The Matchup Score — how good tonight’s spot is for a hitter
By George Boyle · Updated 2026-09-24 · The Sport Stack
The Matchup Score is a 0–100 rank of how good tonight’s spot is for a hitter: where our projection of his total bases tonight sits against every hitter’s start this season. 50 is a typical start and 70+ is the top 30%. Its breakdown shows the same rank for hits, home runs, runs, RBI and strikeout risk.
What the Matchup Score is
The Matchup Score answers one question: how good is tonight for this hitter? It is the percentile of his projected total bases for the game against every starting hitter’s game this season, so 50 is a typical start, 70 is better than seven in ten, and 90+ is one of the best spots on any given slate.
The projection behind it takes in the whole picture a hitter walks into: his own skill and how he has been hitting lately, the opposing starter and the bullpen behind him, where he bats in the lineup and so how many trips to the plate he should get, the park, and the weather. Because it is one projection rather than a stack of separately weighted parts, the pieces are balanced against each other the way they actually combine on the field.
The breakdown
Click a Matchup Score pill and it breaks into the markets people bet: hits, total bases, home runs, runs, RBI and strikeout risk. Each line shows our chance of at least one (two for total bases) and the same percentile against every start this season. Strikeout risk reads the other way — a high number is a hitter more likely than most to strike out tonight.
The headline is the total-bases rank because total bases carries both hits and power, and it tracks run production closely. The breakdown is there for the cases where the markets disagree: a contact hitter with a modest total-bases rank can still sit near the top for hits.
Before and after the lineup posts
Every game is projected in the morning on each team’s likely lineup, and projected again once the real lineups post, which moves the score when a hitter is dropped in the order or moved up to leadoff. The popover says which lineup the score was built on. Nothing changes after first pitch.
How it relates to the Locked-In Index
The Locked-In Index is the narrow read on how a hitter is swinging right now: power, contact quality and plate discipline over a recent window, with no pitcher, park or game context. The Matchup Score is the broad read on tonight, and recent form is one of the things its projection already accounts for.
Read together, they separate two stories: a hitter whose swing is hot but whose spot is poor, and one whose form is cold but who has a good night set up for him.
How to read it
A high Matchup Score means tonight sets up well for the hitter. It does not mean a bet is good: the sportsbooks see the same pitcher, lineup, park and forecast, and their prices usually reflect them. Whether a price is worth taking is what the edge column on the props board is for.
On this season’s games, the current score has separated hitters who went on to get a hit, collect two or more total bases, or homer more cleanly than the formula it replaced.
Written by George Boyle, who builds The Sport Stack — the models, the public ledger and these explainers. Corrections and questions: hello@thesportstack.io. Who runs this.