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Our engine ran 10,000 Monte Carlo plate appearances of Elly De La Cruz against Zack Wheeler at Citizens Bank Park. It gives a 19.6% probability of a hit per plate appearance, with 36.5% strikeouts, 8.6% walks and 3.8% home runs per PA. Average simulated length: 3.23 pitches per plate appearance. No raw head-to-head rate drives any of these numbers; the inputs are regressed multi-season rates for both players (methodology below).
| Outcome | Sim probability | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Walk | 8.6% | |
| Strikeout | 36.5% | |
| Hit by pitch | 0.5% | |
| Single | 11.6% | |
| Double | 3.7% | |
| Triple | 0.5% | |
| Home run | 3.8% | |
| Batted-ball out | 34.8% |
Where the simulated plate appearances ended, and the hit probability conditioned on that count.
| Count | PA ends here | P(hit) at count | K / BB |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-3 | 14.8% | 0.0% | |
| 1-3 | 14.4% | 0.0% | |
| 0-0 | 13.5% | 37.2% | |
| 0-1 | 11.1% | 35.8% | |
| 1-1 | 7.6% | 34.9% | |
| 2-3 | 7.3% | 0.0% | |
| 1-0 | 5.7% | 37.2% | |
| 1-2 | 5.1% | 30.5% | |
| 0-2 | 4.4% | 33.9% |
Career line: 12 PA, 1 hits (0 HR), 1 BB, 4 SO. .091 AVG / .349 OPS. Statcast-era pitch log: 12 PA across 3 seasons (2024–2026).
| Season | PA | H | HR | BB | SO | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | .733 |
| 2025 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .000 |
| 2026 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .000 |
Read rate: 12 career PA is 0.0% of one full batter season. One extra dropped popup changes the career average by 9.1 points.
Re-running the same 10,000 simulated PAs with Citizens Bank Park's factors (hit 1.03x, home run 1.12x) moves the hit probability from 18.6% in a neutral park to 19.6%, a +1-point move.
Zack Wheeler's 2026 pitch mix (24,765 pitches tracked).
| Pitch | Usage | Avg velo | Whiff / swing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Four-Seam Fastball | 39.7% | 96 mph | |
| Sinker | 19.4% | 96 mph | |
| Cutter | 16.6% | 91 mph | |
| Curveball | 10.5% | 81 mph | |
| Sweeper | 6.7% | 84 mph | |
| Split-Finger | 4.6% | 87 mph | |
| Changeup | 2.6% | 89 mph |
| Pitch | PA | H | K | Whiff / swing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Four-Seam Fastball | 7 | 0 | 4 | 0% |
Inputs: Elly De La Cruz's and Zack Wheeler's last-three-season lines (4002 PA / 3892 BF weighted 1x/2x/3x by recency), shrunk toward league average, blended with a log5 odds-ratio matchup model, conditioned on real league count-level pitch and batted-ball frequencies, and park-adjusted with committed park factors. The count process is calibrated per pair so simulated strikeout and walk rates land within 0.3% of the model targets (this page: 0.04% K error,0.04% BB error).
Head-to-head history never enters the simulation; a batter-pitcher pair shares a few dozen career PAs at most, and honesty means the model's priors are the players' own multi-season tendencies, not a 30-PA fluke. Full engine notes on the methodology page.