Tangotiger

Had Mesa not bobbled the ball, we would have had bases loaded 1 out. Instead, we have a runner on 3B, a runner scoring, and an out As it turns out, that pretty much is the exact same thing! And so his bobble did not hurt or help baseballsavant.mlb.com/game-strateg...

Of the 43 best-of-7 series where one team started 3-0 In Game 4: the team that started 3-0 won 33 and lost 10 (.767 win%) In Games 5 through 7: the team that started 3-0 won 26 and lost 32 (.448 win%) In all: 59-42, .584 We have a wild momentum / reverse-momentum at play

43 Teams up 3-0 33 of them finished the sweep, MUCH higher than the 21 or 22 expected (3.5 standard deviations) There are a few times when you actually see momentum (perfect game entering the 9th is another) Up by 3-0 may indeed be another of these exceptions

With 1:45 left in the game, Habs up 2-1 over Jets, a delayed call against Habs. Jets pull their goalie, and Habs finally take possession at 1:32 left, and Jets are on PP Question: was it better for Jets to give up possession right away, and get man advantage for the whole 1:45?

If this was a coin-flip scenario: if you get heads on your first two flips, the chance you will get two more heads, before your opponent gets four tails is: 81.25% What does this mean? There is no "momentum" in being up 2-0

For NHL, last time both teams in Final hadnt won a Cup 2023: Knights over Panthers (who would then win in 2024+25) 2018: Caps over Knights 2007: Ducks/Senators 1999: Stars/Sabres 1991: Penguins/Stars 1934: Chicago/Detroit 1927+28: 1st two seasons of NHL www.mlb.com/news/interes...

Counting Frames to measure pitch speed Comparing the fastest pitch to the slowest pitch in 2026 (both happen to be in Milwaukee)

"Unlimited vacation time" Is this an organization that trusts its people so much that it doesnt both tracking vacation days?!?

Seam-Shifted Wake, explained in two sentences: The seam is a bump in the road that knocks the flow of air off the ball A specific seam orientation will have that flow more to one side than the other, causing the ball to move in some direction more than it otherwise would #SSW

This is hidden gem of article: fumbling of DH rule essentially hamstrung league for next 35 years. Even after replay rule, it took 6 years for next major change League has proven itself, now, to be careful+considerate in rule changes. Purpose of testing AWAY from MLB is to see what works and doesnt

Red line is ATTACK ANGLE Attack angle changes CONSTANTLY throughout the swing and is PREDOMINANTLY a metric of TIMING The black lines is SWING PLANE, represented as both a negative and positive number. It represents the BOUNDS of the attack angle Swing plane is FAIRLY constant

In the 25 most similar batted balls in the Statcast era: 24 were foul balls. Plus the one to Ty France

Almost seems like divine intervention...

My streaming box buffers about 1 minute behind, so I was waiting with bated breath as to what Mike was talking about here.... Bryce (Took me many months to realize my box buffers, which was made obvious during New Years countdown, as we heard loud sounds in our neighborhood, while counter was 58)

What a FANTASTIC clip to make this point: This is ... (almost definitely) ONE constant swing plane ... (very probably) SIX different attack angles ONLY way for any pair of those balls to have same attack angle is if each ball "passes through" (exactly) the next ball.Which is practically impossible

Blog Post: Comparing Statcast Fielding Run Value (FRV) to DRS tangotiger.com/index.php/si...

MLB MVP is PCA, hands-down The AL MVP has reasonable arguments for BWJ, Yordan or Cam and unreasonable for a few others The NL #2 has a plethora of options www.fangraphs.com/leaders/war

Max Scherzer Pitch Speed By Season, Speed Bins Group: 5 - 10% fastest that season 4 - Next 20% fastest 1 - 10% slowest 2 - Next 20% slowest 3 - Middle 40% Two takeaways A. Compression between fastest/slowest in-season starting in 2016 B. Compression driven by high-end speed

Cy Young Predictor - 2026 tangotiger.com/index.php/si... Thank you to @fangraphs.com for the tracker: www.fangraphs.com/projections/...

Poll Results of the Straight Arrow readers If you want to know how your opinion stacks up... 100 points for Love it 66.7 for Like it 33.3 for Whatever 0 for No Likey Pitch Timer and ABS Challenge are OVERWHELMINGLY favourable The Infield restrictions are right in the middle

Checked swings has NEVER been defined in 150 years of baseball Strike zone HAS been defined as stance-based for 140 years, changed to height: no one says boo If/when Checked Swings are defined at MLB level, the "controversy" will last an entire off-season, plus one week of play

If there is a smarter batter than Juan Soto, he is either already dead or yet to be born...

