The A's completed Week #5 of the 2017 season with a record of 3-3. They currently have a 14-17 record overall, good for 4th place in the AL West. They are 6.5 games behind the 1st place Astros, and are 3 games back of the 2nd Wild Card spot. The A's finished the week on a very high note with 2 walk-off wins against Francisco (K-Rod) Rodriguez and the Tigers.
Doing the Improbable:
On Saturday, (5/6), the A's headed into the bottom of the 9th inning down 5-4 with an 18.8% Win Probability (according to Fangraphs). After Yonder struck out and Healy hit a bullet lineout to left, the A's were down to their last out. 4.3% Win Probability and Bruce Maxwell stepped up to the plate. After starting the count 0-2, Maxwell worked an 8 pitch walk to keep the A's hopes alive. Joyce then doubled to right, followed by the Rosey 2-run walkoff single. The Rosales AB had an 8.18 Leverage Index.
In reference to my Week #1 article, Leverage Index (LI) is an attempt to quantify pressure. This allows you to determine how players perform in different situations (high, medium, and low leverage). An average (or neutral) LI is 1. High leverage is 2.0 and above, and low leverage is below 0.85. Clearly, Rosey came through under some intense pressure.
On Sunday, (5/7), the A's headed into the bottom of the 9th inning down 6-5 with a 18.8% Win Probability (according to Fangraphs). Rajai led off with a walk, followed by Lowrie's perfectly placed double in the left center gap scoring Rajai. Lowrie's AB had an LI of 5.40. Next up to the plate was Healy who hit a 2-run walkoff bomb to left.
This Article & Next Week...:
This is going to be a very short article for I have 2 midterms this coming week. However, I did manage to discover some interesting trends thanks to BAHP. I was able to calculate the change in terms of BAHP from Week #3 - Week #5 for all MLB players. Why only from weeks 3 through 5 you might ask? Well, I only started dating BAHP stats starting from week 3. I plan on posting the changes in BAHP for all players weeks 1 through 6 at the conclusion of next week. I was however able to implement K% into my Baseball Savant spreadsheet. Both spreadsheets will be attached below. In the "BigDiff" tab, you will find the percent change in BAHP from weeks 3-5 for all players. Also, in the "Rank(30)" tab of the second spreadsheet, you will find a list of all MLB players ranked in terms of BAHP with at least 30 BBE. In the near future, I plan on writing articles involving "Then-and-Now" conclusions in which I will analyze the progress of all players from week-to-week. In addition, I am going to compare each hitters' BAHP to his batting average, runs scored, home runs, rbis, wRC+ etc and see if I can determine how well a player "should be" hitting based on the performance of players with a similar BAHP.
For now, I can conclude that the top 5 players with the largest increase in BAHP from weeks 3-5 were:
1. Byron Buxton: 0.114 to 0.263 (+15.0%)
2. Anthony Rendon: 0.225 to 0.336 (+11.1%)
3. Jose Abreu: 0.268 to 0.378 (+11.0%)
4. Jayson Werth: 0.290 to 0.397 (+10.6%)
5. Russell Martin: 0.240 to 0.333 (+9.3%)
On the flip side, the top 5 players with the largest decrease in BAHP from weeks 3-5 were:
1. Jackie Bradley Jr: 0.500 to 0.305 (-19.5%)
2. Willson Contreras: 0.455 to 0.326 (-12.8%)
3. Nick Hundley: 0.479 to 0.379 (-10.0%)
4. Manny Pina: 0.400 to 0.302 (-9.8%)
5. Anthony Rizzo: 0.427 to 0.331 (-9.6%)
I've attached spreadsheets of all my calculations. I can promise that next week's article will be much more juicy and interesting. I will also have more in depth analysis of A's players. As for the Oakland Athletics, they have a big week ahead. They will first host the Angels for a 3 game series. Mike Trout is set to return from his calf injury just in time for the series (perfect timing). Then, the A's will get outta town and head to Arlington for a 3 game series with the Rangers starting on Friday (5/12). Pitching probables include:
Game #32 (5/8) Probable Starters: Ricky Nolasco vs. Kendall Graveman
Game #33 (5/9) Probable Starters: Alex Meyer vs. Jharel Cotton
Game #34 (5/10) Probable Starters: Jesse Chavez vs. Andrew Triggs
Game #35 (5/12) Probable Starters: Jesse Hahn vs. Andrew Cashner
Game #36 (5/13) Probable Starters: Sonny Gray vs. Nick Martinez
Game #37 (5/14) Probable Starters: Kendall Graveman vs. A.J. Griffin
Doing the Improbable:
On Saturday, (5/6), the A's headed into the bottom of the 9th inning down 5-4 with an 18.8% Win Probability (according to Fangraphs). After Yonder struck out and Healy hit a bullet lineout to left, the A's were down to their last out. 4.3% Win Probability and Bruce Maxwell stepped up to the plate. After starting the count 0-2, Maxwell worked an 8 pitch walk to keep the A's hopes alive. Joyce then doubled to right, followed by the Rosey 2-run walkoff single. The Rosales AB had an 8.18 Leverage Index.
