 2013, they ousted Cincinnati as chants of “Cue-to, Cue-to” echoed down from the boisterous black-clad crowd. Last October, Madison Bumgarner quieted PNC Park by blanking the Bucs.

Tonight represents new territory for the Cubs. Joe Maddon’s squad is as young and talented as any in the game, but given the pressure cooker they’re about to encounter, could “young” prove to be the operative word in that description? Especially if Clint Hurdle’s team jumps out to an early lead and PNC becomes a cacophony. Will Chicago’s kiddie-corp be able to handle it?

Needless to say, jumping out against Jake Arrieta is a momentous task. The right-hander has been on a Bumgarner-like run, and if it continues into October, Pittsburgh is probably toast. Of course, Arrieta has never pitched in the postseason. There’s no reason to believe he won’t perform on the big stage, but just like his younger teammates, he hasn’t had a chance to prove that he can. Read the rest of this entry »

As a rule, life is characterized predominantly both by crippling doubt and also other kinds of doubt. Less susceptible to that sort of doubt is Houston outfielder Carlos Gomez, depicted here recording a home run against Masahiro Tanaka — with regard to which home run Gomez exhibits something much closer to unambiguous certainty.

The Astros and Yankees are set to meet tonight in the first postseason game of 2015, with the winner advancing to play the Royals in the division series. While both teams are likely to do everything they can to win tonight’s game, there is one potentially significant variable they won’t be able to control; the called strike zone. So that’s preview what we might look for from the home plate umpire tonight.

17 year veteran Eric Cooper is going to be behind the plate for the Wild Card game. Per Baseball Heat Maps, here’s Cooper’s called strike zone compared to the league average (warmer colors indicate more calls in that area).

RH hitters

LH hitters.

The first thing that stands out is that Cooper has a very tall strike zone, calling far more pitches than the average umpire at both the top and bottom of the rulebook zone. He’s especially generous at the very top sliver of the zone with a right-handed batter at the plate, which is also a very tough area for hitters to make contact on. He offsets the height of his zone to some degree by having a fairly narrow strike zone compared to the average umpire, calling fewer pitches away against both lefties and righties, but the effect isn’t as large as his large vertical zone.

As you can see at the charts available over at Baseball Savant, Cooper calls an above average pitches out of the zone as strikes, and has one of the lowest rates of calling pitches in the zone balls. Overall, he’s a pitcher friendly umpire, and hitters are going to need to protect the plate more often than they normally would, especially on high and low pitches.

Interestingly, neither Keuchel nor Tanaka attack the top of the strike zone that regularly, as both are primarily trying to keep the ball down, so there’s not a clear advantage to either side based on the umpire tendency with regards to the starting pitcher. But both teams are likely to use an army of relievers, and Cooper’s zone could work out pretty well for a pitcher like Houston’s Josh Fields, who likes to pitch up with his fastball.

The postseason kicks off tonight with the American League Wild Card game starting at 8 pm eastern time. Tomorrow night, we get the NL Wild Card game — in what might be the most fascinating single MLB game I can remember in some time — and then the ALDS starts on Thursdday, with the NLDS starting Friday and bringing us our first four-games-in-a-row day.

To celebrate the launch of the postseason, we’re going to live blog every single game between now and Friday night. I’m going to be hosting (along with Sean Dolinar) the AL Wild Card game tonight — and imploring both managers to go to the bullpen after every pitch, probably — while Jeff (and maybe Carson…) will be here for the NL Wild Card game tomorrow night. We’ll then have coverage of both games on Thursday and all four on Friday as well.

If you haven’t been part of a postseason live blog before, they’re a blast. Plan on hanging out with us as we watch some October baseball, no spreadsheets required.

Before the season began I made an interactive graphic showing the on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) of our Depth Charts projections for each team. Since the season is almost over and players’ offensive output stats won’t change much between now and October 4, I remade the interactive visual using the player’s 2015 OPS and weighted on-base average (wOBA).

