The Leadoff — Conventional Wisdom, Tested

The Adjustable Swing: Hitters Have a Dial. It Isn't Wired to Anything.

Statcast can see a swing's shape now. Hitters do have a 'dial' — steeper on low pitches, flatter up high — and it's one of the most reliable traits in the game. It just doesn't add power, save whiffs, or beat bat speed. The least-adjustable hitter alive is Juan Soto.

Bat Tracking · 11 min read

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Fig.1 — Called-strike rate by location
2025 baseline · inside → away

Inside ──→ Away █ higher call rate

The rulebook box never moves. The shadow zone around it does — and it tightens when the batter has two strikes.

By the Numbers

Pitches analyzed

Seasons of Statcast

Umpires graded

Investigations published

The Investigations

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Pitchers

The Arm-Angle Gambit: We Went Looking for the Cheat Code. We Found a Tax.

Pitchers across baseball are dropping their arm slots, chasing the pitch-lab promise that a lower release unlocks a sweeper and a new level. We priced the gambit within-pitcher across 374 arms, two independent methods, two adversarial review rounds. The slot credit is indistinguishable from zero five different ways — and the study's most interesting number (+0.28 runs/100 for the bundled repertoire change) died in cross-review as target leakage; rebuilt clean, both methods land at ≈+0.03, the same as pitchers who never moved. The one effect that survives: droppers lose an average 0.46 inches of four-seam ride (10 of 15, Wilcoxon p=0.011) while stable arms gained. The scoreboard among the 16 droppers: nine better, seven worse — a coin flip. Early-signal by design; full re-test queued for the All-Star break.

June 10, 2026 · 11 min read

Bat Tracking

The Two-Strike Brake Belongs to the Pitcher, Not the Hitter

We set out to build the hitter version of the Pressure Grade — one number for how a hitter changes gears with two strikes. Two independent models, run blind to each other, converged on the same answer: the famous −1.4 mph two-strike bat-speed 'brake' is mostly a mirage. Roughly two-thirds to ~85% of it is the pitch a hitter is thrown (slower, softer, lower) with two strikes, not a decision. The real adjustment is small (~−0.3 mph), lives in swing shape not speed, and — while a stable year-to-year signature (r=0.73, two methods agree per-hitter at r=0.98) — adds about one-thousandth of AUC to predicting two-strike whiffs over the stats already on a hitter's card. A descriptor, not an edge.

June 6, 2026 · 10 min read

ABS

Hitters Are Chasing More Under the Robo-Zone

A precise automated strike zone was supposed to reward patience. Through 2026 so far, the league is chasing more, not less — out-of-zone swing rate is up from 30.0% to 32.3%, a +2.3-point jump. And it isn't a calendar trick: the rise holds when we compare the exact same March–June window in both seasons. We report the pattern, not the cause — but the simple story, that a fair zone makes hitters more patient, is not what the first season of full ABS shows.

June 6, 2026 · 6 min read

The Long Read

We Tried to Build a Pressure Grade. Most of It Was Skill in a Costume.

Two methods, six seasons, 3.85M pitches. The single pressure grade is a mirage — clutch is noise (r=0.08) and no composite beats overall skill. The multi-dimensional read (stuff agreement r=0.95) is the part that's real.

The findingPitchers

r = 0.08

year-over-year correlation of a pitcher's 'clutch' — a coin flip. No composite pressure grade beats his overall skill; the multi-dimensional stuff/command/contact read (cross-method r=0.95) is the part that survived.

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Explore the Data

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Game Reports Umpires → Umpire Profiles Umpires → ABS Challenges Robo-zone → Pitcher Profiles Pitching → Hitter Profiles Hitting → Zone Explorer Location → Count Calculator The Count → Open Explore →

One investigation a week. No hot takes, just the receipts.

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