Game Chat: 5/2 Pirates (20-9) @ Rays (23-6) 6:40 PM

3 comments

1. Game notes today:

   – Looking back: that final game of the series against the White Sox was fun and weird, but that’s the only thing we can take away from that game. Nobody could grip or catch the ball due to the unplayable conditions from the 7th inning on, so the outcome hardly means anything. Obviously it would’ve been nice to escape with the win but it was really just a BABIP luck fest. I’m sure if it wasn’t the last game of the year between the two, the game would’ve been suspended to resume at a later date or at the very least placed in a weather delay. Even the mound and infield dirt were both pretty slippery, so I’m glad nobody got hurt
   – Looking forward: I made a cool stat to determine the effectiveness of pitchers. It’s called automatic out minus free pass rate (AO-FP%) and it’s exactly what you think it is. Automatic outs are a combination of strikes out rate and rate of batted ball events with a launch angle >= 40 degrees (these types of batted balls are virtually as valuable as Ks) while free passes are walk rate combined with hit by pitch rate. I don’t expect this stat to stabilize until like 100, maybe 125 batters faced, but it’s fun to play with small samples. Taj leads the way for Rays pitchers with an AO-FP% in the 99th percentile. Javy Guerra is back with the team and will open today (31st percentile AO-FP%) followed by Flem (52nd percentile) at some point in bulk duty
   – Link to AO-FP% leaderboard through April: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yOEZdizAKbhCYJL4LuuPB4kElund_1-2w79Eg1rmvuI/htmlview

2. World Series preview!!! Let’s go!

3. Pirates are always open for a trade, let’s see if they have any middle relievers