Pirates 8, Cubs 2: The Saturday night disaster bleedcubbieblue.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bleedcubbieblue.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
That’s Williams, just ahead of Jacob deGrom, in getting the highest percentage of called strikes and swinging strikes on the night. He had all five of his pitches working, with at least four of those called strikes/whiffs coming on each of his five pitches – four-seamer, sinker, changeup, curveball, slider. It just all worked for him.
One of the best parts about Williams’ outing, in addition to the strike and strikeouts, obviously, is that he allowed just ONE ball in play that, based on the quality of contact, had a better than .400 expected batting average (the single he gave up to Avisail Garcia that ended his night). He had a whopping eight balls in play that had xBA of .170 or under (i.e., terrible contact).
Tim Kurkjian s 30-team MLB excitement guide espn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from espn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Will it help or hurt the Cubs to have so many starting pitchers with similar profiles (and how does that impact who they should target)? | Chicago Cubs
February 4, 2021
You know it’s almost time for baseball season when all of the major projection systems forecast Kyle Hendricks‘ ERA one run per nine innings too high.
As much as this sounds like a knock on those who develop projections, it’s not. What Jared Cross (Steamer), Dan Szymborski (ZiPS), Derek Carty (THE BAT), and the folks at
Baseball Prospectus (PECOTA) do is no small feat. If I weren’t too cowardly to even try to create my own projection system, I would be too stupid to design one that is half as effective as theirs. Glass houses and all that.