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.
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.
Air Density Report w/ Cuse
Todays Top Pitchers per VMI/ADI
Only two pitchers stand out today:
Chris Archer- Archer gets one of the better pitching matchups today. The ADI for this game is 66.66 which is the same as it was yesterday and every day at Tropicana Park. Tropicana is a dome but when you compare it to most parks the Air Density is well above the average in MLB. Today Darvish will get a Texas team that has been struggling with the bats and have strikeout upside so I love him today.
Masahiro Tanaka- Tanaka will face the Mariners tonight in the perfect conditions for a pitcher in a pitchers ballpark. The ADI for this game is 66.46 and the 3rd best on the slate for pitchers. Seattle hasn’t been as hot as they were earlier in the year so this should be a great spot for Tanaka.
Top Teams to use for hitting per ADI/VMI
Pirates vs Rockies- If the conditions at Coors stay like this you can expect to see this trend tomorrow. Currently at game time its projected to be 80 degrees with a humidity of 40 so the ball should be flying out more than last night. The ADI for this game is listed at 43.10 which is crazy good for hitting. Personally I like Colorado more tonight but I think if you can game stack this tonight it will pay off.
White Sox vs KC- We’ve seen the past few days in KC blow up offensively and the reason is because of the heat and humidity which is reflected in the 54.75 ADI. Mike Pelfrey takes the mound tonight for the White Sox so I love the KC left handed bats. I think the White Sox bats are in play as well but just remember they have been struggling lately. I would expect this game to go over the total again tonight.
Marlins vs Reds- This game was a major let down last night for many people including myself. The ADI of 56.97 suggests this game should be great for hitting but until the Reds start hitting I won’t have much exposure to that side of it. The starting pitching on both sides of this game is very bad so this is a game that could blow up at any given moment, I prefer the Marlins bats.