In reference to my Week #1 article, Leverage Index (LI) is an attempt to quantify pressure. This allows you to determine how players perform in different situations (high, medium, and low leverage). An average (or neutral) LI is 1. High leverage is 2.0 and above, and low leverage is below 0.85. Clearly, Rosey came through under some intense pressure.
On Sunday, (5/7), the A's headed into the bottom of the 9th inning down 6-5 with a 18.8% Win Probability (according to Fangraphs). Rajai led off with a walk, followed by Lowrie's perfectly placed double in the left center gap scoring Rajai. Lowrie's AB had an LI of 5.40. Next up to the plate was Healy who hit a 2-run walkoff bomb to left.
This Article & Next Week...:
This is going to be a very short article for I have 2 midterms this coming week. However, I did manage to discover some interesting trends thanks to BAHP. I was able to calculate the change in terms of BAHP from Week #3 - Week #5 for all MLB players. Why only from weeks 3 through 5 you might ask? Well, I only started dating BAHP stats starting from week 3. I plan on posting the changes in BAHP for all players weeks 1 through 6 at the conclusion of next week. I was however able to implement K% into my Baseball Savant spreadsheet. Both spreadsheets will be attached below. In the "BigDiff" tab, you will find the percent change in BAHP from weeks 3-5 for all players. Also, in the "Rank(30)" tab of the second spreadsheet, you will find a list of all MLB players ranked in terms of BAHP with at least 30 BBE. In the near future, I plan on writing articles involving "Then-and-Now" conclusions in which I will analyze the progress of all players from week-to-week. In addition, I am going to compare each hitters' BAHP to his batting average, runs scored, home runs, rbis, wRC+ etc and see if I can determine how well a player "should be" hitting based on the performance of players with a similar BAHP.
For now, I can conclude that the top 5 players with the largest increase in BAHP from weeks 3-5 were:
1. Byron Buxton: 0.114 to 0.263 (+15.0%)
2. Anthony Rendon: 0.225 to 0.336 (+11.1%)
3. Jose Abreu: 0.268 to 0.378 (+11.0%)
4. Jayson Werth: 0.290 to 0.397 (+10.6%)
5. Russell Martin: 0.240 to 0.333 (+9.3%)
On the flip side, the top 5 players with the largest decrease in BAHP from weeks 3-5 were:
1. Jackie Bradley Jr: 0.500 to 0.305 (-19.5%)
2. Willson Contreras: 0.455 to 0.326 (-12.8%)
3. Nick Hundley: 0.479 to 0.379 (-10.0%)
4. Manny Pina: 0.400 to 0.302 (-9.8%)
5. Anthony Rizzo: 0.427 to 0.331 (-9.6%)
I've attached spreadsheets of all my calculations. I can promise that next week's article will be much more juicy and interesting. I will also have more in depth analysis of A's players. As for the Oakland Athletics, they have a big week ahead. They will first host the Angels for a 3 game series. Mike Trout is set to return from his calf injury just in time for the series (perfect timing). Then, the A's will get outta town and head to Arlington for a 3 game series with the Rangers starting on Friday (5/12). Pitching probables include:
Game #32 (5/8) Probable Starters: Ricky Nolasco vs. Kendall Graveman
Game #33 (5/9) Probable Starters: Alex Meyer vs. Jharel Cotton
Game #34 (5/10) Probable Starters: Jesse Chavez vs. Andrew Triggs
Game #35 (5/12) Probable Starters: Jesse Hahn vs. Andrew Cashner
Game #36 (5/13) Probable Starters: Sonny Gray vs. Nick Martinez
Game #37 (5/14) Probable Starters: Kendall Graveman vs. A.J. Griffin
baseballsavantdata_byplusmin.xlsx |
baseballsavantdata_byrank_30_.xlsx |