A while back, I was tagged in a Twitter thread talking about the predictive/sticky nature of hard hit balls for pitchers. The reason behind that discussion was the Cleveland pitcher Shane Bieber. Last season, he put up some fantastic numbers
Read more
With the current trend of thinking in the front offices in MLB, we are seeing many aspects of the game at all-time highs and lows. A lot these are constantly talked about: strikeouts, home runs and lack of stolen bases
Read more
Welcome back Christopher Gauthier Have you ever been at a game and a player smokes a ball right at someone? Like, had that ball been hit a little more to the left or the right of the fielder, it’s a
Read more
This is Chris Gauthier’s debut article for Bat Flips and Nerds. He’s a college student and a Mets fan. If you’re a dedicated sports fan, chances are at one point or another, you’ve heard the term “sophomore slump,” referring to
Read more
What happened in 2019? The St. Louis Cardinals exceeded many expectations in 2019 by winning the National League Central, beating the Atlanta Braves in the National League Divisional Series but then falling short against the eventual World Series winning Washington
Read more
As I have stated previously the Infield Outs Above Average (OAA) metrics available on Baseball Savant contains a plethora of information. You can look at individuals and not only see their overall defensive value but you can breakdown the individuals
Read more
Firstly let’s start off with the fact that I am not a plant, stooge or shill for MLB, Statcast or Baseball Savant (I would like to be, but I am not). But secondly, I need to tell you all that
Read more
Do you know how well your team does at challenging calls? I don’t know how well the Indians do. I was listening to a podcast last week and was surprised to hear them say that MLB’s instant replay challenge system
Read more
In the midst of its Postseason, and probably unbeknownst to most of its fans, MLB has taken its next steps in using an automated ball-strike system or “Robo Umps” as I like to call them. This was first tested in
Read more
My day job is in the world of data science and in it I build evaluation and prediction models. All of these models are built on certain assumptions that I hold to be true and although I update the models
Read more