Chris Watkins

Why are Angels pitchers struggling with two strikes?

Introduction Generally having two strikes is favorable for the pitcher. Hitters are hitting 0.171 in 2023 with two strikes but the Angels are giving up a BA of 0.187. For an 0-2 count it is tougher with hitters hitting 0.151 but the Angels are giving up a league worst 0.209 BA. The question is simple:Continue reading “Why are Angels pitchers struggling with two strikes?”

Impact of Banning the Shift

For the 2023 season MLB will be banning the infield shift. This ban is supposed to increase action on the field, which in this case more hits is the goal. This post looks into what a potential impact would be and which players will be most affected. Methodology The idea here is very simple, butContinue reading “Impact of Banning the Shift”

Breakout of Taylor WARd

For years Taylor Ward had been up and down from the major league level and could not gain consistency. Ward then turned himself from an average major leaguer last season (turning it on in the second half) into an above average major leaguer. Before the 2022 season his career bWAR was -0.4 and he isContinue reading “Breakout of Taylor WARd”

Whiff-le Ball (Part 2: Naïve Model)

We saw in the previous post that there were quite a few differences when a hitter whiffs versus when they don’t. The data was sliced and diced in many ways like the count, state, and pitch. In this post I will be getting into some data science discussing a Naïve Model, which is basically justContinue reading “Whiff-le Ball (Part 2: Naïve Model)”

Whiff-le Ball (Part 1: Analytics)

Everyone loves the whiff (also known as swinging strikes). Coaches, front offices, scouts, agents. Pitchers that don’t have good numbers on the surface but a high whiff % continue to get opportunities in MLB. Why? Well whiffs are an indicator of success for pitchers, especially relievers. If the bases are loaded with no outs, we’dContinue reading “Whiff-le Ball (Part 1: Analytics)”

The Enigma of the 2020 Season: Batters

The 2020 season was one of the strangest MLB seasons in history. A 60-game season starting in late July, no fans, social distancing measure for players, and no high fives due to COVID-19. A big question going into the 2020 off-seasons was how can we analyze player performance with such limited data in an unprecedentedContinue reading “The Enigma of the 2020 Season: Batters”

Clustering Starting Pitchers

My favorite machine learning algorithms are unsupervised clustering. I think there is elegance in finding patterns in data that we don’t know about. Clustering is grouping similar data together in a data set when the groupings are unknown. This is based on how far away data points are from other groups and how close theyContinue reading “Clustering Starting Pitchers”

The 2021 Sho (Part 2: Pitcher)

For as good as Shohei Ohtani is at the plate, his ability on the mound is arguably his best tool. His devastating splitter strikes fear in hitters around the league. Oh yeah, he also can hit 100 MPH on his fastball. He gets 100 MPH exit velocity off the bat and can throw 100 MPH,Continue reading “The 2021 Sho (Part 2: Pitcher)”

The 2021 Sho (Part 1: Batter)

To kick off this blog I had to do something with my favorite team, the Angels. My friends and family would say I am obsessed but I will say passionate is the better word. Missed only one home opener the last 15+ years and going to 20+ games every year while having to follow everyContinue reading “The 2021 Sho (Part 1: Batter)”