MLB Daily Notes - March 30
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis
The Daily Notes are the flagship resource of MLB Data Warehouse. Every morning, Jon breaks down the current goings on in the fantasy baseball world, and an automated daily report gets you up to date on key stats and trends. Become a paid subscriber at MLB Data Warehouse to get this unlocked in your inbox every morning!
MLB DW UPDATES
Weekly Projections are here! The links to the Google Sheets are in the Resource Glossary. There’s also a page on the web app called “Upcoming Projections” that will display them. It’s a work in progress, but it’s there already. One note: they’ll be more accurate next week. If a team hasn’t faced a left-handed pitcher yet this year, it will just be using the last lineup they used against a righty, which in most cases isn’t right. But as soon as every team faces at least one righty and at least one lefty, we’ll be more accurate with the lineups being used.
THE DFS OPTIMIZER is still sucky, but it’s on my list of things to work on today and tomorrow. Hopefully by the slate tonight, we’ll have something a lot better
Emerson Hancock
6.0IP 0H 0ER 0R 9K 1BB, 55.7% Strike%
He was really good last night against Cleveland. And it’s one thing to be really good one time. But it’s a little more interesting because of how much better he looked in spring, and in some of the changes we’re seeing already. Here’s a quick and ugly table showing you pitch mix and velo data comparing 2025 to 2026:
He’s a brand new pitcher. tons of four-seamers and sweepers last night, and they both grade out very well in Stuff+:
→ FF: 103 Stuff+
→ ST: 105 Stuff+
He threw a ton of sinkers last year (39%), which is never good. That came down to around 20% in the spring, and 11% last night. We like four-seamers a lot more than sinkers, generally. The four-seamers get whiffs, sinkers get hit into play. The advantage the sinker has is home run suppression. Four-seamers, league-wide, allow an 11% Brl% while sinkers are way lower at 7%.
But it looks like Hancock has come into 2026 with an improved fastball and sweeper, and he’s going to use them.
I should certainly throw a bucket of cold water on this because of how bad of a pitcher he’s been. Last year:
Not good at all. And it makes me think that we probably won’t get the breakout I’m sorta hinting at. Hancock was the #6 overall pick in the 2020 draft, however, so there’s talent here. He has a job with the Mariners while Bryce Miller gets healthy, and I’m sure the M’s have liked what they’ve seen from him since camp opened up. His next start is at the Angels this weekend, and that’s one I’d be interested in. And who knows, maybe this new arsenal will unlock something big.
Tatsuya Imai
2.67IP 3H 4ER 4R 4K 4BB
Ewww!
Just a 9.5% SwStr% with a 51% BALL%! The JA ERA of 4.59! That was one of the worst starts of the young season. In fact, I can put a NUMBER on it because I have the MLB DW START GRADING script and Google sheet:
That start ranked 85th out 90 starts so far. That algo looks at the stats you see above and weighs them to give a grade and then a rank.
It could just be a case of the guy not having the splitter yesterday. That will happen to these splitter guys, and it’s just as likely to happen on the first start as any other start. Maybe next time he has it and he makes you forget about this rough beginning. But we immediately see the downside. And with a guy doing this in his Major League debut, it’s hard to not let that get pretty discouraging.
But you don’t drop the guy. If you liked him 24 hours ago, keep going with it. Give him 4-5 starts and re-evaluate.
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