THT: Ball tracking manifesto and Francisco Liriano

I have two new articles up at the Hardball Times.

The first is a short article on THT Live breaking down Francisco Liriano’s April 13 start against the Kansas City Royals.

The second is an article examining the ways in which ball tracking technologies like PITCHf/x are changing the game and what kinds of analysis are possible with this new data. It’s an expansion on my opening day laundry list of ideas that I posted here.

 

THT: Real-time pitch identification

I posted a brief evaluation of the MLBAM pitch classification algorithm on the THT Live blog. So far I am not impressed with the system, but maybe there is hope for some improvement.

Update 4/11: Dan Fox reports that some improvements have been instituted for the MLB classification system this week. I’m in the process of taking a look at some data for a few other pitchers. This new data set includes a few starts from Thursday, April 10, which I believe should be covered under the improved algorithm that incorporates information about the pitches in a pitcher’s repertoire. I’ll report back if and when I learn something from this study.

 

THT: Cueto

I posted a short article at the Hardball Times examining Johnny Cueto’s pitching repertoire from his outstanding debut game on April 3.

 

MVN: Kelvim Escobar

I have published a new article at MVN analzying Kelvim Escobar.

 

Rotojunkie: James Shields

I wrote a guest column for Rotojunkie, one of my favorite baseball discussion hangouts, analyzing the pitch repertoire of James Shields.

 

MVN: Johan Santana

I have a new article at MVN analyzing Johan Santana’s pitches.

 

MVN: Erik Bedard

I have a new article at MVN analyzing Erik Bedard’s pitches.

If you’re interested in the raw data, you can download the Excel spreadsheet I used for the Bedard analysis.

 

MVN: Can we classify every pitch?

I have a new article at MVN on the subject of pitch classification.  I recount a history of pitch classification with PITCHf/x data, offer some lessons learned, and discuss challenges for the future.

 

MVN: Joakim Soria

I have a new article at MVN on Kansas City Royals closer Joakim Soria.

If you’re interested in the raw data, you can download the Excel spreadsheet I used for the Soria analysis.

 

MVN: Mariano Rivera

I have a new article at MVN on Mariano Rivera and his cut fastball.

If you’re interested in the raw data, you can download the Excel spreadsheet I used for the Rivera analysis.