Notes and Essays, 7/29/26

N1: Elly De La Cruz batting average by season: .235, .259, .264, .277.

A player I found who went in the other direction was Matt Carpenter. After his .318 2013, he had nine straight declines, ending when he moved to the Yankees and had an uncanny 1.138 OPS in 2022 in 154 plate appearances. Surviving nine straight declines makes more sense when you see that his 2014 through 2016 seasons were .2723, .2718 and .271, though.

N2: There was the 67-minute rain delay, but I prefer to attribute Shane Bieber’s 6 BB, 2/3 inning performance Tuesday to the malign influence of Trey Yasavage’s 7 walks in 1 2/3 just 17 days before. Amazing, considering Bieber’s career 2.04 BB/9 going in, and seasons like 40 in 214 1/3 innings and 36 in 200 innings. I guess control really can desert you.

His updated BB/9 is 2.09. That 2.8% of his walks now come from this one game seems like something, but then again, even this start is 0.7% of his career total. I suppose the stat I would most want to put in in perspective is his most walks in an inning before, or his number of multiple-walk innings.

N3: Austin Hedges (.282/.342/.415 in 162 plate appearances) doesn’t want to wake up. One thing I notice is that he’s only struck out one time for every six plate appearances, which contrasts with a career rate of 27.3% entering this year. He entered 2026 a .185 hitter.

N4: At 5.43, Minnesota had baseball’s worst bullpen E.R.A. through June, but it’s been 3.23 since July.

The July SO/BB ratio of 1.92-1 still looks shaky.

Andrew Morris does have 11 SO and 3 BB in 12 innings.

Rookie Jack Anderson has 6 strikeouts in 4 1/3 since being picked up from the Red Sox, and got an emergency 12th-inning save last Thursday. But he avoids the fastball and only throws 91 MPH. He has 62-degree fastball arm angle, which puts him right there with Yesavage’s 66 degrees. Morris, at 60 degrees, is also one of the most over-the-top guys.

N5: Anthony Kay hit Jasson Dominguez and that 20 benchmark forHBPs I set for him. He’s now hit a batter in eight of his last nine starts.

N6: I noticed that there is a real similarity in the teams with the fewest stolen bases this year and the teams with the fewest stolen bases last year, so I correlated the whole set (r between team 2025 and 2026 stolen bases, in other words). It came to a high number, .63.

Here’s what I mean about the teams at the bottom.

Tigers: 30th 2026, 30th 2025

Astros: 29th 2026, T24th 2025

Giants: T27th 2026, 29th 2025

Dodgers: T27th 2026, T21st 2025

Blue Jays: 26th 2026, 28th 2025

Braves: 25th 2026, 26th 2025

Athletics: 23rd 2026, 27th 2025

I could be wrong, but I don’t think you find as high a correlation with most other statistics, perhaps suggesting that philosophy enters into this. However, the Giants have changed managers. The Braves have, too, although Walt Weiss was on staff before.

Since Dave Roberts made his mark stealing bases, I wonder if he would run more if he had the guys to do it.¹ But I always do find it interesting when the traits that a manager values deviate from what he did well.

I think teams with a high concentration of veterans tend to run less, not only because they are slow, but because they tend to do other things well, and to be sort of over the grind of stealing bases. By BatAge, the Dodgers have this year’s oldest team, and the Braves are 3rd oldest. The Astros and Blue Jays also rank among the ten oldest. But the Tigers are 5th youngest, and the Athletics 6th youngest.

1. Yes, I am being lazy, and a review of Roberts’ long managerial tenure, and the stealing tendencies of his teams, would be best.