The original Depth Charts projections use a combination of ZiPS and Steamers for OPS and wOBA. The original chart from March is at the bottom of the page for reference. Projections — the expected performance of a player — should fall in the middle of the possible performance spectrum, so the season results will have more spread than the projections do.

The visualization shows each player’s OPS or wOBA as a circle with the size of the circle corresponding to plate appearance. The gray box and yellow line represent summary information about the team. The gray box brackets the middle 50% of players on each team and the yellow line is the team OPS or wOBA. Please note this isn’t the average or median OPS or wOBA but rather how the team performed on the aggregate. Together these elements create a psuedo boxplot.

Read the rest of this entry »

The last pitch of Kyle Hendricks’ nine-strikeout appearance on Monday.

This past spring, the author published a three–part series in these electronic pages with a view towards examining the amateur origins of baseball’s good players — where “good” was defined by the half-arbitrary threshold of three wins in a given season. The results of the study suggest that — over the five years in question, at least — that a number of junior-college players outperform the win totals expected from their draft slots; that second basemen go to college, but shortstops not so much; and that three-dimensional pie charts are unambiguously cherished by all readers of this site.

Another revelation facilitated by the research: zero players drafted from an Ivy League school produced a 3.0 WAR or higher between the years 2010 and -14.

The point is noteworthy today because, if extended through the year 2015, the study would now include an Ivy Leaguer. On the strength of a nine-strikeout performance against Kansas City last night, Cubs right-hander and Dartmouth College product Kyle Hendricks has now recorded 3.1 WAR over 31 starts and 174.0 innings this year.

There are multiple caveats which accompany this observation, of course. For one, the three-win threshold is necessarily arbitrary. And two, the WAR being considered here is the sort based only on fielding-independent pitching and not on runs allowed. Using the latter input instead, Hendricks has produced only about two wins of value this year. Still, the point remains that one of the schools responsible for providing a lot of the front-office talent in the game is responsible, in the case of Hendricks, for providing on-field talent, as well.

What the video here depicts is Cubs right-hander Jake Arrieta — not unlike an illusionist who’s been hired to participate in orientation week at an area liberal arts college — is Jake Arrieta performing a number of unlikely acts simultaneously. One of those acts isn’t impressive, per se, even if it’s somewhat rare — namely, that he’s a pitcher recording a hit of any sort. Data suggests that the league’s pitchers have produced a hit in fewer than 12% of their collective plate appearances this season. That’s roughly the rate at which Steve Nash missed a free throw when he played — an example which illustrates not only (a) the frequency with which pitchers produce base hits, but also (b) the most recent year in which the author followed NBA basketball with considerable interest.

A second, more improbable feature of this episode is how the sort of hit Arrieta’s recording is a home run. Pitchers, as a group this season, have produced only 25 of these — a figure which accounts for just 0.5% of all their collective plate appearances in 2015. Phrased alternatively, pitchers record a home run about once only every 200 plate appearances. Jake Arrieta, here, is recording one home run per every one of his plate appearances. Were he to continue at this pace, he’d hit 200 home runs. Jake Arrieta would be the best player ever.

Read the rest of this entry »

Besides the fact that they’re natives of Latin America and play baseball and haven’t died ever, Elvis Andrus and Adrian Beltre are basically carbon copies of mid-century comedy duo Burns and Allen. What the footage here — from, like, five minutes ago — what the footage here reveals is another installment in their ongoing series of amusing scenarios. In this particular case, Beltre (first) feigns as though he intends to catch Jon Singleton’s pop-up but then (second) doesn’t catch that same pop-up. The premise is simple; the effect, nevertheless, profound. Andrus and Beltre for president? No one hasn’t not said it. No one hasn’t ever not said it real hard.

Position: Wasserman Media Group Baseball Analytics Intern

Location: Los Angeles

Description:
Wasserman Media Group is a global sports, entertainment, marketing and management company with expertise in media rights, corporate consulting, athlete management and partnerships. We represent the world’s most talented, committed athletes and provide them with the individual attention needed for them to garner success in all areas of their lives. Our Baseball division represents many of the biggest stars in the game today. The baseball analytics intern position begins in October 2015 and has a flexible end date. An in-person interview is preferred.

