(10-29-2019 03:48 PM)flyingswoosh Wrote:  

(10-29-2019 03:46 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  

(10-28-2019 02:42 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  We're spending a lot of energy talking about umpiring, but nobody is talking about luck. I'm not seeing a lot of advanced team metrics out there (for the WS) but baseballsavant is tracking expected batting average (xBA) among other things and here's what it looks like:

Game 1 (Nats 5, Astros 4)
Nats .286
Astros .263
Game 2 (Nats 12, Astros 3)
Nats .225
Astros .360
Game 3 (Astros 4, Nats 1)
Nats .211
Astros .318
Game 4 (Astros 8, Nats 1)
Nats .250
Astros .366

Game 2 is a massive outlier. This is why they play the games of course but these numbers are a good indicator that it was just a matter of time (repetitions) before Houston would start producing.

*crickets*

Nobody said anything about this but it's worth bumping with Strasburg going tonight. In his Game 2 start the Astros had an xBA of .360 - only a little bit lower than their Game 4 xBA - meaning he wasn't really fooling many batters. And Verlander, for all the "vulnerability" talk, allowed an xBA of only .225 - second lowest of the series so far. Luck is always part of the game so you can't rule it out but it's reasonable to think similar performances by these two pitchers could have drastically different results.

Somebody needs attention.

But seriously, this is a valid stat. We talk about Verlander having back to back bad starts, but 2 starts could easily be bad luck. It's why we don't evaluate pitchers after their first two starts of the season.

in game 2 Verlander had 3 walks to 1 for Strasburg. That's got to be added to the mix...

Verlander in his 1 "good" start in the last 3 since he started short- was game 2 of the LCS. 2 runs in 6.2 innings. 2 bb/7 k.

BUT looking at your thing- he had 8 balls that had an xBA of .400 or greater, but gave up only 5 hits... So he got really lucky there.

game 5- he had 10 of 16 pa's with an xBA of .330 or greater. Only gave up 5 hits.

game 2- he had 6 of 15 pa's with an xBA of .330 or greater. Gave up 7 hits..

So in the last 3 games- he's had 47 pa's- and of those 24 ended with an xBA of .330 or greater.

Stras has had 29/45 with that...

NOW- Verlander has had 22 k's which aren't factored in. Stras 26 k's in that time.

So Verlander 24/69 pa's ended with an xBA of .330 or greater plus 5 walks.
Strasburg 29/71 pa's ended with an xBA of .330 or greater. Plus 2 walks

Pretty close to equal.