Shohei Ohtani vs Paul Skenes was the matchup of the year. Their 3 battles at PNC Park were more than just entertaining baseball. They were symbolic of concepts essential to save the value of the starting pitcher in baseball.
In this video, I'll breakdown the 3 at-bats, but more importantly, I'll introduce two more advanced concepts embedded in the fabric of hitter-pitcher matchups: decay and buyback.
Decay is the idea that pitches get worse as you throw them to specific hitters in specific games. Buyback is the idea that you can throw other pitches to decrease that decay and make the baseline pitch better the next time you throw it.
Let's dig in.
My substack can be found here: https://lancebroz.substack.com/
Big thanks to TruMedia for the plots and data within this video. You can check them out here: https://www.trumedianetworks.com/baseball
Video and images via MLB, MLB.tv, USAToday, AP Images
0:00 Intro
0:26 Quick Skenes Scouting Report
1:20 Quick Ohtani Scouting Report
2:04 Ohtani vs Skenes Round 1
2:49 Ohtani vs Skenes Round 2
4:03 Ohtani vs Skenes Round 3
4:51 What is pitch "decay"?
6:48 Important Decay Questions
8:28 What is pitch "buyback"?
9:41 Important Buyback Questions
11:13 Does Hitter Quality Matter?
11:52 Why This Will SAVE Starting Pitching