Responsibilities:

• Prepare statistical analyses and create visual elements to showcase findings.
• Perform modeling and research using internal databases as well as other public data sets.
• Translate unstructured baseball data into valuable analytical information.
• Expand and maintain internal databases.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Strong knowledge of databases, SQL, and R statistical software.
• Experience working with large data sets.
• Advanced proficiency working in Microsoft Office programs, especially Excel and PowerPoint.
• Data visualization experience (i.e. Tableau) is preferred.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
Please email Michael Mariano.

You may have heard that Yogi Berra passed away. As I often do when I hear about a former player in the news for whatever reason, I tend to look at his player page. Judging by the popular players searched box today, you are doing the same. When I look at Berra’s, the thing that pops out to me right away is just how consistent he was.

Wanting to put this apparent consistency in context, I asked the venerable Jeff Zimmerman for a little data help. Turns out my suspicions were well founded. Let’s take a look at three tables real quick:

Players With 60+ Career WAR But No Seasons > 6.5 WAR

Player	Career WAR	Max Single-Season WAR
Jake Beckley	61.2	4.9
Bid McPhee	62.7	5.4
Max Carey	60.1	5.6
Sam Crawford	71.1	5.9
Paul Molitor	67.6	6.0
Lou Whitaker	68.1	6.1
Yogi Berra	63.7	6.4
Willie Randolph	62.1	6.5
Reggie Smith	64.6	6.5
Fred Clarke	72.8	6.5

Usually, players of this caliber have that one big year that sort of defines their career. Heck, even players not of that caliber end up having one random career year that defines their career. Not Berra, nor the other gentlemen on this list. Six of the others are in the Hall of Fame with Berra, and I could make a pretty decent case for the three (Whitaker, Randolph and Smith) who aren’t.

From 1950-1956, Berra posted between 5.2 WAR and 6.4 WAR every season, with his 6.4 WAR in 1956 ending up as his career high. That was during his age-31 season. It was the last season where Berra was a star, but he posted at least 2.2 WAR for the next five years, finishing up the run with 2.2 WAR in his age-36 season in 1961.

Players With 350+ Career HR But No Seasons > 30 HR

Player	Career HR	Max Single-Season HR
Al Kaline	399	29
Harold Baines	384	29
Yogi Berra	358	30
Chili Davis	350	30

This list is even shorter. Berra knocked 30 homers in both 1952 and 1956, but otherwise never cracked 28. He hit 10 or more homers in 16 straight seasons. I can’t figure out how to search for consecutive season records, but in general, only 49 players have reached double digits in that many seasons. From 1949-1958, Berra racked up at least 20 homers.

Players With 20+ Career Fld But No Seasons > 5 Fld

Player	Career Fld	Max Single-Season Fld
Bill Dickey	20.0	3
Buddy Rosar	24.0	4
Billy Sullivan	24.0	4
Al Lopez	20.0	4
Malachi Kittridge	39.0	5
David Ross	37.6	5
Yogi Berra	27.0	5
Bernie Carbo	24.0	5
Charlie Deal	21.0	5
Muddy Ruel	20.0	5

You’ll notice that all but two of these players — Carbo and Deal — were/are catchers. There is a commentary there on how we measure catcher defense, but even with that said, there have been hundreds of catchers since Berra came into the league, and only a handful meet this criteria.

We could probably look at a few other statistics and end up with similar lists that put Berra in select company along the same lines as above. But we don’t need to. The point was that Berra was simply as steady as you could be for a very long time. That sort of player is an incredibly rare and valuable asset anywhere on the diamond. Having that sort of player behind the plate is remarkably valuable. Berra wasn’t the only reason the Yankees were a powerhouse team in those days, but having that steady influence behind the plate had to make life a hell of a lot easier for the Yankees.

I don’t know the best characteristics to leading a long life, but I’m guessing one of them is being consistent. If Yogi Berra was as consistent in life as he was in a big league uniform, then it’s no wonder he lived to be 90. Rest in peace, Mr. Berra.