On full counts, batters have 40 pitches outside strikezone and 42 inside Since a walk has wOBA value of 0.7 and strikeout is 0.0, then taking all 82 pitches would result in wOBA of 40*.7 / (40 + 42) = .341 League-wide wOBA on full counts is .376 Getting Miz at .341 is success

This one? youtu.be/ommqWVcXobw?...

The greatest fielding play by Pirates SS Jack Wilson was a DP by Mariners 2B Jack Wilson If you know what I mean, you obviously agree If you don't, then go find it

Solution to issue of teams using #EBUP (emergency backup pitchers): Every fan in attendance gets 20$ voucher, or 25% of face value ticket price, whichever is higher, paid by the Pitcher In NHL, #EBUG use requires fans in attendance to PAY extra 1$ each: it goes to the goalie

Top Playoff Goalies, Stanley Cup Final, since 1956 www.sports-reference.com/stathead/tin...

Most points in Stanley Cup Final, career www.sports-reference.com/stathead/tin... Source: @hockey-reference.com

#reds learned today that Eugenio Suarez passed his U.S. citizenship exams.

Blog Post: Probably-Right Valuation for ABS Challenge Skill: Is JT the best, or worst, in the league? This is a super-long article, so give it a try and let me know what you think... tangotiger.com/index.php/si...

I should add my entire career would not have developed as it did Consider that MLBAM had its initial scoring system modelled on the Retro/DiamondWare scoring system. Without that, it delays MLBAM event files by a few years, as well as my book and WAR by a decade. Thousands of my peers are affected

Blog Post: Primer on Positional Adjustments tangotiger.com/index.php/si...

This is a terrific read for those who are baseball historians and the monumental effort it took to find and digitize scoresheets. Without this work, @fangraphs.com and @baseball-reference.com would be severely lacking in data www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...

Ironically, JJ Wetherholt & Sal Stewart have exactly the same wOBA with runners on, .348. JJ better OBP, Sal better SLG. Stewart has 74 more PA with runners on. But he drives in a runner once every 3 PA w/ runners on, and for JJ it's once every 5. It's both things.

🚨New metric drop over at the Statcast factory, Baseball Savant This is one people have been asking about for while: which 1B are best at receiving throws? Yes, "scoops," but a lot more than that. Scoops are 2% throws to 1B. It's about all of them. baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/...

Checked swings has NEVER been defined in 150 years of baseball Strike zone HAS been defined as stance-based for 140 years, changed to height: no one says boo If/when Checked Swings are defined at MLB level, the "controversy" will last an entire off-season, plus one week of play

Goose Gossage is the last HOF pitcher to have played with 9 teams Rickey Henderson the last player Kimbrel has a shot at the HOF with 12 teams www.fangraphs.com/leaders/majo...

Excluding Coors (and bunts): - Average distance of 10% longest hit balls - Average speed of 10% hardest hit balls YEAR: Dstnc - Speed 2026: 384.4 - 107.4 2025: 384.6 - 108.0 2024: 384.7 - 107.5 2023: 387.1 - 107.6 2022: 383.8 - 107.3 2021: 388.7 - 107.8 2020: 391.0 - 107.1

7.3% chance of winning, making the grand slam by Clemens a +0.927 WPA, the highest possible gain for a single pitch/swing

Agreed! You can keep them separate, but the default should merge them. And the user can split them if they want

New post: I wanted to figure out the best NHL team in the salary-cap era to not get a single Hart Trophy vote. Then I found something kind of weird... www.nytimes.com/athletic/747...

Nice graphic, easy to understand and remember

Blog Post: Swing Timing: Perfect v Flawed tangotiger.com/index.php/si...

Good breakdown by Matt, looking at the tools aspect I thought this was interesting, that Nico's low BA in May can be explained, at least in part, that the opposing fielders did well. This had an impact of 54 points on his May BA

League Average wOBA on batted balls is .380: need launch speed of 97+ to be above average Including BB+SO, league wOBA is .320: happens at 95+. Thats why hard hit is 95+ Under 90 mph averages .210, and is fairly flat: 40 = 60 = 80 = 90. Thats why we dont average launch speed

If you want to know what is FB launch angle and Line Drive launch angle, focus on HR rates, hit rates Ten years ago in 2016, I settled on 28 degrees +/- 8 for FB and 12 +/- 8 for LD Below is 2025 data, and it still holds well cc: @dialofdestiny.bsky.social baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_hit...

Ted did it while missing his years 25-27 seasons.

I've long considered Juan Soto as the most genius batter of our generation. We may need to extend this to one of the most genius batters in history of baseball What I like about stat from Sarah is it highlights players of past: We know about Ted, but maybe we dont appreciate Mick and Foxx enough?