What teams exemplify small ball, what was the status quo and what are they doing differently?

What is the strategy to small ball.

What similarities and differences do the teams currently in the playoffs have?

As the title suggests if there is a worse network postgame show wasting big money on cringe announcers in any sport I’d love you to tell me. So dry and awkward. Yuk.

Disclaimer: No this is not coming from a salty Mets fan despite my flair. I am happy that Freddy is having success, but there are extremely important caveats to that success. 

Ever since August 26th, it may seem like Freddy Peralta is one of the best pitchers in baseball if you just look at ERA. However, for all that has been made about Peralta’s latest string of success, it is noteworthy how many of his underlying peripherals have gone effectively unchanged.

Comparing ERA, FIP, xFIP, and SIERA
Freddy Peralta 3/26 to 8/25: 5.33 ERA / 4.66 FIP / 4.36 xFIP / 4.34 SIERA
Freddy Peralta 8/26 to 9/25: 0.79 ERA / 2.78 FIP / 4.44 xFIP / 4.27 SIERA
Freddy Peralta’s Postseason: 0.84 ERA / 3.76 FIP / 4.94 xFIP / 4.43 SIERA

Despite far lower ERAs through the last two periods, Peralta’s FIP doesn’t change as much and his xFIP and SIERA remain virtually identical across all three periods. That is notable, since xFIP and SIERA are stats that claim to account for elements “within pitcher control” that ERA can’t fully capture. If xFIP and SIERA say that Peralta has been the same pitcher for basically the entire year, what is causing them to disagree with ERA so much?

xFIP and SIERA usually try to account for Left on Base %, BABIP against, and Home Run to Fly Ball rate. SIERA more actively tries to take batted ball distribution into account, while xFIP just normalizes HR/FB rate within the normal FIP stat. These peripheral stats try to account for things that may be considered “luck-based” for a pitcher. And when examining these peripheral stats for Peralta, they certainly paint a picture of a pitcher who was getting extraordinarily unlucky before now getting extraordinarily lucky. 

More peripheral stats (for outcomes the pitcher doesn’t typically control themselves):
Freddy Peralta 3/26 to 8/25: 67.0% LOB / .311 BABIP / 13.6% HR/FB
Freddy Peralta 8/26 to 9/25: 94.0% LOB / .187 BABIP / 2.2% HR/FB
Freddy Peralta’s Postseason: 100.0% LOB / .207 BABIP / 5.9% HR/FB

Freddy Peralta’s strand rate (LOB%) after August 26th is absurdly high, and is way higher than any qualified pitcher in that timespan by a long shot when the league-average is 72.3%. It isn't uncommon to see ace pitchers maintain high strand rates in a season, but it is still luck-based enough to the extent that fluctuations in small samples can heavily affect ERA.

Maintaining low BABIPs is more controllable, but it is rare for it to hover around or below .200 over a larger sample. It is also more suspect with Peralta given that he has never been much of a groundball pitcher, but improved stuff can definitely still help with this if it decreases hard hit rate. This is also why xERA (which isn't listed here) has improved given worse quality of contact against, even if the batted ball distributions that go into SIERA doubt that it can sustain itself. Improved defense can also help with lower BABIPs.

HR/FB rate usually hovers around 11%, and it is generally not expected for a pitcher to maintain rates that are wildly below or above that mark for an extended period of time. However, small samples can produce low HR/FB rates that paints a more rosy picture of a pitcher’s ability.

tl;dr: Even if Freddy Peralta has improved as a pitcher on the Rays compared to the Mets, that improvement is being heavily obfuscated by stats that indicate that he is getting highly lucky across this specific sample of starts. As a matter of fact, certain peripheral stats don’t actually believe he is a very different pitcher at all. His true pitching ability is somewhere in between his Mets self and his Rays self.

I have honestly never understood it. When pitchers would hit in the NL, they would hit 9, hardly ever 8, and then they would claim about how important the 9 hole is.

It seems like like gaslighting to pretend that the guy isn't the worst hitter on the team.

Is it me or does Jeter look annoyed the majority of the time when Arod talks? Arod seems to try too hard.

Year after year, Dave Roberts will inevitably leave a pitcher in too long in the playoffs. Snell's pitch count is high, he got you all the way through to the 7th, walking the first batter feels like the perfect trigger to pull him and move on to the next pitcher out of the 'pen

EDIT: AND I TOTALLY FORGOT TO MENTION HOW IdK mAyBe A HR MIGHT BE THE RIGHT TIME TO GET HIM OUT OF THERE??

Since the last post about this got deleted because it contained a X screenshot, hopefully this one actually stays for comment.

Who is the guy showing up at multiple playoff games in LA behind home plate? I’ve seen him sitting with the Marlins Man a couple times.

I’m a middle-aged fan, and my thinking has evolved on this, so hear me out: When my team loses in the playoffs, I actually root for the team that beat them from then on, unless something ugly has happened. I figure they’ve won fair and square and deserve my respect going forward for the remainder of the playoffs. Same goes for the teams from my team’s division. Case in point: I cheer on the White Sox. But the Guardians beat them. Now I’m hoping they beat the Rays. But I still want Milwaukee to win it all, even though I am also a Cubs fan because hey, Chicago. However, there are expansion teams that have come on since my adolescence that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to root for because I don’t think of them as real teams! That last part is prejudice I know. But baseball is historical according to when you entered the history. For me, the Mariners and the Blue Jays are the last real MLB teams. I’m Gen X. And don’t get me wrong. I’m having fun watching the Rays play this post-season. But they might as well be the Savannah Bananas in terms of my investment in watching them. Thoughts?

Peralta's fastball is up 2.5 mph from the regular season (96.8 vs 94.3). Diaz is up 2.0. Sasaki is sitting 99.8 and Edgardo Henriquez is pumping 101.8 avg out of the Dodgers pen.

52 of 73 playoff pitchers are throwing harder than they did all year. Dodgers have 6 guys up a full mph or more.

Postseason baseball is awesome

data from armside.ai/october

Since I forgot to add the key part of this moment, I had to redo it.

Nonetheless, this clip is so damn electric, you could execute a Death Row inmate with it.