Stolen Signs

Episode 30: In the playoffs (and always) pitching and catching are important

October 25th, 2018  |  25 mins 45 secs

baseball, catching, pitching, world series

In the playoffs (and always) pitching and catching are important

Episode 23: Evaluating Baseball Statistics with Sam Miller of ESPN

May 17th, 2018  |  1 hr 14 mins

baseball, pitching, statistics

Sam Miller joined us to talk about his recent article about evaluating Statcast's new Pop Time metric. Surprising exactly no one, we also talk about Shohei Ohtani, again. And take a look at Robinson Cańo's Hall of Fame candidacy.

Episode 20: Spin Rates and Designing Pitches with Jeff Long

March 15th, 2018  |  1 hr 21 mins

baseball, mlb, pitching, radar

2:32 Revisiting PECOTA team projections
10:44 Announce winners of The Shift by Russell A. Carleton giveaway
14:40 Spin Rates and Pitch Design with Jeff Long
1:08:45 More juiced ball talk (h/t Rob Arthur)

Episode 19: Park Factors and Pitch Design

February 28th, 2018  |  1 hr 5 mins

ballparks, baseball, mlb, pitching

When we talk about park adjusted stats, and park factors, what does all of that mean? How do we arrive at those numbers and how do we account for changes over time? We also talk about "pitch design" and how that combines analytical data and player development.

Episode 17: These Are Not the Robot Umpires You're Looking For

January 31st, 2018  |  1 hr 4 mins

baseball, mlb, pitching, radar, umpires

We talk to Jeff Long, Sean O'Rourke, Wayne Boyle, and Russell Carleton about their recent Pitching Week article about the Robot Strikezone and Robot Umpires.

Episode 16: Inning(s) Eaters and Aces

January 18th, 2018  |  57 mins 45 secs

baseball, mlb, pitching, sabermetrics

Stolen Signs is back. Harry and Kendall talk about the slow offseason, collusion and ideas on how to change the economics of baseball. After a short break (14:05) they discuss new research by Duke University that looks into neurological and motor skills and how they translate to baseball production, a new smart baseball that can provide some pitch tracking and tease some new work by the stats team at Baseball Prospectus. To wrap up (32:00), a look into the state of pitching and try to talk about what an inning(s) eater is and also what an ace is.

Episode 15: Twas the Episode Before Christmas

December 22nd, 2017  |  1 hr 42 mins

baseball, hall of fame, miami marlins, pitching, shohei otani

We touch on many issues of the day as we wrap up 2017 in style.
[3:10] - Marlins firesale fallout
[17:05] - Bob Bowman forced out at MLBAM
[23:38] - Shohei Ohtani ZIPS, Steamer and PECOTA projections
[35:20] - Long form movement article from Jeff Long
[51:00] - Major League Baseball's Statcast Can Break Sabermetrics by Emma Baccellieri
[1:19:20] - Hall of Fame discussion

Episode 12: Making Sausage and Catching Up

November 16th, 2017  |  1 hr 25 mins

baseball, pitching, statistics

Harry and Kendall look back at the World Series, discuss the Cy Young awards and the BBWAA vote has lined up with BP's pitching metrics over the past few years.

Next up is a preview of some new pitching statistics that the Baseball Prospectus stats team is working on and why that's proven to be a challenge. Harry gives a look into how these statistics are imagined, designed, tested, and tweaked throughout the process.

Episode 11: Unusual Paths to the Rotation and Everything Old is New Again with Jarrett Seidler

October 26th, 2017  |  1 hr 2 mins

baseball, pitching, world series

This week Harry and Kendall talk to Jarrett Seidler from the Baseball Prospectus Prospects team about the cyclical nature of baseball in general, and analytics specifically.

Harry and Kendall also take a closer look at how pitchers end up in their eventual roles and examine their route to get there. For this exercise they looked at pitchers with a debut season of > 20 IP as a reliever, and fewer starter innings than reliever innings in that year and then went on to log > 75 IP as a starter in a subsequent season, with fewer reliever than starting innings. Check out the spreadsheet.

This Week I Learned:

Harry - A look into research done with Kate Morrison for Ben Lindbergh's Ringer piece about Dallas Keuchel and the Dodgers - https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2017/10/24/16533310/houston-astros-los-angeles-dodgers-dallas-keuchel-kryptonite

Kendall - Is it possible that Major League Baseball is coming to Portland? - http://www.baseballamerica.com/columnists/expansion-trigger-realignment-longer-postseason/#IpHtEd8vb3JeJHOB.97

Episode 8: Pitcher Similarity Scores

September 21st, 2017  |  58 mins 51 secs

baseball, pitching, sabermetrics

This week Harry and Kendall discuss pitcher similarity scores. Where did they come from? What are they? What can they be used for? And what might they evolve into.