Willihammer

This one ignores them but these things have been measured in other pitch framing studies. There's about a 10 strike range between the stingiest umpires and the more free-strike calling ones (over 150 pitches). The effects of pitchers on strike calling are even smaller. The fact is, catcher pitch framing is as big or bigger than any other variable.

In even 1 week of data the leaderboards are basically the same as what we have for larger studies that look at thousands of pitches. I don't know what the cutoff is where a sample of pitch framing data becomes reliable, it might be that in part time duty Doumit didn't reach it. But judging from the consistency of these weekly reports (so far anyway), the cutoff might be a lot less than something like UZR.

Doumit records the worst OOZ strike calls -to- Inzone ball calls ratio for second straight week, as measured by baseballprospectus. Luckily he's not catching frequently enough to crack into the Runs leaderboard. Also a test you can do to see if you are good at identifying good frame jobs. Baseball Prospectus | Overthinking It: This Week in Catcher Framing, 4/26 Baseball Prospectus | Overthinking It: This Week in Catcher Framing, 5/1

Its hard for me to knock the trade considering the Twins were able to flip Gomez for Hardy. Dumping Hardy was the real crime, IMO.

Parker did a writeup a while back about how Mauer benefited from having a runner on base. Specifically, he had a high BABIP when runners were on base and he pulled balls, the theory being that the defense holding runners on 1st opened a hole on the right side for the ground balls he rolls over on. And in fact Mauer had 148 PAs in 2012 where he batted with a runner on 1st and l/t 2 outs, compared to only 56 in 2011. Maybe that explains some of the uptick in BABIP.

I would be in favor of putting Swarzak in the rotation only becuase it would give me a reason to wear my ghillie suit to a baseball game.

The Tribe had Thursday off too. Maybe Ryan Rayburn has cooled off.

Not to mention losing Youk and now they're fieldilng the .400 OPSing Keppinger at 3B. The Sox have their own infield problems. I whined about the trade at the time but in hindsight I can see where it was a good move strategically. If only Jr had re-signed Liriano in the offseason the Twins could have had the best of both worlds.

The pitcher scheduled to throw against that batter, might he be described as unlucky?

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2558549/SmithUmp2.gif http://cdn2.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1586069/OGCPLYT.gif

Don't look now but Liriano has destroyed in 4 rehab starts.

Ah the Twins would have won game 1 if Liriano had just beared down and gotten through Swisher, Tex, A-rod, Cano etc. in the 6th instead of squandering the 3-0 lead like he did. Similarly in game two, tied going into the 7th, Pavano could have gotten through Posada, Berkman, and Gardner if he'd just beared down. Neither of those guys even threw 100 pitches!

What is the biggest waste of money at Treasure Island Casino: A. Slots B. Raffle C. Gabriel Iglesias

Burton's average FA velo in April 2012: 92.91 Burton's average FA velo in April 2013: 91.44

Damn, almost broke Dazzle's mic with that foul ball

Mauer's approach does seem more aggressive this year. Maybe he resents the move to no. 2? Maybe the new batting coach is pushing him? Maybe he is just in a bad rut. I would be curious to get Bruno's take.

1. Eduardo Escobar (S) 2B 2. Joe Mauer (L) C 3. Josh Willingham ® DH 4. Justin Morneau (L) 1B 5. Chris Parmelee (L) RF 6. Trevor Plouffe ® 3B 7. Oswaldo Arcia (L) LF 8. Wilkin Ramirez ® CF 9. Pedro Florimon (S) SS 1. Austin Jackson ® CF 2. Torii Hunter ® RF 3. Miguel Cabrera ® 3B 4. Prince Fielder (L) 1B 5. Victor Martinez (S) DH 6. Andy Dirks (L) LF 7. Jhonny Peralta ® SS 8. Alex Avila (L) C 9. Omar Infante ® 2B according to this website anyway: MLB Daily Lineups - Baseball Press

Who's that, a challenger to TC Bear? One of the conventional wisdoms that I've never understood is that you adjust the length of your starters' leashes depending on whether or not you are on the road. Anyone care to elaborate?

