This is a fun one. HR on pitches outside the zone: Cal Raleigh: 10 (leads MLB) Aaron Judge: 0

Last night, George Kirby struck out Jackson Holliday on an absolutely fantastic slider down and in. Before that, he threw a splitter down and away that ran outside the zone (Holliday fouled it off). Here are those pitches overlaid.

Cant help it i.imgflip.com/9vw6pn.jpg

SLG allowed against 7, 8, 9 hitters. 21. LAD: .377 22. ATH: .381 23. PHI: .384 24. ARI: .386 25. TB: .389 26. CHW: .394 27. PIT: .406 28. COL: .419 29. WAS: .454 30. BAL: .457

Pitchers most negatively impacted by defense to begin the year (OAA): 1. Fried: -7 2. T Williams: -6 3. Verlander: -4 4. Spence: -4 5. Paddack: -4 6. Kremer: -4 7. B Keller: -4 8. Houck: -4 9. Eisert: -4 10. Clase: -4 11. Cease: -4

Really nice start from Sugano: 17 total whiffs - most for an Oriole starter this year 9 splitter whiffs - tied for 2nd most by an SP so far this year Here are all 8 Ks

This Sugano splitter was SO SO nasty. 29 inches of drop. 13 inches of horizontal. Just a gorgeous pitch.

SLG allowed w/ 2 strikes 30. BAL: .320 29. MIA: .314 28. CLE: .307 27. CHC: .301 26. ARI: .300 25. COL: .300 24. ATL: .295 23. MIL: .289 22. STL: .285 21. WSH: .281

Something interesting I just noticed. We only have 5 years of public arm angle data but thru this early sample size... Average Arm Angle is at it's lowest point in the past five seasons. 2025: 37.2° 2024: 38.1° 2023: 38.8°

Top pitches by SLG (min 100 thrown): 1. Justin Sterner's FF: .056 2. H Brown's FF: .056 3. Rasmussen's FC: .074 4. Holmes' SL: .077 5. Gilbert's FS: .094 6. T Williams' Sw: .095 7. Eovaldi's CU: .095 8. F Cruz's SL: .107 9. Canning's FF: .111 10. Sasaki's FS: .118

Baseballs top swing-and-miss pitches (min 100 thrown): 1. Greene's SL: 29.5% 2. Yamamoto's FS: 28.2 3. Meyer's SL: 23.0 4. Eovaldi's FS: 22.7 5. Ben Brown's CU: 22.0 6. Woo's FF: 20.6 7. Imanaga's FS: 20.5 8. Sale's SL: 20.5 9. Rodón's SL: 20.0 10. Ryan Gusto's FF: 19.6

Only one pitch in baseball has been thrown over 100 times and is yet to give up a hit. Hunter Greene's slider.

Some changes Spencer Torkelson has made: - Stands MUCH further back in the box (3rd greatest depth among right handed hitters) - Slowed his swing down - Drastically opened up his stance - Cut down his swing and miss on breaking pitches (small sample)

Amount of teams with 10 or more wins: NL: 5 AL: 0

Interesting thing I noticed re Heston Kjerstad: 55% of his batted balls have been to the opposite field. That's the 2nd highest rate in baseball right now.

Small sample fun. Qualified BABIP leaders: 1. Will Smith: .625 2. George Springer: .588 3. Mike Yastrzemski: .500 4. Wilyer Abreu: .500 5. Spencer Torkelson: .474 6. Nathaniel Lowe: .467 7. Jose Altuve: .462 8. Ramón Urías: .455 9. Riley Greene: .455 10. Sal Frelick: .452

HR Totals: LAD (12) + NYY (11) + BAL (10) = 33 COL + NYM + HOU + MIA + TBR + MIN + LAA + STL + PIT + MIL + CIN + TOR + SEA + KCR + CLE + SF + SD + CHC = 31

Hilarious that this is what the dodgers offense is doing WITHOUT Betts and Freeman

Lets look at league average SLG and wOBA on four-seamers by how much induced vertical break they get: > 20" - .357 / .287 19" - 20" - .402 / .316 18" - 19" - .410 / .325 < 18" - .430 / .335

Tomorrow is Saturday AND the Orioles game is on TV AND Povich is going up against Skenes?!?

