10 Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful MLB Notes for July 16th
Every day while doing MLB DFS research, I inevitably end up in a statistical wormhole, where I’ll stumble across some unexpected bits of information that are possibly helpful, but at the very least, are interesting in one way or another. Here are 10 notes for Saturday, July 16th, 2016.
1. For a pitcher with a reputation for being somewhat homer-prone, Matt Shoemaker has sure limited the damage at home this season. He’s faced 197 batters at Angels Stadium and allowed only three balls to leave the yard. His 0.58 HR/9 at home is tied for the 12th-best mark in MLB among qualified pitchers. He’s facing a White Sox team that, against RHP, ranks in the bottom third of MLB in wOBA (.307, ranks 24th), ISO (.148, ranks 22nd), and wRC+ (87, ranks 24th), and whose 28.9 Hard% against righties is fourth-worst in MLB, ahead of only the Yankees, Phillies, and Braves.
2. Tanner Roark is one of four pitchers this year with four games of 7+ strikeouts and zero earned runs – the others are Clayton Kershaw, Jose Fernandez, and Vince Velasquez.
3. Jerad Eickhoff has the best home ERA on the slate (2.40) and the eighth-best in MLB. Here is the list of players with better home ERAs than Eickhoff this year – Clayton Kershaw, Jose Fernandez, Madison Bumgarner, Jake Arrieta, Kyle Hendricks, Noah Syndergaard, Jon Lester.
4. Saturday may not be the time to use Danny Duffy. Duffy has allowed 11 homers in 2016, and they’ve all come against righties. He faces the Tigers, a team that is extremely righty heavy (in fact, the last time they faced a lefty, they rolled out an all-right-handed lineup against J.A. Happ on July 8th). He has a 35.0% hard hit rate against righties, which is nearly triple his 11.8% hard hit rate against lefties. And if that’s not enough to sell you, consider this: Duffy’s 47.4% fly ball rate is second-highest on the slate, and the Tigers crush fly ball pitchers. Their .216 ISO against them ranks third in MLB behind only the Cardinals (.227) and the Cubs (.219), and they’ve hit 70 HRs against fly ballers, which is tied for the Orioles for most in MLB against fly ball pitchers.
5. Matt Moore has thrown over 100 pitches in six consecutive starts – that’s the longest active streak in MLB. Over that six-game span (39.1 innings), he’s posted a 2.52 ERA, 34/11 K/BB ratio, and just a 26.1% hard hit rate (top 10 in MLB over that stretch).
6. Countless Red Sox players have batted over .329 in one half of the MLB season. Countless have hit 10 home runs. One-hundred and seven times, a Red Sox player has stolen 11 bases in either the first or second half of the MLB season. But no player in Red Sox history has combined all three of those numbers in one half of the season…until Xander Bogaerts in 2016. He’ll bring his .406 wOBA to Yankee Stadium to take on CC Sabathia in what should be a high-scoring affair. (One quick note: when I say “countless,” I literally mean countless – Baseball Reference will only show 300 results, and each of the above “countlesses” had more than 300 results).
7. One non-Boston player who did better each of Bogaerts’ HR, SB, and AVG marks in the first half (the only player, in fact), is Jose Altuve. Altuve’s 14 homers, 24 steals, and .341 average in the first half of play have NEVER been matched by another big league player in either the first or second half of a season.
8. Ryan Braun has a hit in 12 straight games (including six home runs) at Great American Ball Park dating back to April 28, 2015. That’s the longest active hitting streak in that park. He’s also one of five players to have both an ISO above .230 and a strikeout rate below 17.0% against LHP since 2014 (the others are Josh Donaldson, Victor Martinez, Jose Bautista, and Nolan Arenado). Braun will take on Cincinnati lefty John Lamb, whose .370 wOBA allowed to righties is ninth-highest in the majors.
9. When Jonathan Schoop bats 2nd this year (9 starts, 40 PAs), he has a 1.092 OPS. When he’s at any other position in order, his OPS drops to .815.
10. Of Todd Frazier 68 first-half hits, 25 of them left the yard – that’s a pretty remarkable 36.8%. In baseball history, only three other players have had at least as many plate appearances as Frazier (367) and hit more home runs (25) with fewer singles (34) than Frazier in the first half of a season. Two of them are Ken Griffey, Jr. in 2000 (28 homers, 34 singles in 381 PA) and Reggie Jackson in 1969 (37 homers, 30 singles in 397 PA). The only remaining player on the list did it twice. Who was that player? Answer below and get a shoutout in tomorrow’s “10 Notes” article!
Thanks for reading!
Shoutout to @Bruinsfan79 for correctly identifying Jackie Bradley, Jr. as the answer to the trivia question on July 10th. The man (or lady) is obviously a genius, and I’m honored that geniuses are reading “10 Notes.”
Stats from this article were pulled from FanGraphs and Baseball Reference. Be sure to check back on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays this MLB season for more “10 Notes” articles.