MLB
Baseball hides its edges in the details: the handedness split, the first inning, the wind at first pitch. Every probable starter on today's board carries all of it, right next to the posted total. Free to browse.
Today
The slate fills in each morning once probable starters are posted. Everything below — the pitcher model, the splits and the team index — is built from completed regular-season games and is available year round.
Pick a game from tonight's slate and see that team's probable starter against the opposing lineup's best hitter — every rating is a real season percentile, never a guess.
No games tonight
The 2026 MLB slate has no games scheduled right now — check back on the next game day. Season pitcher and hitter research stays available inside the dashboard year round.
Methodology
Most NRFI screens multiply two starting pitchers' first-inning rates together and stop there. That breaks on small samples — a pitcher with three starts can show a perfect record that means nothing. McAnalytics shrinks each starter's rate toward a pitcher-specific prior derived from their full-season run rate, then blends in the opposing lineup's first-inning record against that starter's throwing hand.
The two half-innings are then combined and the result compressed toward the league base rate, so the displayed probability reflects how much signal is genuinely there rather than an over-confident spread. Spring training games are excluded from every calculation — they are marked final in the same feed and would otherwise inflate a team's record by roughly a third.
These figures are backtested model diagnostics for the 2026 regular season. Past results do not predict future outcomes, nothing here is advice of any kind, and no model output should be treated as a prediction or a guaranteed result.
What's inside
Baseball rewards matchup detail more than any other sport on the board — handedness, park, weather and a starter who only faces the lineup twice. These are the reads the dashboard is organised around.
Every starter's line broken out against left- and right-handed batters, from completed regular-season games only.
How a hitter performs against the hand he is facing tonight, and against pitchers of a similar profile.
NRFI estimates that account for small samples and the opposing lineup, not just two rates multiplied together.
Temperature, wind and conditions at first pitch, attached to each game on the slate.
Where the total and the money line opened, and where they sit now across books.
A starter's last three opponents alongside tonight's, so a hot stretch against weak bats reads as what it is.
FAQ
NRFI stands for 'no runs first inning' — the outcome where neither team scores in the opening frame. Across the 2026 regular season it occurs about 49 percent of the time, so the question is never whether it is likely in general, but whether tonight's specific pitcher-and-lineup matchup is better or worse than that baseline.
Their first-inning rate is shrunk toward a prior built from their own full-season run rate, rather than taken at face value. A starter with three clean first innings does not show as a perfect record — small samples are pulled back toward what the rest of their season suggests, and starters under five starts are flagged as small sample on the board.
No. Spring training games arrive in the same feed marked final, and including them inflates a club's first-inning record by roughly a third — one team's sample went from 64 regular-season games to 93. Every first-inning and splits calculation filters to regular-season games only.
Yes, on both sides. A starter's record is split against left- and right-handed batters, and the opposing lineup's first-inning record is measured specifically against starters of the hand they are facing tonight. When a club has not faced that hand yet, the model falls back to their general rate rather than inventing a split.
Today's slate on this page — probable starters, throwing hand, totals, money lines, park and weather — is free with no account. The research dashboard, including the first-inning board, the hitter and pitcher cheat sheets and the full vs-hand splits, is part of a paid plan.
No. McAnalytics is a research tool. We do not sell picks and we do not publish a results record. The model figures shown on this page are calibration diagnostics from a backtest, not a claim about future outcomes.