GDT (2/3) | Blue Jays (81-63) vs. Rays (89-55) | September 14 — 7:07 PM

[King]

Who wants to explain to me not pinch hitting for Valera or Mcguire. Thats f***ing brutal managing.

[Dokken]

WOW, I haven't posted on this message board since March! I just want to say I am so happy for Vladdy!!!!!! That HR on Monday was perfect example of how much trimming down has helped him. He does not get to that pitch down and in so effectively with the big belly in the way. Now he is a beast that can not be stopped - he will destroy the ball anywhere you pitch it (same as Miggy in his prime). Question is what do the Jays do with him contract wise going forward (seeing he is a possible MVP at age 22 this season and Canadian born hero)..........

[Krylian]

So Berrios left the game due to abdominal tightness?

[G-Snarls]

I feel like this happens all the time with the Rays... maybe they have really good defensive positioning charts or something

 

Maddon and Montoyo seemed good at this back in the day

[Spanky99]

Valera is twice the hitter McGuire is. Not pinch hitting for Reese was awful. The lefty righty thing totally does not matter because the talent gap between Kirk and Reese offensively is like, literally .100 wOBA points

 

lol... nerd.

[Olerud363]

Yeah that's a big part. Good defenders, perfect positioning.

 

Vlad's homerun Monday and line drive out last night were about the same exit velocity, distance and launch angle, both had an xBA of about .760.

 

One was an historic homer which people compared to a cruise missile launch, the other was a hard hit, but routine line out. xBA on balls to center is obviously lower than reported.

 

This would be even more so for hard hit but non-missile fly balls. 380 foot fly balls have an xba of around .500. But that is obviously very different for a ball hit down the line or opposite field compared to center.

 

Are the Rays able to use pitching patterns that keep the ball 'in the big part of the ball park'. I don't know. Probably not. If they could it would work though. Not that they could control whether a guy hit's it right at the center fielder, but on hard hit but non-missile fly balls, any thing gap to gap could be caught, especially if the outfielders are bunched a bit, down the line it's 100% a homerun.

 

Maybe the Rays are bunching their outfielders? Doubles seem to down. How do Vlad and Bo only have 21 and 25 doubles each given their hard hit rates and launch angles?

[KevinGregg]

Vlad's homerun Monday and line drive out last night were about the same exit velocity, distance and launch angle, both had an xBA of about .760.

 

One was an historic homer which people compared to a cruise missile launch, the other was a hard hit, but routine line out. xBA on balls to center is obviously lower than reported.

 

This would be even more so for hard hit but non-missile fly balls. 380 foot fly balls have an xba of around .500. But that is obviously very different for a ball hit down the line or opposite field compared to center.

 

There seems to be an assumption in the whole exit velocity + launch angle paradigm that hitters have no control over which field they hit the ball to. But I think we all know that isn’t true at all. Breaking xBA down into just two variables gave us some great insights, but how difficult would it be to incorporate spray angle into the calculation and see what data we get for xBA and wOBA?

[Laika]

Vlad's homerun Monday and line drive out last night were about the same exit velocity, distance and launch angle, both had an xBA of about .760.

 

One was an historic homer which people compared to a cruise missile launch, the other was a hard hit, but routine line out. xBA on balls to center is obviously lower than reported.

 

This would be even more so for hard hit but non-missile fly balls. 380 foot fly balls have an xba of around .500. But that is obviously very different for a ball hit down the line or opposite field compared to center.

 

Are the Rays able to use pitching patterns that keep the ball 'in the big part of the ball park'. I don't know. Probably not. If they could it would work though. Not that they could control whether a guy hit's it right at the center fielder, but on hard hit but non-missile fly balls, any thing gap to gap could be caught, especially if the outfielders are bunched a bit, down the line it's 100% a homerun.

 

Maybe the Rays are bunching their outfielders? Doubles seem to down. How do Vlad and Bo only have 21 and 25 doubles each given their hard hit rates and launch angles?

