High Leverage Baseball

I'd like to formally introduce HLB Stuff+ It's a personally developed metric to evaluate how valuable a pitch shape is, regardless of its location The model attempts to accurately how capable a pitch is of suppressing contact, or avoiding it altogether (Mini-Thread🧵)

2026 Spring Training Stat Leaders with less than a week to go: Hits: Matt McLain - 24 HR: Matt McLain/Shea Langaliers - 6 OPS: Matt McLain - 1.637 Runs: Matt McLain - 16 RBI: Teoscar Hernández - 16 You think Matt McLain is feeling good at the plate?

With the official #Padres Spring Breakout roster announced earlier this week, how did we do? Combined, @HighLevBaseball & I went: 4 for 6 on Pitchers 3 for 4 on Catcher/DH 4 for 6 on Infielders 4 FOR 4 on outfielders I dare say we did pretty good!

@OverdueSports Love it when they’re balling, hope we get to see it

@HighLevBaseball Major bounce back years for him and Doyle

Ezequiel Tovar's injury-riddled 2025 pushed the Gold Glove shortstop off the radar However, his 2026 WBC was a positive indication for a return to his strong 2024 form Tovar slashed .471/.500/.647 with 3 doubles for Venezuela, and should pick up where he left off in Colorado

Thank you all for your incredible support this WBC! I had so much fun watching + covering this amazing event 🫶

@staypuftmcfly That’s the point I’m trying to make. They hit so poorly that they only won when Skenes pitched

@HighLevBaseball I don’t think it has anything to do with who was on the mound lol. They just needed to hit more

In the 2026 WBC, Team USA played four very competitive games (MEX, ITA, DOM, VEN) In two of the games, Paul Skenes pitched, and the US won In the other two, Nolan McLean pitched, and the US lost Their quiet offense truly needed the best pitcher in the world to win a big game

@mimodow93 The gameplan coming in was 3+ innings, so it makes sense to me. But I agree they could’ve likely squeezed that fifth inning out of him. He’s just home run prone, which is a key part of it

@HighLevBaseball Not sure why they changed him. He had a lot of gas left

Eduardo Rodríguez’s night is finished— - 4.1 Innings - 0 Runs - 4 Strikeouts - 1 Hit - 1 Walk Rodríguez struck out Aaron Judge twice. His masterpiece of a performance has Venezuela in a good position to bring home their first WBC title 🇻🇪

@Jakersfield2022 Indeed

@HighLevBaseball Fucking awesome.

On July 14 of 2024, a third-rounder stopped hitting at Double-A to focus exclusively on pitching Less than two years later, he's lined up to start the World Baseball Classic final for the USA 24-year-old Nolan McLean is staring down legacy tonight 🇺🇸

@JonHeyman Vaguepost

Nolan McLean has the right makeup and maturity for this WBC final. But here are a few of the starting pitchers team USA tried to recruit but couldn’t get: Hunter Brown, Garrett Crochet, Max Fried, Dylan Cease, Sonny Gray, Andrew Abbott, Bryan Woo.

@jmcammisa @563iowa

@563iowa No not yet, I start junior high this fall

Aaron Nola in WBC: 9.0 IP, 8 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8 K Paul Skenes in WBC: 8.1 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K But Skenes is generational?

@CC20rake Beautiful insight. Thank you!

Reading tons of stuff on Perdomo's take in the USA/DR semifinal. Literally people who are vehemently arguing that taking the pitch is... was... and will always be, what should have happened in that moment. Equally there are people on the other side of the argument who are saying there's no scenario in which he could take, because the pitch was entirely too close. Here is my two cents (for what it's worth): When we look back at moments in time, everything matters. It's incredibly easy to second guess the outcome, and talk about all the reasons why something should/could have happened versus what actually did. People reference data models all the time to defend their positions. In this case specifically... (apologies if my numbers are incorrect as my research was limited and ultimately will have nothing to do with the theme) - The pitch had a .5% chance of being called a strike - Swinging at the pitch results in a 63% whiff rate Those two points alone make an incredibly compelling argument for why taking the pitch was the right decision (that all goes without mentioning what incredible plate discipline and vision to not swing at a 3-2 strike/ball slider from a dude throwing 100). Those two data points - however - rely on big data sets and casually lack tons of context that could make the argument sway the other way. For example: - What percentage of pitches did Corey Blaser call strikes that were below the zone? If you recall he called a similar pitch a strike on Soto the inning prior. - What are Perdomo's individual percentage chances of fouling off 2-strike pitches below the zone? Getting a hit? I have no idea what those numbers look like, but I'm willing to bet that they would certainly lean more in favor of making a swing at the pitch. The only thing we know for certain is that the moment created a singular outcome. The pitch was called strike 3, and the game ended. A heartbreaking feeling for the player I'm sure. That being said, I would have had a really hard time not swinging at the pitch, personally. I say that with full understanding that I might have swung and missed 90 times out of 100. But that 1 time... that 1 time where something great happens is why we play. See the thing about sports is, we can talk about all the could of's, should of's and would have's until we're blue in the face, but what happened will forever be what actually happened. I guess the point of what I'm getting at is that big data can always tell compelling stories. Stories that are easy to explain, and also very easy to understand. But individual moments have different context that we tend to overlook when we're making arguments that validate our own opinions. In this case specifically, I've heard people discussing the fact that if hitters tried to protect against everything, that they would wind up "chasing" way more pitches. Is the point of hitting to minimize your chase rate or TO NOT MAKE OUTS? As a player, when everything is said and done, you get judged on your production, and not what percentage of pitches out of the zone you swung at. Go ask Vlad Guerrero if he's ever thought about his chase rate. I can think of dozens of examples off the top of my head where chasing a pitch led to moments that changed the outcomes of games, lives and careers. I don't hear arguments being made for why players shouldn't have swung at those pitches... In closing, the game is over. We'll never know what would have happened if he swung. I sure would like to know what would have happened if he had.

@PastTheEyeTest @TkachukFanAcc Acuña unfortunately takes McLean deep on an 0-2 hung sweeper

@TkachukFanAcc We've already lost look at ts

Bench Turang play Gunnar and bregman

@sjhall17 @cliffordmain69 @ajbirdland Sorry man

@cliffordmain69 @ajbirdland @HighLevBaseball PCA is arguably the best CF of all time, generational.

🇻🇪 Eduardo Rodríguez career stats vs. Team USA 🇺🇸 Alex Bregman: 9-27, 3 HR, 2 Doubles, 3 Ks Aaron Judge: 5-33, HR, Double, 14 Ks Bobby Witt Jr.: 4-12, 3 Ks Kyle Schwarber: 0-8, 4 Ks Given his past success, Bregman is a must-have in the lineup tonight for Mark DeRosa

@RonaldChiefs @PauliePitt That’s also possible, but Schwarber does seem like a lock

@PauliePitt @HighLevBaseball More realistic is Bregman DHing

@hescrafty44 @staypuftmcfly Some but not all

@staypuftmcfly @HighLevBaseball You mean every era?

@LeonesCaracas4 No es intencionalmente 😂 pero sucede a menudo

Por qué siempre se le quedan los lanzamientos a esa altura ? Dios mío, estoy cagao