In this article I will break down the top teams and players that are affected the most by VMI and ADI today. Many of you might ask what is VMI and ADI is so below I have written a brief description of what they mean and how they affect baseball games.
Air Density Report w/ Cuse
Visual Memory Index aka VMI in baseball is used to track how players perform under different air density’s. The easiest way to explain this is that depending on the weather temperature, humidity, or air density the batters swing will be affected. You might ask yourself how is that possible? Have you ever tried to swing a bat in the winter compared to a humid summer day? It’s not the same and VMI tracks each batters muscle memory to various weather conditions. A batter’s muscle memory takes time to adjust to certain weather conditions. When taking VMI into effect I avoid teams or players with a number less than -5 which simply can be explained as they haven’t been hitting pitches with the type of movement that they will face on that day. As far as what’s good for teams or players, I try and target +5 or greater because they will be used to pitches with high movement and their Visual memory will be good.
Air Density Index aka ADI is very simple to explain. It’s a scale that goes 0-100 and is affected by three things (Elevation, temperature, and Humidity). The Air Density is important in baseball because it will let you know how much movement the baseball will have in that ballpark on that day. The higher the ADI the more movement on the pitch. Typical 60 is the number people use to decide if the pitcher’s movement will be good or bad. The lower an ADI is from 60 the less movement the pitchers ball will have and the higher it is from 60 will show the increase in the pitcher’s ball movement to the batter’s eye.
Todays Top Pitchers per VMI/ADI
Chris Smith- Smith faces off against the Royals tonight that have a team VMI of -3.80 in Oakland which is known for being a pitchers ballpark. The weather tonight in Oakland has it at a 68.90 ADi which is the best on the slate and well above what we like to target for pitching. If Smith shows up and brings his better stuff he should do well tonight against the Royals.
Dinelson Lamet –One of my favorite plays tonight for a variety of reasons. Lamet will face off against the Phillies that we know can strikeout a bunch and they enter tonight with a -1.95 team VMI. The conditions in SD tonight are as usual great for pitching (66.65 ADI) so I expect Lamet to be very effective against the Phillies.
Rick Porcello – Much to my displeasure I’m putting Porcello here because of the Cardnials team VMI of -1.90. Porcello has been getting the strikeouts as of late and if he can manage to not give up the big inning he has the ability to put up a great score tonight.
Top Teams to use for hitting per ADI/VMI
- ATL vs COL- Coors is always up top because of the ADI, today its 42.75 and both teams have great team VMI’s but this game will be chalky as usual
- Cleveland Indians – The Indians have the best team VMI on the slate besides the teams playing at Coors today. The Indians get to face Bartolo Colon who has pitched much better than any of us expected when he signed with the Twins. I think the Indians do well tonight and with a Coors slate this should be a great pivot play.
- LA Angels– Yes I know Gio Gonzalez has been doing well but the Angels have been heating up as of late. The Angels have a team VMI of +3.54 and the ADI in Washington is 62.05 with a temp of 80 and a humidity of 80 so the ball should carry well tonight.
