Henderson

Background and Inspiration. In the last few seasons, the Diamondbacks changed what type of pitcher they acquired. Often, their pitching acquisitions could be described by three metrics, which I presented many times. Those metrics were:Whiffs/pitch greater than 13%. Strikeouts per batter faced greater than 25%Balls-in-play less than 26. 5% of strikes thrown. Perhaps a new emphasis will be placed on induced vertical break on four-seam fastballs. My enthusiasm for the idea was ignited by the first line in an article, The Red Sox, you might have heard, have largely stopped throwing fastballs, Although they did NOT stop throwing fastballs, they threw less fastballs and the ones they threw were better more vertical movement compared to the movement caused by gravity) Zac Gallen Jersey. What would a Diamondbacks plan look like? The Red Sox, despite their pitching changes, did not come close to the playoffs. Certainly, the Diamondbacks plan would be different. A simple approach follows. For pitchers who have high velocity AND above average induced vertical break on their four-seam fastballs, their message would be well done and keep going that direction. For pitchers who lack those characteristics AND who frequently throw four-seam fastballs some Diamondbacks pitchers do not throw many four-seam fastballs), the message would be either increase your induced vertical break, or pitch less of them. If a new emphasis happens, my writing will often include a new metric: induced vertical Diamondbacks like having different types of pitchers; and they will NOT attempt to change every pitcher. Instead, those who allow the most home runs and most hits will be their Diamondbacks will implement two approaches: one approach for starting pitchers and one approach for relief pitchers. The data led me to conclude that that most important factor was different for the two types of pitchers into two groups: those to leave alone and those to we are looking at induced vertical break, the first group to leave alone are those who were above-average in that measure: Nelson, McGough, Vieira, Mena, Gallen, and next group to think about carefully, and likely leave alone are those with an above-average ERA last season. That adds the following names: Diaz, Ginkel, Jarvis, Kelly, Mantiply, Martinez, Puk, and Thompson. Lets look at the remaining pitchers. For each pitcher, their percentage of fastball pitches was compared to their percentage of homers and hits that happened on fastball pitches. That comparison resulted in two groups of pitchers. One group had fewer homers and one group had more homers. Those two groups are shown in the following two tables. 2024 Season. The remaining pitchers whose 4-seam fastballs are not an obvious problem. Data from Baseball Savant. One conclusion is that better four-seam fastballs may not fix every pitcher, such as Jordan Montgomery. Perhaps some pitchers in the first table can improve in a manner not related to induced vertical break. 2024 Season. Remaining pitchers who could benefit from better 4-seam fastballs. Data from Basebal Savant. Perhaps pitchers in the second table could benefit from an increased induced vertical break in their 4-seam my surprise, something impacted relief pitcher ERA more than induced vertical break Jose Herrera Jersey. The following table shows that for relief pitchers who throw four-seam fastballs, pitch velocity had a big impact. The impact is shown in the following scatterplot. 2024 Season. Velocity in MPH. Data from Baseball Savant. The plot indicates when the average velocity falls below a critical speed, the pitchers ERA rises starting pitchers who throw four-seam fastballs, induced vertical break impacted ERA. The impact is shown in the following scatterplot. 2024 Season. IVB in inches. Data from Baseball Savant. Small changes may be better than big comparing 2024 to 2023, starting pitchers who either made a 10% reduction in their percentage of four-seam fastballs, or made any increase in their percentage of four-seam fastballs, had higher ERA than those who did not change the one exception was Cecconi who made a small 4% reduction and yet had a high ERA). My conclusion is that doing any change except a relatively small reduction in four-seam fastballs worsens the pitchers performance. Details are in the following graph. 2024 Season. Data from Baseball Savant. Which two pitchers had elite IVB? A hypothesis is that a combination of high velocity and high induced vertical break results in elite pitching. The following chart shows two characteristics of the Diamondbacks pitchers four-seam fastballs. Going from left to right, you see three increasing levels of induced vertical break IVB). Going from bottom to top, you see three increasing levels of velocity. 2024 Season https://www.diamondbacksgameday.com/collections/brandon-pfaadt-jersey. Data from Baseball Savant. Interestingly, there were no Diamondbacks pitchers in the middle square. Perhaps that can be explained that instead of being middle of the spectrum for every aspect, a path to success is more often found in excelling in one or more aspects. Summary. A new plan for Diamondbacks pitching could focus on induced vertical break for four-seam excluding pitchers with above-average induced vertical break and excluding pitchers with better-than-average ERAs, the remaining pitchers could be divided into two groups - those to leave alone and those who could benefit from better induced vertical break. For relief pitchers, average velocity of four-seam fastballs impacted their starting pitchers, induced vertical break impacted their changes in percentage of four-seam fastballs may be better than large season, two Diamondbacks pitchers had elite induced vertical break - Ryne Nelson and Scott McGough.

