Game Chat: 8/25 Angels (52-72) @ Rays (68-55) 1:10 PM

2 comments

1. game notes for today:
   – rasmussen has been fantastic in august w 23 IP across 4 starts and a 24.7 K%, 3.7 BB%, and a fantastic 1.77 FIP. his .155 BABIP suggests there’s some luck involved, but he’s still been really good. his .266 career BABIP shows he’s able to maintain some pretty good batted ball luck. while he does give up his fair share of hard contact (22nd percentile avg exit velo, 30th percentile hardhit%), his 47.2 GB% is above average (77th percentile) and he gets relatively low avg launch angles on his FB and pop-ups. so yes, there’s some hard contact concerns, but batters aren’t getting the good part of the bat on it. there’s a really good article by ian malinowski on draysbay about ras and how he’s been so good despite all the loud contact and lack of whiffs
   – choi needs to stop swinging the bat. he did good in his second AB yesterday when he walked on 5 pitches where he didn’t swing at all, so i hope he keeps that up. in the first half of the season, he had a 21.3 o-swing%, 40 swing%, and 15.2 BB% (97th percentile). but now in the second half he has a 27.7 o-swing%, 46.3 swing%, and 10.5 BB% (75th percentile). he’s really just putting the ball in play at a rate that doesn’t work for him and his style. he’s at his best when he slows the game down and takes his walk. also, the fact that he’s swinging at so many bad pitches helps explain the poor quality of contact. he needs to just copy what randy has been doing lately and he’ll be fine. i don’t think choi is hurt, just trying to hard while also getting a bit unlucky (he’s under performing his xwOBA by 101 points – the third largest underperformance in baseball in the second half)

2. Get your brooms out!