We don’t have time for full notes again today, with the NIT Final Four engulfing all its surroundings, but Ronel Blanco threw a no-hitter last night, and we owe thoughts on it. We’re going to try a new format we’ve been workshopping for just this type of occasion.
1. How Unlikely Was Blanco’s No-Hitter?
There are a few ways to measure unlikeliness with a no-hitter. We’ve written about them with other surprises. One is to look at batted ball data. The Statcast stuff. By that measure, Blanco’s no-hitter was likelier than most. The Blue Jays only put one ball in play with an expected batting average (i.e., % likelihood of becoming a hit) of .400 or better, and that ball—an Isiah Kiner-Falefa lineout in the third inning—was only 49% likely to become a hit. Not even 50%. That doesn’t mean the no-hitter was likely. No no-hitter is likely by this measure. It means the no-hitter wasn’t built on spectacular defense or sensational luck.
The other primary way to look at the unlikeliness of a no-hitter is to view it in the context of a pitcher’s career performance. By that measure…Whoa.
Blanco isn’t a bad pitcher. He’s projected by FanGraphs to serve as a solid swingman this year for the Astros, comfortably above replacement level and more valuable than a lot of back-end starters. But, Blanco is 30, he’s only earned himself 67 career innings even after last night, and his career fWAR is negative.
This wasn’t historically unlikely, but it was surprising. It was really, really surprising. Good for him. It’s not impossible that he’s going to have a breakout year. Regardless of whether that happens or not, he’ll always have last night.
2. How’s College Basketball Doing?
A theme of the regular season in college basketball is detached sports media-ists saying the sport has a problem because they aren’t paying as much attention to it, and a theme in the postseason is attached college basketball media-ists touting the strong television ratings of March Madness as evidence that the sport is thriving.
Both are probably correct.
It’s true that March Madness brings a great turnout, and there’s no spin to this. It’s the second-biggest sporting even of the American year. That level of engagement a great thing for college basketball. Still, college basketball’s regular season doesn’t captivate. I believe it’s the sixth-biggest American sport in its regular season in terms of total attention paid*, if it isn’t even further down the list. That’s despite ostensibly having 362 teams competing for its championship, something that should help through sheer broadcast volume alone.
College basketball lacks giants. This is true, even if the narrative is annoying. I’m less concerned about this with players—I’m not of the “college basketball needs to better market its stars” school of thought—and more concerned about this with teams. College basketball used to get a lot of Sports Illustrated covers. If Sports Illustrated still existed in a healthy form and was still a barometer of broader sports coverage, college basketball would only grace the cover in March and April. It’s possible UConn is good enough that they’re launching a little dynasty, but two titles in a row feels like a blip on the radar compared to the greatness we used to see in this sport. Duke? We were only just getting back to really hating Duke when the season ended. Now, Kyle Filipowski might go pro, neutering a lot of the antipathy. Houston, Gonzaga, and Purdue still haven’t broken through. Kansas has been sporadic enough with its success that it’s not widely loathed. Kentucky is muddling. Indiana, UCLA, and Villanova are all in the wilderness. UNC remains a little shaky, only just now finally completing the transition from being Roy Williams’s program to being Hubert Davis’s.
Why does college basketball lack those giants? A big reason is the NCAA Tournament. This is the double-edged sword the sport faces. It’s become beholden to a championship format that stinks at deciding a champion. You know how many of the best five teams in the last 25 years have won the national championship? Two. The NCAA Tournament is a roulette wheel. Your most probable bet is worse than 50/50. The NCAA Tournament produces an awesome first weekend and often a good second weekend and sometimes a good Final Four. It gets less fun as it goes on, though, and because the joy comes from detonations, there are rarely titanic clashes on the biggest stage. Even when UNC played Duke in the 2022 Final Four, neither was close to the sport’s best team. Arkansas took down Gonzaga on Duke’s behalf. The best team UNC beat was 4th-best Baylor. The College Football Playoff championship and the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals almost always captivate. With the Stanley Cup Finals, the World Series, and the Final Four, it’s dicier. Randomness is the difference.
Ironically, we’re seeing the opposite phenomenon in women’s hoops. Giants are giants there. That’s a big reason for its rise. It’s stratified enough to have superpowers. Even if Caitlin Clark weren’t there to be its superstar, women’s hoops would be on the rise, partly because there are fewer upsets in the tournament. Men’s basketball is still a bigger deal. Its biggest games outdraw those of women’s hoops in both attendance and ratings. But men’s basketball’s past is women’s basketball’s present. It’s in a golden age for viewing interest.
(Expansion should come with byes for the top-seeded teams. It won’t.)
*The cost of media deals is a good proxy for this. Ratings are good too, but harder to aggregate, especially as streaming grows.
3. How About Shōta Imanaga?
The Cubs are back upright after nearly getting swept this weekend. The beginning of baseball season is fun. Yesterday was a great day for the franchise, with Shōta Imanaga looking like everything you would want an ace to be. Will he be the traditional ace the Cubs need, and the one the Cubs need even more with Justin Steele on the IL? Probably not quite. The downside of pitchers who come up through the Japanese and/or Korean leagues is that they’re used to vastly more rest than Madison Bumgarner was. A bona fide ace can still go on three days of rest now and then. But Imanaga can be a number one starter if he hits the high end of his projections. He did that yesterday.
(Looking like the Cubs will be lucky to get either of these next two games in, given the Chicago weather. Doubleheader with the Rockies on a mutual off-day sometime? There are a few dates later in the summer that could work.
Bonus: Online Harassment and Gambling
Dana O’Neil published a piece today at The Athletic about the harassment athletes receive online (and occasionally in person) for making a play that results in the harasser losing a bet. It’s not a new phenomenon or new news, but it’s growing, and it’s getting a lot of deserved attention. Here’s my problem with the coverage:
Why is our reaction, when someone tells a player to slit their own throat over a meaningless end-of-game three, to call gambling the problem? Clearly, yes, the harasser has a gambling problem, but they have a problem beyond a gambling problem. A gambling problem is when you have a big enough reaction to losing a bet that it impacts your day. That’s where the threshold for gambling problem starts. If someone’s harrassing athletes over lost bets, they have a humanity problem. They are severely mentally ill. They’re probably too isolated and too online. No, that person should not be gambling, but their problem is bigger than the bet. This discussion belongs more in the Internet Problems category of discourse and less in the Sports Betting category. Changing gambling laws or sportsbook practices is a fair solution to propose. But call a spade a spade. This is Internet Problems more than it’s Sports Betting.