MLB Winter Meetings have been occurring this week since Sunday! Today was the first BIG NEWS and that news favored the Cardinals with a rare Top 5 draft pick in 2025! This is incredibly exciting news especially since they just had the 7th pick overall in 2024. A hope for the rebuild looks much brighter now, if you had a hope before its not going away and if you didnt, well, what more do you want?The reset is in full blossom now, with only the Mariners getting luckier than the Cardinals. Well, they were much luckier than anyone, but Ill take what happened with the Cardinals. It rewards loyal fans of the team and surely will annoy fans of other NL Central teams who have been putting up with us their whole lives, as well as inflame Cardinal Nation haters in general John King Jersey. A #5 pick is no joke and is really important to any is more happening with the winter meetings besides the draft lottery, of course. Arenado supposedly has narrowed down the list of teams he would accept a trade to, to six. LAA, LAD, SDP, PHL, NYM, Cardinals were one of the least likely teams to get the #1 pick, with only the Cubs, Mariners, and Diamondbacks even less likely https://www.gamedaystlouiscardinals.com/collections/kramer-robertson-jersey. While the Cardinals and certainly the Mariners defied the odds, the Cubs and especially the Diamondbacks are drafting where one might have an early mock draft here:

Box ScoreThe MLB All-Star Futures Game was played this afternoon at Globe Life Field in Arlington, the leagues annual showcase of some of the best prospects in baseball. The Brewers lone representative in this game was Cooper Pratt, their sixth-round draft pick in 2023 who recently cracked MLB Pipelines top 100 prospect game, which is now an AL vs. NL contest instead of the old format that used a USA vs. The World setup. Pratt was not in the starting lineup for this game, which featured several of the top prospects in baseball, including Washingtons Dylan Crews, Baltimores Samuel Basallo, Bostons Marcelo Mayer, Detroits Max Clark, and San Diegos Ethan Salas. The starting pitchers for the game were Texas Emiliano Teodo and Colorados Chase NL Futures won this one with a persistent offensive attack and a couple of big hits. Cam Collier Aaron Civale Jersey, the Reds number three prospect, got things started with a solo home run in the top of the third inning. The White Sox Noah Schultz, who is a top-20 prospect in the league, ran into trouble in the fourthhe loaded the bases with three straight singles to start the inning, then walked Druw Jones son of Hall of Fame candidate Andruw) to score one run, hit Aidan Miller of the Phillies, No. 27 overall) for another, and was replaced. The NL got one more in the fourth on a sac fly by Drake Baldwin of the Braves AL got their one run in this game in the bottom of the fourth, and the RBI came from a familiar name: Jaison Chourio, the Guardians prospect who is ranked No. 85 in the league and is also the younger brother of Jackson, knocked an RBI single to score Spencer Jones of the Yankees system).The backups got into the game around this point in the game, and that included Pratt, who entered as a defensive substitute at shortstop in the bottom of the fifth. Pratt got an at-bat in the top of the sixth but popped out. Drake Baldwin, the next hitter, tacked one on with a solo homer, and the NL got one more in the top of the seventh on an RBI groundout from Arizonas Deyvison De Los Santos. The NL won with that 6-1 scoreline in the seven-inning Pratt didnt do much in this one, it was still fun to see him in the game as he was able to make a couple of nice plays in the field Jared Koenig Jersey, including on the final out of the Futures Game is one of the bigger events to kick off the All-Star festivities at Globe Life Field, so keep your eyes out for all the fun things happening in Texas leading up to the All-Star Game on Tuesday evening.