Look at the swing Ogasawara just got out of Soto on his 69 mph CB.

Sandy Alcantara dots the corner with an 100 mph FB for the strikeout (the ball call was overturned via ABS)

Think I came up with my first ever @theonion.com headline: "Sticky substance controversy continues to rock competitive dreideling circuit"

No Statcast for this game but safe to say Jorge Soler hit this ball 750 feet?

Singer has now struck out 4 Dodgers. 3 on breaking pitches. 6 whiffs total.

Cole Ragans seems excited baseball is back

With the news about Manaea / Montas, here are the remaining SP FA as ranked by projected WAR: Kyle Gibson Lance Lynn Jose Quintana Spencer Turnbull Patrick Corbin Anthony DeSclafani Alex Wood Jordan Lyles Marco Gonzales Noah Syndergaard José Urquidy José Ureña

Jac Caglianone just smoked a ball 115.4 mph. That would be in last years top 100 for hardest hit balls and would put him in the top 30 of max exit velo player rankings.

Todays top exit velo leaders so far

Just hurt my neck watching Sandy Alcantara’s draft stock shoot upwards.

Kenta Maeda showing some nice velo gains in his first spring appearance

Westburg picking up right where he left off by starting his spring w/ a 2-strike hit

Juan Soto's first AB as a Met? Home run.

Baseball Savant has added "2025" to the search. Baseball season has officially begun.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto only threw 5 curves in that outing but he averaged 66" of drop; 5" more than last year. That pitch was already top 25 in terms of drop and if (HUGE if) that maintains it'll put him in top 10 territory. Again: 5 pitches but something fun to track over ST.

Some interesting notes on velo: League SLG against FF in '24 was .424. 2nd lowest in recorded history, lowest since 2014. This is NOT just bc of velo: SLG against FB b/w 93-94: .436. Lowest SLG since 2014. SLG against FB b/w 94-95: .404 last year. Lowest SLG since 2014.

live talking about my new kaggle competition using the arm angle data from MLB's Baseball Savant! here's a link to the comp www.kaggle.com/competitions...

We're less than 24 hours away from watching a baseball game with Statcast data.

Guardians got a good one in John Means. Best of luck to him and his family.

Last year, the Orioles bullpen was 11th best in Stuff+ and 10th best in Location+. This year, they added the 3rd best pitcher by Location+ in Andrew Kittredge and re-added Félix Bautista who had the best Stuff+ in all of baseball in 2023.

Trevor Rogers FF AVG / SLG: 93 mph or above: .252 / .418 92 mph or below: .314 / .676 Not a surprise to say "more velo = better" but def showcases importance of Rogers FB being at 93 (as reported by Roch Kubatko). Excited to see what the velo looks like as the season starts. Is he sitting 93?

Time to pepper the monster

True first-pitch strike leaders (min 400 pitches): 1. Woo: 59.5% 2. Sale: 59.0 3. Skubal: 58.7 4. Mikolas: 58.7 5. Ryan: 58.3 6. Pivetta: 58.0 7. Hendricks: 57.4 8. Musgrove: 57.2 9. Pfaadt: 56.6 10. Webb: 56.0

Biggest in-zone Swing% (min 500): 1. Albies: 82.6% 2. Tovar: 82.0 3. Fraley: 81.2 4. DeJong: 80.6 5. B Lowe: 80.3 6. K Lee: 80.2 7. Merrill: 80.0 8. Crow-Armstrong: 79.7 9. Seager: 79.5 10. Dubón: 79.4

Ok, I’ve seen enough. Let me be the first to say……… It’s officially baseball season

Spring Training Statcast Games by Team

This thread between @tangotiger.com and Vinnie Pasquantino is what Statcast dreams are made of

Highest SLG on pitches in zone (min 500) 1. K Carpenter: .805 2. Ohtani: .795 3. Judge: .793 4. Rooker: .714 5. Witt Jr: .672 6. T O'Neill: .669 7. Tucker: .664 8. Pederson: .658 9. Alvarez: .650 10. Ozuna: .646

Former Oriole Corbin Burnes at 3. Hopeful Oriole Dylan Cease at 4.

UFO 50 is one of the best games I've played in a long, long time.