 

There seems to be an assumption in the whole exit velocity + launch angle paradigm that hitters have no control over which field they hit the ball to. But I think we all know that isn’t true at all. Breaking xBA down into just two variables gave us some great insights, but how difficult would it be to incorporate spray angle into the calculation and see what data we get for xBA and wOBA?

 

https://www.pitcherlist.com/going-deep-batted-ball-direction-and-baseball-savants-xstats/

 

Yes, the fact that xBA and xSTATS do not properly adjust for flyball hit direction is a known problem.

 

BUT one thing not captured in the analysis so far is "non-event risk" i.e. the risk of wasting a good or great swing on a foul ball. Extreme pull hitters will have higher non-event risk and waste more good swings. Guys like Vlad have lower non-event risk and therefore put more good swings in play. This is common sense visible through everyone's favourite statistic, batting average - just think about or look at your favourite extreme pull hitters and where their batting averages typically end up. They hit for more HR power because of wall distance but they hit for lower BA because of non-event risk.

[AMS528]

Vlad's homerun Monday and line drive out last night were about the same exit velocity, distance and launch angle, both had an xBA of about .760.

 

Maybe the Rays are bunching their outfielders? Doubles seem to down. How do Vlad and Bo only have 21 and 25 doubles each given their hard hit rates and launch angles?

 

I'm certain their needs to be more data looked at for this, and my glance at it is pretty surface level, but just glancing at the top ten guys in doubles this year, 9/10 of them send it the opposite way less than 25% of the time. Maybe it's just random noise, or maybe not. I'd be curious to see someone look into that in a lot more detail.

[Olerud363]

https://www.pitcherlist.com/going-deep-batted-ball-direction-and-baseball-savants-xstats/

 

Yes, the fact that xBA and xSTATS do not properly adjust for flyball hit direction is a known problem.

 

BUT one thing not captured in the analysis so far is "non-event risk" i.e. the risk of wasting a good or great swing on a foul ball. Extreme pull hitters will have higher non-event risk and waste more good swings. Guys like Vlad have lower non-event risk and therefore put more good swings in play. This is common sense visible through everyone's favourite statistic, batting average - just think about or look at your favourite extreme pull hitters and where their batting averages typically end up. They hit for more HR power because of wall distance but they hit for lower BA because of non-event risk.

 

Absolutely. The old joke in the 'pull dat ball' Cito/Murph years was...

 

Pitch 1. Foul line drive almost kills the third base coach

Pitch 2. Foul homerun in the 5th deck

Pitch 3. Double play grounder to the third basemen

 

Cito and Murph - that's good hittin'!

[Olerud363]

I'm certain their needs to be more data looked at for this, and my glance at it is pretty surface level, but just glancing at the top ten guys in doubles this year, 9/10 of them send it the opposite way less than 25% of the time. Maybe it's just random noise, or maybe not. I'd be curious to see someone look into that in a lot more detail.

 

Haven't looked closely at the data, other than glancing at Semien's spray charts. And Semien fits that pattern.

[saskjayfan]

Vlad hitting balls too hard again

 

Vlad crushed a ball that's a game tying double if it's 15 or 20 feet further right. Against Fairbanks with one on, he was all over a 99 mph fastball that was right down the middle, he just got under it and popped it up to the left side. The game really is a game of inches, or quarter of inches in some cases. Vlad was close to tying the game up twice. On to the next.

[TwistedLogic]

This is an excellent Twitter thread from Chris Black on the wild adjustments Kevin Cash and the Rays made to their pitching approach between Game 1 and Game 2 of this series.

 

I encourage everyone here to click the link and read through.

 

 

[Stangstag]

This is an excellent Twitter thread from Chris Black on the wild adjustments Kevin Cash and the Rays made to their pitching approach between Game 1 and Game 2 of this series.

 

I encourage everyone here to click the link and read through.