Triple-A: Norfolk Tides 8, Charlotte White Sox) 6The Tides were trailing by three runs heading into the bottom of the ninth and managed to load the bases before anyone made an out. The first and second outs came and went and Norfolk did not manage to advance any runner. On the verge of complete disaster, prospect Jud Fabian kept the line moving with an RBI single to keep the bases loaded. Infielder Niko Goodrum fell into an 0-2 hole and then smoked a grand slam to send everybody might call it something of a stolen win. The Tides were outhit 10-6 in the game and they had only three hits entering the ninth Seranthony Dominguez Jersey. Goodrum was the only Tides batter to record multiple hits - he drove in six of the eight Norfolk starting pitcher for this one was Trevor Rogers, now making the third start of his minor league exile. Rogers.. well, he was not bad. 6. 2 innings, three runs on six hits and a walk. The only thing you can really criticize is that he allowed two homers, one solo shot in the sixth and one in the seventh. Thats two straight decent outings after his first one was a disaster. Take away from that whatever you feel like. Bryan Baker struck out three batters in a scoreless ninth to vulture a win. He has a 4. 91 ERA with -A: Harrisburg Nationals) 6, Bowie Baysox 3 - 10 inningsThere are professional sports leagues where you get bonus points for not losing in regulation. Baseball is not one of them. Things fell apart for the Baysox after they pushed the game into the tenth, with the Senators scoring not only their Manfred Man but two other runs in an inning that saw both Dylan Beavers and Enrique Bradfield Jr. commit throwing errors. In all, there were four Bowie errors in the with all of that, the Baysox ended up with the tying run on base and the winning run at the plate since they, like Norfolk, loaded the bases with no one out in their half of the tenth. Bradfield was hit by a pitch to start the inning, and the Manfred Man was already on base. Beavers drew a walk to load them up. Like Norfolk, neither the first nor second outs advanced any runner. Unlike Norfolk, there was no two-out magic to was on base three times thanks to a hit, walk, and the extra-inning HBP. He drove in two of Bowies runs and stole his eleventh Double-A base in his 20th Double-A game. Counting time with Aberdeen, hes stolen 70 bases this season. Beavers was 0-4 with the walk and Creed Willems dropped an 0-5. Frederick Bencosme had half of Bowies hits, a 3-5 night, all -A: Jersey Shore Phillies) 7, Aberdeen IronBirds 4This one was knotted at four apiece until the ninth inning, when things really got away from 7-foot reliever Jared Beck. Over the course of that ninth frame, Beck walked one batter, hit another, threw a wild pitch, committed a throwing error, and gave up a home run. He took the the IronBirds did score four runs, they did this on only six hits and there wasnt much to write home about for the prospects Luis Gonzalez Jersey. Austin Overn went 1-4 from the leadoff spot and struck out three times. Vance Honeycutt took an 0-for, striking out -A: Delmarva Shorebirds 3, Carolina Brewers) 0Each of these teams had eight hits in this game. The Mudcats went 0-6 with RISP while the Shorebirds didnt. Actually, Delmarva was a mere 1-7 with RISP, but they were able to capitalize when 19-year-old infielder Edwin Amparo hit a two-run home run in the seventh inning. Amparos dinger was his first at this level in his 25th game. Outfielder Fernando Peguero plated the first run with a fourth inning single. Peguero, also 19, was on base three times; hes got five hits in his first four A-ball different Delmarva pitchers combined for the shutout. Starting pitcher Jacob Cravey scattered four hits and three walks over his four innings, with Yeiber Cartaya striking out six across four innings with four hits allowed. 2024 undrafted free agent Joe Glassey tossed a scoreless ninth for his second pro score. **Saturdays Scheduled GamesNorfolk: vs. Charlotte, 6:35. Starter: Brandon YoungBowie: vs. Harrisburg, 6:35. Starter: Cameron WestonAberdeen: vs. Jersey Shore, 7:05. Starter: TBDDelmarva: at Carolina, 6:30 https://www.oriolesathletics.com/collections/craig-kimbrel-jersey. Starter: Keeler Morfe