All articles tagged with #baseball statistics
The Boston Red Sox acquired pitcher Steven Matz from the Cardinals, and an analysis of his season shows strong curveball performance, heavy sinker usage, struggles with changeups against righties, recent decline in pitching effectiveness, and a mixed record of shutdowns and meltdowns, highlighting his potential impact and areas for improvement.
Austin Riley has experienced a recurring pattern called the WPA vortex in 2025, where his performance in high-leverage situations is significantly worse than in low-leverage ones, reminiscent of similar patterns in 2021 and 2022, leading to humorous speculation about which deity he might have offended to suffer this fate.
Dick Allen and Dave Parker have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Classic Era Committee. The article argues that Allen is more deserving due to his superior offensive statistics, particularly his career standard deviations above league average in on-base and slugging percentages. Allen's career was marked by a high peak despite a lack of longevity, while Parker's performance declined after his 1979 MVP season due to injuries and other issues. The election is seen as overdue recognition for Allen's contributions to baseball.
Josh Gibson, a legendary Negro Leagues player, has been posthumously recognized as the MLB record holder for career batting average and slugging percentage after MLB incorporated Negro Leagues statistics into its official records. This move, while a gesture to correct past racial injustices, has sparked controversy due to the incomplete and erratic nature of Negro Leagues' statistical records. Critics argue that this inclusion skews historical comparisons and does not fully address the systemic racism that kept black players out of Major League Baseball for decades.
The integration of Negro League statistics into Major League Baseball's official records has sparked questions about the exact number of no-hitters pitched by Satchel Paige. While Paige claimed to have thrown 50-55 no-hitters, MLB's current records are incomplete, and only two of his no-hitters are well-documented. The process of verifying and including these stats is ongoing and complex, with many historical records still missing or incomplete.