 

 

 

Tldr: Crafty Rays

[Olerud363]

This is an excellent Twitter thread from Chris Black on the wild adjustments Kevin Cash and the Rays made to their pitching approach between Game 1 and Game 2 of this series.

 

I encourage everyone here to click the link and read through.

 

 

 

Wacha sucks I think, but that doesn't matter, all that matters is whether the pitch sequencing they give to Wacha today works or not, Wacha is just the means the Rays analytics crew will do their bidding this afternoon.

[max silver]

It's just the difference between a junk baller lefty like Yarbrough and a fastball/slider righty like Rasmussen. Obviously the Jays are going to get sliders from Rasmussen, that's all he throws lol.

 

I think the Rays pitching staff for the most part just made better pitches in last night's game. I recall a bunch of very well placed fastballs on the corners of the plate and well placed sliders and cutters as well. Some of the hitters (Bo in particular) had rough nights chasing pitches off of the plate which also factored in. Whether this was some sort of grand strategical masterplan or simply a case of pitchers with great stuff making better quality pitches is likely up for debate.

[Laika]

It's just the difference between a junk baller lefty like Yarbrough and a fastball/slider righty like Rasmussen. Obviously the Jays are going to get sliders from Rasmussen, that's all he throws lol.

 

Yeah these are my thoughts too. The only thing that may be interesting or insightful in that tweet thread is the part about them attacking Vlad with fastballs. But I don't think that matters, the guy can and does smoke everything.

[John_Havok]

Yeah these are my thoughts too. The only thing that may be interesting or insightful in that tweet thread is the part about them attacking Vlad with fastballs. But I don't think that matters, the guy can and does smoke everything.

 

It really seems to me, and I honestly have no evidence to support this other than the eye test and looking at our own hitters hot and cold zones... the Rays pitch to the hitter's weaknesses very effectively and really don't deviate from that plan. If the cold zone is away, they throw everything away, away, away, and take their chances that the hitters won't suddenly get good at hitting in their weakest areas. Yeah, they'll be the odd mistake pitch and missed locations, but they don't change unless the hitter's show them they have to.

 

If I were a betting man, I would put a decent amount of money on the Rays having a very good pitch analytics department that digs way deeper than other orgs into pitch sequencing, locations, hot/cold zones in combination with sequencing etc. It would really help explain why it seems like all the nobodies in the world can go there and pitch like they are a front of the rotation starter or top end pen arm.

[TwistedLogic]

It's just the difference between a junk baller lefty like Yarbrough and a fastball/slider righty like Rasmussen. Obviously the Jays are going to get sliders from Rasmussen, that's all he throws lol.

 

It's not just about where the pitches were though. The Jays were a lot less patient yesterday.

[Laika]

It's not just about where the pitches were though. The Jays were a lot less patient yesterday.

 

Being patient isn't always good. When a pitcher is pounding the zone you just fall behind.

 

I don't think the Jays' process yesterday was that bad. Specific players may have had bad plate appearances though.

[Jimcanuck]

Just got to tip your cap to the pitcher sometimes. 2nd time the Jays have faced Rasmussen, the 1st in July, 7 batters, 1 measly hit.

 

We're get him next time.

[John_Havok]

Being patient isn't always good. When a pitcher is pounding the zone you just fall behind.

 

I don't think the Jays' process yesterday was that bad. Specific players may have had bad plate appearances though.

 

I agree. Overall they hit the ball hard, just couldn't find a way to not him them directly at the defense.

[connorp]

Being patient isn't always good. When a pitcher is pounding the zone you just fall behind.

 

I don't think the Jays' process yesterday was that bad. Specific players may have had bad plate appearances though.

 

I think I heard Jays lead the league in first pitch BA. I always coached my son take advantage of the first pitch if you know what’s coming, it could be the best pitch you see. You can hit .500 on first pitches but the other 5 times, you’re stupid lol