People often posit that baseball or unpredictable, or, less eloquently perhaps, that you “can’t predict ball.” At face value this statement is unequivocally true. You cannot predict baseball.
Despite the advanced projection systems and good, old-fashioned intuition, we still find accurately forecasting baseball troublesome at best. However, the sport itself is not the problem.
Human beings, non-Nate Silver division, are remarkably poor at predicting the future in virtually any discipline. If there were any oracles walking among us they would quickly become billionaires on the stock market and hitting the casinos, which in many cases amounts to the same thing. By and large, that doesn’t happen.
One of the biggest issues with predicting the future is that when we rely on past data to aid our predictions we don’t leave much room for the unprecedented. Furthermore, anyone who predicts an event way outside the established norms is seen as lunatic. So predictions and projections tend to be relatively conservative and tame, which is an issue because life is anything but.
As a result, no one two years ago would have predicted something like Donald Trump’s rise to political prominence. It’s too bizarre. Similarly, there is no way anyone could in good conscience forecast that Brett “Who the hell is Brett Nicholas” Nicholas would hit his first career home run off Dellin “Human Cthulu” Betances on Monday night.
And yet, that’s what happened.
A ball came off of the rookie’s bat at 100.5 mph according to Statcast, and found a home in the right field seats. This event was not consequential to the game’s end result, but in some way it was more monumental than the outcome of any regular season game. The raw improbability of this event, if it could be mined, refined and sold, would be worth more than the GDP of Luxembourg.
First of all, Betances is unbelievable. He came into the season with numbers that strained credulity, and this year his mastery has been even more astounding. The big right-hander has struck out 60.5 percent of the batters he’s faced while walking 5.3 percent. He’s sporting an ERA below one, a FIP below 0.5 and a league-best 34 cFIP (minimum six innings). He’s faced 38 batters and allowed 13 of them to put the ball in play.
One could say that in a sample size of 10 innings anything is possible, but not those kind of numbers. Ivan Nova isn’t going to casually have a stretch like that because he’s “hot”. This is one of the most dominant pitchers in recent history at the peak of his powers.
Now, consider the competition. Betances has faced 753 hitters in his career, and allowed a mere 12 home runs. This is the list of players who’ve managed to take him deep.
| Player | Career Home Runs | Career Slugging Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Mike Trout | 143 | .558 |
| Starling Marte | 51 | .448 |
| Todd Frazier | 113 | .463 |
| J.P. Arencibia | 80 | .412 |
| Jonathan Schoop | 35 | .408 |
| Steven Souza | 23 | .423 |
| Brett Lawrie | 60 | .420 |
| Francisco Lindor | 13 | .470 |
| Asdrubel Cabrera | 103 | .412 |
| Jose Bautista | 290 | .498 |
| Mookie Betts | 27 | .474 |
| Brett Nicholas | 1 | .476 |
There are some good hitters there. Even the worst hitters on this list, like Arencibia and Schoop, have excellent raw power. Not just anyone homers off Betances.
But Nicholas may be the spitting image of “just anyone”. He’s a 27-year-old rookie the Texas Rangers picked in the sixth round back in 2010. Back in 2013 he hit 21 home runs in Double-A, but he spent the last two years in Triple-A putting up a .270/.317/.399 line. There is no reason to expect he’ll make a big-league impact going forward.
In baseball terms, this event raises eyebrows around the nation but says little about the actors involved. Betances continues to have a right arm forged in furnaces of Hell built for the sole purpose of destroying men attempting to hit baseballs against him. Nicholas continues to be a professional baseball player.
However, in the greater scheme of things it serves as a reminder that anything can and will happen in baseball, as in life. Moments like these should be humbling for those that claim to understand the game, and even more so to those trying to predict it.
If Brett Nicholas can take Dellin Betances deep there’s no reason you can’t be hit by lighting today. Or a bus. Or a bus that was just hit by lighting. In fact, there’s a good chance that a bus just hit by lightning will in turn hit you which will grant you a wide variety of electricity-based superpowers. Then you will instantly be hit by another more mundane bus that kills you before you can use them.
All in all, today might be a good day to stay inside.
Lead photo: Tim Heitman / USA Today Sports