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
Sal Romano- As we talked about last night on the Podcast the Braves are coming off Coors which is why they have a slate worst team VMI of -12.37. The ADi in Atlanta tonight (57.40) is more for hitting but I still believe the Braves will struggle tonight and Romano allows for a Coors Stack.
Rich Hill –Hill will face the Tigers tonight on the road. The Tigers have a team VMI of -4.46 and have had games vs left handed pitching where they strike out a ton. The ADI in Detroit tonight is 62.27 and should be good for pitching.
Zach Effin – Here’s my SUPER punt play if you want to be a full believer in VMI. The Giants have a team VMI of -4.36 and the air conditions in SF are always great for pitching. The Giants have been hitting good as of late but on the season they have been of of MLB’s worst vs right hand pitching. There’s a lot of options for pitching tonight so we know he will have almost zero ownership.
Top Teams to use for hitting per ADI/VMI
- Colorado Rockies- Coors with Garza pitching is all I need to know. The ADI in Coors tonight is 42.84 and Garza has had one game at Coors in the past 3 years and got rocked. If you want to have some Brewers I totally understand since they have a team VMI of +19.91 but I think Marquez shuts them down.
- Oakland Athletics – The Athletics have a team VMI of +8.00 and Dallas has struggled since coming back from injury. The A’s could be a great stack to go with a Rockies stack as they are still affordable.
- Baltimore Orioles– Like we mentioned last night on the Podcast if the weather is good for this game the Orioles are a great team to stack as the get a Rookie pitcher in Baltimore. The Orioles have a team VMI of +6.22 and profile very well vs LHP.
