MLB · Pitcher Strikeout Projections

MLB Pitcher Strikeout Projections

Our model's independent pre-game strikeout projection for today's probable starting pitchers, shown beside the market's opening strikeout line.

Projections, not recommendations. Each number is our model's independent pre-game estimate of a starting pitcher's strikeouts, shown beside the market's opening strikeout line for context. We do not say a pitcher will go over or under that line, and we publish no recommendation or directional call. Our model improves on naive recent-form averaging but trails the market details in the methodology note below.

MLB strikeout projections, today's probables

Snapshot as of Oct 19, 10:30 AM ET (the feed's own stamp)

PitcherGameDateModel projected strikeouts
Freddy PeraltaCLE @ TB2026-10-204.16

1 projected starters. The projection is our model's independent estimate of strikeouts recorded; it is not a line and not a recommendation. Information, not picks. This table is a static snapshot written into the page at generation time from the same published feed the in-browser view reads; when scripts run, the live view replaces it in place. Posted lines move.

Projections refresh once a day, after the morning probable-starter slate settles (~10:30 ET). Our projection is the model's pre-game strikeout estimate; Market line is the consensus opening strikeout total across the sportsbooks that posted one, with the book count noted. The line beneath each card, "sits 0.7 above the line 5.5", is simply the difference between those two numbers, stated so you do not have to do the subtraction yourself. It describes where our estimate sits; it is not a call on which side of the line the pitcher will finish. A scratched or DNP probable is graded VOID on our track record, never counted as a 0.

How the projection is made

For each probable starter the model reads the pitcher's recent strikeout form and workload, the opponent lineup's strikeout tendency, plate-discipline signals (swinging-strike / called-strike rates), and prior-season park factors, producing one independent pre-game strikeout number. In back-testing it improves on naive recent-form averaging, yet still trails the market's opening line by about 0.047 strikeouts (mean absolute error). That makes it an honest analytics projection to read alongside the market number, never a recommendation, a directional call, or wagering advice. See the full method and the running, immutable scorecard on the Methodology and Track record pages.

Why our number and the line are usually close

The betting line is not one of the model's inputs: it is built only from the pitcher's own record and the matchup, using 42 inputs including recent strikeout volume and workload, swing-and-miss rates from Statcast, the opposing lineup's strikeout tendency, the ballpark and days of rest. Half of the published number is the pitcher's average over his last 10 starts, and the other half comes from two gradient-boosted models trained on 15,102 lined starts since 2023. We show the line beside our number so you can compare, and the two are usually close because both are estimates of the same thing: 90 percent of strikeout lines are set at 3.5, 4.5, 5.5 or 6.5, so there is not much room to differ. Over the starts we have graded so far our projection has been about 0.05 strikeouts further from the actual result than the line was, which is why we publish it as a projection and not as a recommendation.

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