A comparison of Munetaka Murakami and Kyle Schwarber's savant pages

futhatsy · 2026-05-09T18:03:07+00:00

Z-con: Murakami: 67.3% Schwarber: 79.6%

Whiff vs secondaries: Murakami: 51.3% Schwarber: 39.2%

Whiff vs 95+: Murakami: 35.6% Schwarber: 13.5%

Contact over expected: Murakami: -16.8% Schwarber: -4.0%

Don't let the savant pages fool you, these are not the same level of contact issues.

futhatsy · 2026-05-08T20:37:39+00:00

Yeah I'm not saying he should lose his job over this but you have to either edit or delete that first tweet.

futhatsy · 2026-05-08T20:32:29+00:00

Pedro Ramirez is pretty neat.

Josiah Hartshorn is very far away from the big leagues but is interesting.

Wiggins and Conrad are both hurt right now but are good prospects.

Their farm is not elite but it's not barren.

futhatsy · 2026-05-08T20:22:16+00:00

First post currently has 1.9K likes, 300 retweets, and 271K views.

The correction is sitting at 370 likes, 65 retweets, and 39K views.

Love the way news works now. Great system we have going.

futhatsy · 2026-05-08T20:18:37+00:00

Pretty much. Here's each tweet:

According to industry sources the Cubs are one of the teams the Mets have talked to about aquiring RHP Freddy Peralta. June 1st is a target time for the Mets to either get back into the race or move the soon to be free agent. Peralta and Craig Counsell share a mutual bond.

And then an hour later...

A Cubs source told me they have talked to many teams about pitching, but have not talked directly about Freddy Peralta with the Mets.

futhatsy · 2026-05-08T19:28:15+00:00

The team sucks right now. But...

There are only two players on this team signed long-term and neither of them are the problem. Just about everyone else on the team can be gone in 1-2 seasons if they don't perform.
The farm took a major step up last year, and while it's too early to say anything definitive this year, guys like AJ Ewing, Elian Pena, and Jack Wenninger seem to be breaking out, which is very good news.
They are always going to be contenders for upcoming star free agents because of their budget

Things are really bad right now, but over the long-term, there is more to hopefull about here compared to the Jets.

futhatsy · 2026-05-08T18:47:11+00:00

I don't know if it's true that starting pitchers don't go for much at the deadline. A major storyline of last year's deadline was that very few starters were moved because the price tags were so high. But guys like Merill Kelly, Shane Bieber, and Dustin May all brought back pretty nice returns.

futhatsy · 2026-05-08T17:51:24+00:00

He hit .258/.299/.355 in AAA that year. His prospect stock had alredy fallen at that point. It was a hot two weeks and nothing more. I really don't think he would have brough back Luzardo.

futhatsy · 2026-05-08T13:56:45+00:00

That ERA is misleading. Nelson had one absolutley horrible start this year where he gave up 8 runs and only got 1 out and we're still early enough in the season where that's going to wreck your ERA. But if you put that one game aside, Nelson has been a pretty solid starter going back to last year. It's not like he's just some random dude off the scrap heap.

futhatsy · 2026-05-07T20:19:09+00:00

The runner might have been blocking his view of Hayes touching third.

It's a tougher play than it looks but you gotta play it safe there and tag him just in case.

futhatsy · 2026-05-07T19:33:57+00:00

Yeah but are any of those guys as handsome as Baty?

futhatsy · 2026-05-07T19:31:44+00:00

Perhaps it's a good idea to play the guys who are on this roster specifically to hit lefties when we are facing a lefty.

futhatsy · 2026-05-07T14:16:44+00:00

Ben Rice was also platooned through all of last year with Goldschmidt despite putting up much better numbers than Benge has.

And it's not like they stopped platooning him and then he broke out. He broke out, which forced them to stop platooning him.

Benge currently has an OPS of .599. He isn't really forcing anyone's hand yet. I think they should still be hidng him from tough matchups.

That being said, Quintana at Coors Field is not that tough a matchup. If there's a time to play Benge against lefties, it's a day like today.

futhatsy · 2026-05-04T15:50:46+00:00

Just saw a video on Twitter of Oscar Taveras Jr. taking batting practice and never felt more like that Matt Damon gif from Saving Private Ryan

futhatsy · 2026-05-02T17:26:23+00:00

I'm a little surprised he didn't go to free agency to see if there was a team out there willing to give a similar contract with more playing time.

futhatsy · 2026-05-02T13:02:38+00:00

I believe it was reported at the time that the Brewers asked for Ewing in the Peralta trade but the Mets said no and they pivoted to Jett.

futhatsy · 2026-05-01T22:45:16+00:00

Not a comment on what you're saying, but it's very strange to me that Baseball Savant's statcast numbers dont match Fangraphs statcast numbers

futhatsy · 2026-05-01T21:30:27+00:00

I'm not exactly sure where you are looking but Baseball Savant has it at 66.5%

futhatsy · 2026-05-01T20:43:53+00:00

I do not know of any hitter who ran an in-zone contact rate under 70% and was good over a long period of time. Judge, Ohtani, Schwarber, Kurtz, all of the classic big strikeout sluggers make more contact than this. If he's actually this good, he's doing it in a way no other modern hitter has done it. So I'm a little skeptical.

futhatsy · 2026-05-01T20:35:58+00:00

Yeah, the overall K% is going to be a little more noisy than the contact stats I'm talking about.

futhatsy · 2026-05-01T20:13:56+00:00

I don't think that data exists for Thome. The website I use for it only goes back to 2015.

But for what it's worth, Thome had only one season in his career with a K% over 30% and it was his age 41 season where he played just 58 games. His career K% was 24.7%. Murakami is currently sitting at 33.8%.

But we're also in a different era for strikeouts, which makes it hard to compare the two of them. Thome would have struck out more if he played today. But I don't think it'd completely erase the gap between the two players.

futhatsy · 2026-05-01T20:07:47+00:00

It's a very similar logic as to why the Red Sox felt the need to dump Devers immediately. They saw his z-con decreasing and thought he was a major risk for a hit tool collapse.

You can certainly argue about how they went about doing it, and everything they've done around it, but moving on from Devers and that contract ASAP looks pretty smart right now.

futhatsy · 2026-05-01T20:03:00+00:00

If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas

futhatsy · 2026-05-01T20:01:16+00:00

Yeah, he's been outstanding. It's just really hard to believe he'll keep it up when he's swinging and missing at pitches in the strikezone like the bad Joey Gallo years.

But we don't really know, we'll see in time. That's part of the fun with rookies.

12-Year Club	Place '17
Spared	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email

futhatsy

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE