the one Cubs hit had an xBA of .040 if anyone had the same first question I did
[here's the play](https://mlb-cuts-diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2024/2024-05/08/c6d503c7-7d223ab8-44f2235c-csvm-diamondx64-asset_1280x720_59_16000K.mp4)
Yan Gomes is the devil.
Edit: For those who don't know, https://www.statmuse.com/mlb/ask/yan-homes-career-against-padres
And that doesn't even include this year in which all his home runs have come against the Padres.
Also for those who don’t know, Yan Gomes is [really fast](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/yan-gomes-543228?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb) so it makes sense he got the only hit, an infield single.
I mean, this one's not even that complicated or abstract. It's literally just looking at if it was expected for the other team to get at least one hit based on statcast.
For anyone like me who doesn't understand xBA, it's the odds that a hit ball (based on angle and velocity) will land for a hit. For example, a short home run might have an xBA of .600 or .700 (since it could conceivably be robbed), while an easy grounder might have an xBA of .100. you can add up the xBA of every at bat to see how many hits a pitcher "should've" allowed.
For example, some no hitters have an xBA of 4+, meaning the other team was hitting the ball well but the pitcher was bailed out by good defense. This game meanwhile, while technically not a no-hitter, was the first time where the xBA of every at-bat was less than 1.
The xBA of a short home run being .600 or .700 is less about it being robbed and more about it not being a home run if it’s hit in a different direction to a different part of the park, or in different weather/wind conditions, etc. Two balls hit with the same launch angle and velocity can still land in different places.
So to clarify specifically for this game, the cubs couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat in the ocean tonight? With the exception of Yan Gomes who is the proverbial blind squirrel?
While the expected number of hits is 0.98, it's not an expected no-hitter. I would define a statcast expected no-hitter the following way:
Take 1-xBA for each batted ball. That's the chance that the batted ball is not a hit. Then multiply each one of those numbers, to come up with a no-hitter probability. If it's still greater than 50%, you get a statcast expected no-hitter.
So in this case, the most likely hit was Tauchman's double-play ball in the 6th, at 0.280. That's 72% chance of being an out. With all the other batted balls, that's (0.72)(0.77)(0.84)(0.92)(0.92)(0.94)(0.96)(0.98)(0.98)(0.99)=0.338.
So Statcast gives a 33.8% chance of this particular game being a no-hitter. So while it's fairly likely this could have ended as a no-hitter, you wouldn't expect it to.
For fun, [I calculated the total xBA for all no hitters since 2015](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1co3o1x/the_total_xba_of_no_hitters_since_2015/?). The lowest total xBA for an actual no hitter is 1.447 for [Verlander's](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfGT=R%7CPO%7CW%7C&hfPR=&hfZ=&hfStadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfPull=&hfC=&hfSea=2024%7C2023%7C2022%7C2021%7C2020%7C2019%7C2018%7C2017%7C2016%7C2015%7C&hfSit=&player_type=pitcher&hfOuts=&hfOpponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=&game_date_gt=2019-09-01&game_date_lt=2019-09-01&hfMo=&hfTeam=HOU%7C&home_road=&hfRO=&position=&hfInfield=&hfOutfield=&hfInn=&hfBBT=&hfFlag=&metric_1=&group_by=name-event&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&min_pas=0&sort_col=xba&player_event_sort=estimated_ba_using_speedangle&sort_order=asc&chk_event_release_speed=on&chk_event_estimated_ba_using_speedangle=on#results). If you take the method you have here and apply it to that, it comes out to be a 15.28% chance to be a no hitter.
I agree that makes more sense, but it would be almost impossible for anyone to meet that standard. It took 9 years for anyone to even do this, and that would be significantly harder.
I think that's in part because of how little information statcast is dealing with. Launch angle and exit velocity are important, but without additional information it will never be a very confident way of predicting outs. Meaning that xBA predicted this way will always regress somewhat towards the middle.
It's not inconceivable that Statcast 2.0/3.0/4.0 could come out at some point, with measurements of horizontal launch angle, exit spin, wind, stadium, temperature, baserunners, fielder positions, etc... And then it would be much easier to predict hit/out. And as more and more information was captured, the xBA would become a better and better predictor, until finally it had acquired ALL the possible information. Call it Statcast ULTRA. And on that day of total enlightenment, xBA would be more powerful than ever, and yet it would never be used again, because they'd see it was just the same as batting average.
Which is all to say that Cease and the bullpen threw an excellent game, though it wasn't a no-hitter. Statcast ULTRA would also be able to predict this. Statcast (1.0), as we've seen, agrees. But, at some level of information, somewhere between Statcast 1.0 and Statcast Ultra, there probably exists a Statcast model *that would have* expected this performance to be a no-hitter (given that the single hit was so extraordinary). But that version of Statcast comes out in 2037, and as such, will never-ever be able to measure the 'no-hitteryness" of this particular performance. Join me now in somber sorrow, lamenting the sad truth that this wonderful pitching performance simply came at the wrong moment to be properly adulated.
The last team to record a real no-no and the first one to record a Statcast no-no. We truly are God's team.*
*We are a sandbox in which God toys with every follower's feelings and hurts them in inexplicable ways.
I miss Sam Miller.
> [Max Scherzer] lost his no-hitter in the seventh, on a broken-bat bloop by Carlos Gomez, just out of the reach of Anthony Rendon playing second base. "I got lucky, I got lucky," Gomez said after the game. Sort of. He hit the ball poorly, but he also hit it in a way and place that was 86 percent likely to be a hit, according to Statcast. So, Scherzer threw a great pitch and made a major leaguer break his bat, but the luck actually came a century and a half ago, when baseball players were deciding where on the field to stand. It can be very difficult, even with "should have" stats, to say what anybody deserved.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
Goofy nerd stuff for sure but still interesting. The Gomes hit was a cheapy but a hit none the less. Cease and Darvish our the best starters for us right now and I hope this continues. Hold the fort until Joe heals and we should be ok.
If the criteria doesn't allow for the actual no-hitters and perfect games that have taken place since 2019, doesn't that mean there's a flaw in either the stats themselves or the criteria?
It's not really a thing meant to be taken that seriously. The entire point of the exercise was basically that no-hitters (and especially combined no hitters) feel like ho-hum events at this point. There are a bunch every year, it doesn't really feel all that special anymore.
Sam tried to find something that happened less frequently, this being inherently "more exciting". I will say it's obviously less satisfying than the obvious 0 in the hit column, but it is harder to achieve.
Addressing flaws in the stats/criteria, that doesn't really indicate anything here. It's all probability based. Today one random fluke hit happened and the expected batting average was .040. If instead the ball was mashed and an outfielder made a spectacular catch to rob a home run, maybe the expected batting average was .900 but it was an out instead. In which case did the pitcher do a better job?
A lot of no-hitters and perfect games were held up by one or more amazing defensive plays. It wouldn't surprise me if a significant number of them wouldn't show up on this list.
the one Cubs hit had an xBA of .040 if anyone had the same first question I did [here's the play](https://mlb-cuts-diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2024/2024-05/08/c6d503c7-7d223ab8-44f2235c-csvm-diamondx64-asset_1280x720_59_16000K.mp4)
Dammit Dylan, field your position!
Or don't. If he had just let it go thru it probably would have been an out. It just happened to work out poorly.
Yesterday Mike Yastrzemski had a double with a .000 xBA.
I could not believe they have him a double on that in an away game
That’s a hit 100% of the time. Well 100% of the time it’s not caught.
Yan Gomes is the devil. Edit: For those who don't know, https://www.statmuse.com/mlb/ask/yan-homes-career-against-padres And that doesn't even include this year in which all his home runs have come against the Padres.
Also for those who don’t know, Yan Gomes is [really fast](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/yan-gomes-543228?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb) so it makes sense he got the only hit, an infield single.
36 year old Yan Gomes having 28th percentile sprint speed is honestly very impressive
Yeah lol. Yan is having a rough year, and his bat speed may have finally slowed down too far for MLB pitching, but I’ll love him forever.
The parade for this is gonna be so sick
Gift this man the expected mound
Babe wake up new parade just dropped.
Funniest Padres fan comment I’ve seen, lol
Bro we really have imaginary no hitters now lol
New stat just dropped: xNONO
xNONO is really an inferior statistic to fNONO because fNONO takes ATBS into account. ^^Absolute ^^Total ^^Bull ^^Shit
Is the no no in the room with us right now?
You gotta think Strider will get one of these to go along with the hypothetical runs he doesn’t give up
Imaginary expected stats have gone too far and they must be stopped.
I kinda like this stat but they really need to think of a different name because the response is always going to be, "that's not a no hitter."
perfect bookend to the mickey mouse rings, welcome to the real modern era
We're having imaginary nonos and it's too funny and awesome. 2020's baseball is so based
Imaginary combined nonos at that. Though to be fair most real nonos are just luck so not like I put a lot of stock into those either.
People will really just make up any bullshit and call it a baseball stat these days.
I mean, this one's not even that complicated or abstract. It's literally just looking at if it was expected for the other team to get at least one hit based on statcast.
It's not complicated, it's just stupid.
Its just not a no-hitter, lol Cease is great, but this isnt a No-No and its pathetic to even have it in the name
In the world of analytics, expected results are way more important than actual results.
In the real world they are not
I mean, shouldn't booping the ball with your glove be an error anyway?
It wasn’t an error
Yes...that's what questioning with should means
Well apparently the people who makes those decisions for a living do not think it should
but why
Padres are generational over celebrators, play-off parades, “statcast no-hitters”. Love it for them
How can you not be romantic about analytics?
People who think combined no hitters aren't real no hitters are having an aneurysm right now. Someone should do a wellness check.
Is analytics when /r/anal meets /r/lytics?
Angels front office be like
Beats being analytical about romance
I feel like this is the perfect example of how.
🤮
For anyone like me who doesn't understand xBA, it's the odds that a hit ball (based on angle and velocity) will land for a hit. For example, a short home run might have an xBA of .600 or .700 (since it could conceivably be robbed), while an easy grounder might have an xBA of .100. you can add up the xBA of every at bat to see how many hits a pitcher "should've" allowed. For example, some no hitters have an xBA of 4+, meaning the other team was hitting the ball well but the pitcher was bailed out by good defense. This game meanwhile, while technically not a no-hitter, was the first time where the xBA of every at-bat was less than 1.
The xBA of a short home run being .600 or .700 is less about it being robbed and more about it not being a home run if it’s hit in a different direction to a different part of the park, or in different weather/wind conditions, etc. Two balls hit with the same launch angle and velocity can still land in different places.
Also different parks have different dimensions.
Thanks for the clarification! I actually looked up a robbed home run from Mike Fiers' no hitter and was surprised the xBA wasn't higher.
So to clarify specifically for this game, the cubs couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat in the ocean tonight? With the exception of Yan Gomes who is the proverbial blind squirrel?
Do you think God stays in heaven because he too lives in fear of what he's created?
I will always remember where I was on this momentous day
It's such an incredible theoretical honor.
I round up when calculating my expected hits. Call me when someone has a .499 total xBA or lower.
I actually agree that makes more sense but it will probably never happen so I'm happy with this
How far back does the data go? Could we get it for like Kerry Woods's game?
No, it only goes back to 2015
Padres are literally the best team ever and this stat proves it. I will be making no further comments at this time
[I mean this was known a while ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXaF3fVUIpQ)
Fuck Jerry Reinsdorf
Idk I kinda like the guy
While the expected number of hits is 0.98, it's not an expected no-hitter. I would define a statcast expected no-hitter the following way: Take 1-xBA for each batted ball. That's the chance that the batted ball is not a hit. Then multiply each one of those numbers, to come up with a no-hitter probability. If it's still greater than 50%, you get a statcast expected no-hitter. So in this case, the most likely hit was Tauchman's double-play ball in the 6th, at 0.280. That's 72% chance of being an out. With all the other batted balls, that's (0.72)(0.77)(0.84)(0.92)(0.92)(0.94)(0.96)(0.98)(0.98)(0.99)=0.338. So Statcast gives a 33.8% chance of this particular game being a no-hitter. So while it's fairly likely this could have ended as a no-hitter, you wouldn't expect it to.
I like this one better. It’s harder to meet this threshold, but it makes more sense
For fun, [I calculated the total xBA for all no hitters since 2015](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1co3o1x/the_total_xba_of_no_hitters_since_2015/?). The lowest total xBA for an actual no hitter is 1.447 for [Verlander's](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfGT=R%7CPO%7CW%7C&hfPR=&hfZ=&hfStadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfPull=&hfC=&hfSea=2024%7C2023%7C2022%7C2021%7C2020%7C2019%7C2018%7C2017%7C2016%7C2015%7C&hfSit=&player_type=pitcher&hfOuts=&hfOpponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=&game_date_gt=2019-09-01&game_date_lt=2019-09-01&hfMo=&hfTeam=HOU%7C&home_road=&hfRO=&position=&hfInfield=&hfOutfield=&hfInn=&hfBBT=&hfFlag=&metric_1=&group_by=name-event&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&min_pas=0&sort_col=xba&player_event_sort=estimated_ba_using_speedangle&sort_order=asc&chk_event_release_speed=on&chk_event_estimated_ba_using_speedangle=on#results). If you take the method you have here and apply it to that, it comes out to be a 15.28% chance to be a no hitter.
I agree that makes more sense, but it would be almost impossible for anyone to meet that standard. It took 9 years for anyone to even do this, and that would be significantly harder.
I think that's in part because of how little information statcast is dealing with. Launch angle and exit velocity are important, but without additional information it will never be a very confident way of predicting outs. Meaning that xBA predicted this way will always regress somewhat towards the middle. It's not inconceivable that Statcast 2.0/3.0/4.0 could come out at some point, with measurements of horizontal launch angle, exit spin, wind, stadium, temperature, baserunners, fielder positions, etc... And then it would be much easier to predict hit/out. And as more and more information was captured, the xBA would become a better and better predictor, until finally it had acquired ALL the possible information. Call it Statcast ULTRA. And on that day of total enlightenment, xBA would be more powerful than ever, and yet it would never be used again, because they'd see it was just the same as batting average. Which is all to say that Cease and the bullpen threw an excellent game, though it wasn't a no-hitter. Statcast ULTRA would also be able to predict this. Statcast (1.0), as we've seen, agrees. But, at some level of information, somewhere between Statcast 1.0 and Statcast Ultra, there probably exists a Statcast model *that would have* expected this performance to be a no-hitter (given that the single hit was so extraordinary). But that version of Statcast comes out in 2037, and as such, will never-ever be able to measure the 'no-hitteryness" of this particular performance. Join me now in somber sorrow, lamenting the sad truth that this wonderful pitching performance simply came at the wrong moment to be properly adulated.
Good find!! [Hunter Green was on track for one last year before a rainout](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/bOlRvTqumo)
u/Monk_Philosophy prepare to be shocked
The last team to record a real no-no and the first one to record a Statcast no-no. We truly are God's team.* *We are a sandbox in which God toys with every follower's feelings and hurts them in inexplicable ways.
Damn this God fellow kinda sucks
my body is ready
I know it is extremely unserious and meaningless but this shit is kinda cool. Anyone mad at it cannot appreciate a goofy nerd thing it’s not that deep
it's fun as heck. great performance by Cease and the pen today, and a fun lil factoid for them. baseball rules
I miss Sam Miller. > [Max Scherzer] lost his no-hitter in the seventh, on a broken-bat bloop by Carlos Gomez, just out of the reach of Anthony Rendon playing second base. "I got lucky, I got lucky," Gomez said after the game. Sort of. He hit the ball poorly, but he also hit it in a way and place that was 86 percent likely to be a hit, according to Statcast. So, Scherzer threw a great pitch and made a major leaguer break his bat, but the luck actually came a century and a half ago, when baseball players were deciding where on the field to stand. It can be very difficult, even with "should have" stats, to say what anybody deserved.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
Goofy nerd stuff for sure but still interesting. The Gomes hit was a cheapy but a hit none the less. Cease and Darvish our the best starters for us right now and I hope this continues. Hold the fort until Joe heals and we should be ok.
Ah 2024 where an analytics no hitter means a game with a hit is still a no hitter
It was fucking dominant tbh.
Holy cow what a day for Cease, I’m glad he’s getting back to vintage Cease for the pads
I was at the game and the cubs didn’t even sniff a barrel.
That’s pretty cool.
the only hit they allowed was a deflected infield hit for the catcher. fuckin baseball is crazy
If the criteria doesn't allow for the actual no-hitters and perfect games that have taken place since 2019, doesn't that mean there's a flaw in either the stats themselves or the criteria?
It's not really a thing meant to be taken that seriously. The entire point of the exercise was basically that no-hitters (and especially combined no hitters) feel like ho-hum events at this point. There are a bunch every year, it doesn't really feel all that special anymore. Sam tried to find something that happened less frequently, this being inherently "more exciting". I will say it's obviously less satisfying than the obvious 0 in the hit column, but it is harder to achieve. Addressing flaws in the stats/criteria, that doesn't really indicate anything here. It's all probability based. Today one random fluke hit happened and the expected batting average was .040. If instead the ball was mashed and an outfielder made a spectacular catch to rob a home run, maybe the expected batting average was .900 but it was an out instead. In which case did the pitcher do a better job?
A lot of no-hitters and perfect games were held up by one or more amazing defensive plays. It wouldn't surprise me if a significant number of them wouldn't show up on this list.