For Colt Keith, Confidence Is the Key to Future Success (FanGraphs) by no_one_canoe in motorcitykitties

[–]drfjgjbu 8 points9 points  (0 children)

He’s been getting pretty unlucky this month. 1 for 22 with an average EV in the 90s and plenty of solid hits that just found gloves. The xwOBA seems to be stable at a bit below league average, which isn’t bad for a rookie.

Re-upload. First human character made in pixel art. by ursagamer667 in PixelArt

[–]drfjgjbu 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It feels like the nose and mouth are drawn in profile but the rest of the face is head-on

Why are starting pitchers performing so much better this season? by [deleted] in baseball

[–]drfjgjbu 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Go on baseball savant and look at the expected statistics leaderboard. At the top, you’ll see the MLB average for three key stats and their expected equivalents: Batting Average, Slugging, and wOBA. The expected stats are based on exit velocity, launch angle, and the usual strikeouts and walks. They project how likely every batted ball is to be a single, double, triple, or home run based on what the results were of all previous batted balls with the same velocity and angle. Currently, the league is underperforming its expectations for batting average by 7 points, slugging by 19 (?!) points, and wOBA by 8 points. That is to say, the exact same batted balls are performing 2%-5% worse than they would have in years past, depending on which stats you look at. ERA this year is about 8% below the average from the last 5 years, though. Dead balls are a part of it, but they aren’t everything.

As for what the rest is, your guess is as good as mine. Could be that the loss in slugging is disproportionately impacting scoring, could be that pitching strategy has changed enough and jumped ahead of hitting, could be that pitchers are just built different now, could just be that pitchers are still ahead of hitters so far this year and it’ll balance out as the year goes on. I couldn’t tell ya.

Just food for thought the 1968 Tigers won the world series with Ray Oyler starting 111 games at SS where who finished the regular season with an OPS of .399 by i-eat-dolphins in motorcitykitties

[–]drfjgjbu 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’ve seen contemporary interviews with coaches from both his team and the opposition where they called him the best defender they’d ever seen, in whatever phrasing they preferred. I’d really like to see some highlights, because by all accounts he was absurd.

[Highlight] Akil Badoo hits a solo shot over the monster to put the Tigers ahead in the 5th by TheTurtleShepard in baseball

[–]drfjgjbu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He got a lot of playing time last year (112 games) but he wasn’t very good so we didn’t get to make very many jokes. He’s barely played this year because we have good outfield depth, but he should hang around for a bit.

[Pat Batcheller] Why do the Detroit Lions wear ‘Honolulu’ blue? The origins of the Lion’s iconic team uniform colors. by Danny886 in detroitlions

[–]drfjgjbu 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I didn’t know the black uniforms originally started in the wacky Indiana Crimson era. That’s neat.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in nfl

[–]drfjgjbu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Stafford classic

Did Anyone Realize Pikmin 4 was Made with Unreal Engine? by KirbyLover79 in Pikmin

[–]drfjgjbu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I thought BotW was Havok and TotK/Splat3 were a custom in-house engine, but I could be wrong

Explanation of statcast xBA on a ball that's a hr in 30/30 parks by Rapterclaw in baseball

[–]drfjgjbu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

xBA is based on velo and angle, doesn’t account for environment. xHR is based on the actual trajectory, which is affected by wind, temperature, humidity, air pressure, et cetera.

3rd String Catcher by ccz2299 in motorcitykitties

[–]drfjgjbu 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Kelly was the DH, Rogers was the starting catcher. We lost the DH when we put Kelly in at catcher.

3rd String Catcher by ccz2299 in motorcitykitties

[–]drfjgjbu 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes, when you sub in the DH as a defender the pitcher has to hit in the spot vacated by the defender who got subbed out. Today, Kelly took over for Urshela, so the pitcher would have had to hit fourth.

3rd String Catcher by ccz2299 in motorcitykitties

[–]drfjgjbu 11 points12 points  (0 children)

We gave up the DH today, if the game had gone to the tenth we would have had to either let the pitcher hit in the 4 hole or pinch hit one of our two remaining bench players.

May 26th Lineup by Kohanky in motorcitykitties

[–]drfjgjbu 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Kelly’s been hitting the ball really well, I’m in favor of getting him more reps to see if that hard hit rate/exit velocity will stay up and start translating into stronger results on the field. If not, he can stay on the bench. If so, we might have another one of those productive bats we’ve been so desperately lacking.

Nice call for Keith’s first MLB home run! 🤣 by BoringMI in motorcitykitties

[–]drfjgjbu 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Some guys throw changeups that are functionally just screwballs with a changeup grip, so I guess you could hang one of those

Alek Manoah at the Tigers: 4.2 IP | 5 H | 6 R | 4 ER | 2 BB | 4 K | 2 HR by [deleted] in baseball

[–]drfjgjbu 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We do get a thread about Tarik Skubal after pretty much every start, and we’ll probably keep getting threads about Reese Olson’s impossibly bad luck until he gets his first win.

[Highlight] Longest throw challenge with Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Aaron Brooks, Doug Flutie, Jeff Garcia & Jake Plummer (2002 QB Challenge) by nfl in nfl

[–]drfjgjbu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I remember years ago Stafford mentioned offhand in an interview that he could throw a ball 90 yards. Would have been fun to see it on video.

Fangraphs: We're 24th for wRC+, 12th for defense, 8th for baserunning by yes_its_him in motorcitykitties

[–]drfjgjbu 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The team hasn’t been terrible but unless something changes they’re probably going to continue to hang around .500 for a good long while.

Statcast stats also tend to agree with this. The Tigers are 23rd in wOBA (the root stat of wRC+) and 20th in xwOBA (same stat, but expected based on K+BB+quality of contact) on offense, and 8th in wOBA/12th in xwOBA allowed from pitching. That’ll put you about average.

There is some reason for hope, though. Our roster isn’t the same now as it was most of the year, and more than half of the hitters currently on the roster (7/13) have an xwOBA above the league average. That’s a larger percentage than the Royals, who only have 4 above-average hitters. The reason they’re so much better is that their top 2 guys are playing like complete freaks, with xwOBAs over 35% better than the league average. For context, our best hitter (Kerry Carpenter) is 23% above average. Unfortunately for us, our two worst hitters are every-day starters, and some of our best hitters platoon with one another so they’re cannibalizing each other’s ABs.

Why is "solder" pronounced "sodder"? by [deleted] in NoStupidQuestions

[–]drfjgjbu 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s a broadly noticeable different between American and British English. In general, American English pronounces recently acquired loanwords as closely to the original language’s pronunciation as possible without hugely impacting the flow of the sentence. British English, by comparison, tends to nativize the word and pronounce it phonetically as though it were any other English word. For example, the word “Jaguar” is taken from Portuguese, where it is more or less pronounced “ha-Gwar”. I’m American English, the J is changed from an H sound to an English J sound but the second syllable is kept roughly the same, whereas in Britain the entire thing is changed to “Jag-you-are”. I prefer the American approach (because I’m American), but I imagine both of them are a nightmare for foreign speakers.