Aaron Hicks has struck out 22 times in his first 17 big league games. His K-rate currently sits at 31.4%, tied for 10th worst in baseball with jay Bruce. a career 23.7% k-rate batter. According to Charlie Adams at Beyond the Boxscore (courtesy of Pizza Cutter at StatSpeak.net) k-rates stabilize after about 150 PAs. But instead of waiting 20 more games for Hicks to reach that benchmark, I'm going to instead look at contact rate and guesstimate what Hicks' true k-rate might be based off that. Because as it turns out, contact rates stabilize before k-rates - right around 70 PAs, in fact. And contact rates correlate well with strikeout rates (somewhere between -.81 and -.91). Below are the current contact rates for Twins batters: [TABLE=width: 310] Name PA Contact% SwStr% Chris Parmelee 62 79.40% 7.80% Brian Dozier 63 86.50% 5.50% Josh Willingham 65 74.70% 8.80% Trevor Plouffe 68 83.20% 6.90% Ryan Doumit 68 73.30% 10.60% Aaron Hicks 70 73.80% 9.30% Justin Morneau 78 83.60% 8.20% Joe Mauer 84 81.50% 6.50% [/TABLE] To get an idea of how these rates compare, I pulled the sample of qualified batters dating back to 2010 (min 1000 PAs). Next are the 10 hitters whose contact rates most closely match Hicks' current 73.8% contact rate, and their k-rates over that period: [TABLE=width: 263] Name Contact% K% Tyler Colvin 73.20% 25.70% B.J. Upton 73.40% 26.40% Alfonso Soriano 73.50% 23.10% Kelly Johnson 73.60% 25.20% Jay Bruce 73.80% 24.40% John Buck 73.90% 23.80% Sean Rodriguez 73.90% 22.30% Mark Trumbo 74.00% 23.90% Nelson Cruz 74.20% 20.90% Geovany Soto 74.30% 23.40% [/TABLE] Sure enough, there is our man Jay Bruce again. So, is Hicks destined to strikeout in the 23-24% range for his career? I don't think so. Certainly Austin Jackson wouldn't think so. Guys do improve, but judging Hicks' early contact rates, I feel confident that we can pencil Hicks in for a 20%+ k-rate for the rest of 2013 at least. While still pretty lousy, that would technically be an improvement over Hicks' current k-rate of 31.4%.

Aaron Hicks has struck out 22 times in his first 17 big league games. His K-rate currently sits at 31.4%, tied for 10th worst in baseball with jay Bruce. a career 23.7% k-rate batter. According to Charlie Adams at Beyond the Boxscore (courtesy of Pizza Cutter at StatSpeak.net) k-rates stabilize after about 150 PAs. But instead of waiting 20 more games for Hicks to reach that benchmark, I'm going to instead look at contact rate and guesstimate what Hicks' true k-rate might be based off that. Because as it turns out, contact rates stabilize before k-rates - right around 70 PAs, in fact. And contact rates correlate well with strikeout rates (somewhere between -.81 and -.91). Below are the current contact rates for Twins batters: [TABLE=width: 310] Name PA Contact% SwStr% Chris Parmelee 62 79.40% 7.80% Brian Dozier 63 86.50% 5.50% Josh Willingham 65 74.70% 8.80% Trevor Plouffe 68 83.20% 6.90% Ryan Doumit 68 73.30% 10.60% Aaron Hicks 70 73.80% 9.30% Justin Morneau 78 83.60% 8.20% Joe Mauer 84 81.50% 6.50% [/TABLE] To get an idea of how these rates compare, I pulled the sample of qualified batters dating back to 2010 (min 1000 PAs). Next are the 10 hitters whose contact rates most closely match Hicks' current 73.8% contact rate, and their k-rates over that period: [TABLE=width: 263] Name Contact% K% Tyler Colvin 73.20% 25.70% B.J. Upton 73.40% 26.40% Alfonso Soriano 73.50% 23.10% Kelly Johnson 73.60% 25.20% Jay Bruce 73.80% 24.40% John Buck 73.90% 23.80% Sean Rodriguez 73.90% 22.30% Mark Trumbo 74.00% 23.90% Nelson Cruz 74.20% 20.90% Geovany Soto 74.30% 23.40% [/TABLE] Sure enough, there is our man Jay Bruce again. So, is Hicks destined to strikeout in the 23-24% range for his career? I don't think so. Certainly Austin Jackson wouldn't think so. Guys do improve, but judging Hicks' early contact rates, I feel confident that we can pencil Hicks in for a 20%+ k-rate for the rest of 2013 at least. While still pretty lousy, that would technically be an improvement over Hicks' current k-rate of 31.4%.

Its ok to swing guys

Nathan's career splits [TABLE=width: 320] [TD=width: 64]Split[/TD] [TD=width: 64]BA[/TD] [TD=width: 64]OBP[/TD] [TD=width: 64]SLG[/TD] [TD=width: 64]OPS[/TD] vs RHB as RHP [TD=align: right]0.196[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.261[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.33[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.591[/TD] vs LHB as RHP [TD=align: right]0.214[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.3[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.341[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.641[/TD] [/TABLE]

Another round of Duensing?

Damnit!

Do the Rangers open the stables tonight? Maybe saddle up a certain horse? Maybe a huff and a puff and a blowwwwwwn save tonight?