Pitch usage is the lowest-hanging fruit for an organization to adjust when a pitcher is acquired at the Trade Deadline. It’s the simple way MLB teams make pitchers better. Yusei Kikuchi is a great example of this. So are Aaron Civale and James Paxton.
In this video, we’ll dive into the two “buckets” of usage changes: those purely from an optimization standpoint and those aligning with team philosophies.
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Hot Ones Interview with Vince Vaughn can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfOaVGaYsfQ
Huge Thanks to TruMedia for access to their software for the plots, data and images within this video: https://www.trumedianetworks.com/baseball
Video and images: MLB, USA Today, Associated Press, MLB.tv
0:00 Usage: Optimization vs Team Philosophy
0:50 Yusei Kikuchi’s Struggles
1:31 Two Simple Usage Tweaks
3:02 Blue Jays Caught Sleeping
5:07 Vince Vaughn on Pitch Usage?!
6:26 Team Philosophy Influences Usage
7:21 Brewers Oddities
8:11 Red Sox Hate Fastballs
9:43 Why Our Usage Buckets Matter
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